We recently connected with Nicholas Dold and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Nicholas , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I founded the Kansas City Young Chamber Musicians in the Fall of 2022 when I relocated to the Kansas City Metro and was appointed to the Keyboard Faculty at the William Jewell College.

I realized that there were a lot of very talented and hard working high school music students in the community, but opportunities for them to connect with each other and play in small ensembles were not readily aparent. When I first pitched my idea to some of the other classical music professionals and music educators in our city about creating a chamber music community to match these students together in trios, quartetes, and quintets and provide training and performance opportunities for them, I was told all the reasons why this type of a non-profit education would not work.

However, I was lucky to meet a great group music professionals through my college and our local symphony, and sure enough, we came together as the core chamber coaching faculty of the Kansas City Young Chamber Musicians.

We started our first fall term with a small group of string and piano students, but after more of the local families and music teachers learned about us and saw how meaningful the experience was for the students to play in chamber ensembles, we quickly started expanding – by the spring term, we had clarinet and flute students joining our community and now, a full year later, we have incorporated oboe, bassoon, and even harp students applying to be a part of the Kansas City Young Chamber Musicians Community.

As of this interview, we are the only year-round chamber music training program in the Kansas City Metro that trains piano, string, AND wind students this way and I could not be prouder of this community!

The rest of Kansas City has noticed our growth and the increasing demand our community has helped generate for chamber music instruction to the point that I am now seeing more and more of the local music professionals getting involved. Other chamber music training programs in our city have recently reinvested in chamber music programs they previously discontinued, while others have expanded their current chamber music offerings to include a wider variety of instruments not dissimlar to KCYCM. I couldn’t be more thrilled that the other music education providers are recognizing the importance and value of chamber music in the lives of young musicians!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve been a classical pianist all my life, starting at the age of four. I “liked” music, but didn’t come to “love” it until I had my first experience collaborating with other musicians who were my same age and had the same interests. After I had my first experience in high school playing piano with an ensemble of violinists and cellists, I knew I wanted to be engaged with music for the rest of my life.

I enjoyed professional appointments throughout my career, working primarily as a collaborative pianist and chamber musician with collegiate level students at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Santa Clara University, and now William Jewell College. However, I noticed that a big missing piece in pre college classical musicians’ educational experiences was learning how to play with others at an early age. Most musicians don’t learn how to do this in a structured and guided way until they come to college. I started developing high school chamber music curriculums when I was teaching in California to begin addressing this need and after cultivating and refining it for the last five years, I’m excited to bring that experience to Kansas City Young Chamber Musicians in my new home, Kansas City.

I believe that if more young musicians experience the same joy and fulfillment of playing and performing with peers like I did when I was their age, then more of them will keep music-making as a fundamental part of their lives for the long-term.

The skills young people develope when studying music together as a chamber ensemble is not something that can be gained just through their weekly private lessons, or by playing in their school/youth orchestras. KCYCM helps students gain a crucial sense of collaboration, leadership, and responsibility – qualities that readily translate to other areas of a young person’s life. Students are no longer accountable just to their music teachers, or their parents, but to the friends and colleagues they get to make music with.

The students in our program enjoy the camaraderie and take pride in their work together. I’m always hearing about how they plan after-school meet ups to hang out and rehearse together. The parents and chamber music instructors get to know each other well over the course of the term and everyone feels like a valued member of a wider and supportive community.

The atmosphere at our formal student recitals are also significantly different than the typical student solo recitals, which often feel intimidating and sometimes overwhelming for a young musician performing by themselves on stages in front of a larger audience. Delivering a performance as a well-prepared ensemble relieves a great deal of the expected performance butterflies, giving young musicians a positive expeirence performing publicly.

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

What I find most rewarding about directing the Kansas City Young Chamber Musicians is seeing the sense of community and culture of support that naturally emerges from connecting young musicians, their parents, and their teachers over the course of this type of collaboration. These musical friendships go well beyond the work we do together in the music studio – we’ve all even started attending local concerts together as a community, extending that sense of appreciation for music making by partaking in the live performance offerings right here in Kansas City. It is just as important for young musicians to have the experience of attending local classical concerts, and unless we teachers and parents aren’t attending with them, they will not understand that those spaces are for them too!

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Supporting creativity in a young musician begins in the home. I know parents and students feel extremely over-scheduled today and have developed the perspective that participation in extra-curricular activites, like chamber music, is just another responsibility competition for more of their limited time and attention.

But after working at the collegiate level for many years and with adults, I’ve not heard one person say they regreted making time for music in their lives – not one.

In fact, I always hear the opposite: “I wish I had pursued more musical activities” or worse, “I wish I hadn’t quit.”

Give students the space and opportunity to make music, especially in a way that lets them do it with their peers. It is a fundamental human experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.kcycm.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kcyoungchambermusicians/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kansascityycm
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/kcycm/