We were lucky to catch up with Kelly Waltrip recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I had an upbringing that was rich in the arts and had many opportunities to pursue artistic endeavors. While I took those pursuits seriously, as I thought about my long-term career, I saw that going in a different direction.

My parents identified that my switch in direction may have been driven by shorter-term challenges like a bad teacher fit. They encouraged me to pursue music in college and gave me the freedom to change my mind if I didn’t enjoy it after the first semester. I never looked back as I fell back in love with music during that first semester and found an incredible teacher.

This teacher, Lori Sims, had an incredible impact on me. She identified a set of skills and a path for those skills early on. When a skiing injury during my freshmen year presented a possible limitation in my future as a musician, she opened a door I didn’t know was a possibility in arts management. She gave me the confidence to explore internships locally and to pursue arts management as a career. Once I was a part of creating artistic experiences for my community and the power of access, I was hooked!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I mentioned previously that my journey started as a musician and early experiences in arts management that were encouraged by my teacher and mentor.

I also had incredible mentors as I explored internships with the fantastic arts organizations in my community. Those opportunities led to more opportunities and eventually to the Detroit Symphony which was a much larger organization. I was able to meet and work with incredible musicians and guest artists from all over the world. While my tenure in Detroit was short, it was a defining experience understanding that the industry I loved needed to evolve to stay relevant.

I worked with several other music nonprofits along my journey of various sizes and in different states. Each of those opportunities informed the type of work I wanted to be doing to impact the future of symphonic music in our communities.

I have been the Executive Director of the Denver Young Artists Orchestra for ten years and I am extremely proud of the work we have done. We have made the ensembles significantly more diverse, we are reducing barriers for students from less-resourced backgrounds, and we are seeing incredible results that are preparing students for a variety of careers. We are also changing the expectation from a programming perspective as students continue in music that they are accustomed to performing music from all segments of our community. Nearly 30% of all music performed by DYAO is written by historically underrepresented composers.

Finally, I believe that partnership and collaboration are key to nonprofit survival. For the past five years, I have been part of creating and managing strategic partnerships and alliances with organizations like the Colorado Symphony to maximize impact, align work in the community, and reduce expense on administrative costs.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I believe we all need to support artists, creatives, and a thriving ecosystem because it results in a society with more beauty, more empathy, and appreciation of different cultures.

Specifically, I believe society needs to support arts education to give all students access to learning expression, alternative career paths, and critical life and work skills that will help them be successful in any career.

Employers are looking for employees who are creative, out-of-the-box thinkers who can work as part of a team. A society that has had access to arts education opportunities will have many more of these individuals.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding part of working in the creative space is seeing the growth of students as individuals through their exploration of music. It is incredibly fulfilling and is why I am still in this particular job after 10 years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dyao.org
• Instagram: @denveryoungartistsorchestra @kelly_whelanwaltrip
• Facebook: @Denver Young Artists Orchestra @Kelly Whelan Waltrip
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-w-waltrip

Image Credits

@lightbox_photography_by_peggy