CL054: Nathan Cole on creative leadership and classical music

Nathan Cole is a Kentucky born and L.A based violinist and is the first associate concert master of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Nathan studied violin at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He is currently on the faculty of the Colburn School of Performing Arts and the Azusa Pacific University. He also has an online violin school with ArtistWorks.

In this episode of The Creative Life Podcast Nathan shares with us some of the methods he used in learning violin and talks about creative leadership. He also talks about the preparation and management of his performance and rehearsal schedules as well as what a classical musician knows about leadership.

“A great orchestra can only function on a high level when there’s mutual respect.”

"Great work is never wasted, when you do that consistently enough, you put yourself in the position to take advantage of other opportunities that come along."

” In this business, even though we would like to think it’s all about how we practice and how we perform, but it’s still a business and not only will you go further in the business when you have more importantly a deeper relationship with people. It’s just more fun and you get different kinds of opportunities.”

– Nathan Cole

Nathan Cole 'Creative Leadership' Show Notes:

  • New generation of players (3:05)
  • Yola (3:46)
  • Suzuki Method (5:03)
  • Working with different types of players and orchestras (11:18)
  • Competition within the orchestra (21:38)
  • Leadership, teamwork and creativity (24:13)
  • Big auditions (27:55)
  • Working with folks online (29:54)
  • Taking drugs to lower heart rate for auditions (32:25)
  • Importance of building deeper relationships with people (35:49)
  • James Galway (38:52)

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