AMPLIFY THIS :: XLab ii
(CREATIVE EXPANSION LAB)
MARCH - June, 2021
AWAKEN, EQUIP, AND TRANSFORM YOUR ARTISTRY
WITH RENOWNED VIOLINIST, COMPOSER & HYBRID ELECTRONIC ARTIST TODD REYNOLDS
AND ARTS PRODUCER ISABELLE HOLMES
IN A 16-WEEK VIRTUAL CREATIVE LAB FOR MUSICIANS.
design a new way of being a musician in the world.
IF YOU ARE…
A CAREER MUSICIAN…
whose creative voice is calling out, but your gigs just aren’t the right outlet for what you really want to “say”, and you desperately want to explore new directions but for some reason can’t seem to get started, or believe you lack the tools...THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.
IF YOU ARE…
A STUDENT LOOKING TOWARD YOUR FUTURE WITH A CONCERNED QUESTION MARK …
knowing that your training stands you in good stead, but seriously! the employment listings are sparse or uninspiring. If what you are really attracted to is the idea of blazing your own trail and creating community around you...THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.
IF YOU ARE…
AN ARTIST SENSITIVE TO THE PARADIGM SHIFT IN THE INDUSTRY…
who sees power beginning to flow toward the individual, and away from institutions, realizing how many opportunities there are to create your own audience (community, really) around your work….and are stuck wondering how to put this all into practice...THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.
IF YOU WANT…
TO BE 'BIGGER' …
feel more empowered, create more impact, participate more globally in conversations at the intersection of art and social justice, desperately want to connect with like-minded people and make a difference on a larger playing field, to create ‘music that matters’...THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.
Imagine unleashing your creative potential, investing your time and energy into a project or venture of your own design, and drilling down into developing the tools, techniques, and connections you need in order to achieve the flexibility expected from today’s musician.
There is no prescribed path - not anymore. We are transcending the elitism of the concert hall, and circumventing the traditional gatekeepers. It’s up to us to build our own infrastructure.
You will:
Work with people who are of like mind, and through reflection, conversation, inspiration, and coaching from those who are already ‘in it’
Think of your own path as more full of possibility than you did yesterday
Let go of comparisons and expectations
Broaden your artistic, stylistic, and technological vocabulary
Re-position yourself in relationship to your industry
Become a citizen artist, considering ALL the ways you can impact your community
Think of your music career as a holistic practice, where you create a sustainable life that you love
Divest yourself from the ‘starving artist’ mentality
WHAT HAPPENS IN XLAB?
Training sessions
STUDIO :: PROCESS :: COMMUNITY
Bi-Monthly training sessions delve into issues impacting career, business, and creative practice. From sharpening your focus, to sparking your creativity, these events are designed to shift mindsets, create possibility, and deliver powerful skills and methods for developing the next incarnation of your artistic presence.
GUEST ARTIST SERIES
EXAMPLES :: STORIES :: INSPIRATION
Once a month we will gather around a noted artist with stories to tell and inspiring wisdom to share - creators with unique paths that have led them to where they are today.This is not a one way street. Our guests come primed to interact and engage and are generous with their knowledge and experience.
Previous guests have included: Rhiannon Giddens, Dan Tepfer, Paul DeJong, Michael Lowenstern, Nadia Sirota, and Joe Holt! (scroll down for links and bios).
1::1 COACHING
INDIVIDUALITY :: SPACE :: CONNECTION
Personalized strategy sessions are available for channeling energy and intention effectively. In these sessions you are the absolute focus - your dreams, your goals, and your challenges. First, we assess where you are, then where you dream of going, and we develop concrete strategies to get you there.
SOLUTION SERIES
INFORM :: EQUIP :: DEMYSTIFY
Solution Series group workshops occur live and online, and thoroughly answer questions like “How do I livestream?” “Do I even WANT to livestream?” “How can I produce professional sounding recordings from home?” “How do I upgrade my practice techniques? I need to perform the Sibelius Violin Concerto next week, HELP!” “I’m terrified of improvising! How do I get comfortable with it?” “How can I take my improvisation to the next level, or into another musical genre?”
These classes are open to the public, and XLab participants have full access to attend any workshop they desire. These classes are scheduled in addition to our regular weekly meetings.
PRESENT
SHARE :: PRODUCE :: CONNECT
Art cannot live in a vacuum. It is in community that art thrives. To that end, there will be multiple opportunities for presentation, collaboration, and feedback, be it your work in progress, finished project, a program in development, or perhaps something beyond that which we could imagine.
“Todd is a natural educator, attentive to each individual student’s needs and is endlessly adaptable. He is a leading expert in gear and electronics, can give you advice on what equipment you need to get started and how to take your practice to the next level at any budget. Once you are a student of Todd’s you are a lifelong apprentice, he is a constant source of information and inspiration.”
MEet your team
Hi, I’m Todd Reynolds, Artistic Director and Lead Coach for Amplify This.
Here is where my bio should be. There are tons of lovely colleagues to cite working with, and wonderful places played, countries toured to, and opportunities I feel so fortunate to have been granted. Feel free to read all about them in my ‘About’ page. But those things don’t tell you all that much about who I am.
Here’s what might be more helpful to know:
I started out on a violin made of a standard elementary school ruler taped onto a Grape Nuts box and grew up playing all the sonatas and concertos that all the other kids did.
I played in church by my father’s side for what seemed like an eternal adolescence, and by some stroke of good fortune, found myself in one of the last classes of the great Jascha Heifetz where he counseled me to sell insurance for the sake of my own happiness on my way out the door.
In college, I became enamored with playing the music of living composers - it got me hooked on non-historic ways of thinking about music, stretching me beyond my planned trajectory in classical music.
But then I accepted a position playing Principal Second Violin in the Rochester Philharmonic. After my third year in a coveted, stable job, I realized it wasn’t going to be enough for me. Since the very moment I quit my job, I’ve reinvented myself four times, at least. First as a Broadway musician, then as a founder of ETHEL, a cutting edge amplified string quartet, then as a ‘solitary composer in the woods’ recording artist, and finally, refocusing as an educator - not that that’s anywhere near the end of things.
I’m what I call a hybrid musician. I play with some of my long time idols - singer/songwriters, Broadway musicians, global musicians, minimalists, electronica artists, rock stars, New Music heroes, Classical Music heroes - I count them all my friends, colleagues and collaborators.
I record, teach, and perform with my studio onstage and off, study Indian music, jazz, music programming, psychology, and mindfulness to varying degrees as disciplines. I’m as much a student as a teacher. That will never change.
In 2016, I felt the industry changing yet again. CDs - gone, Broadway jobs - gone, commercial work - gone. My partner, Isabelle, and I moved to a beautiful place in the country to build a community for teaching and creating, to develop more tools for reinvention and expansion, and to delve ever deeper into what it means to be a holistic musician today.
You see, we musicians are not our instrument, we’re not the music we studied, we are fully human. We are creators through and through, whatever form that expression takes. It is with the questions that we slay the dragon, not with our virtuosity. The Hero’s Journey exists for us as it does for everyone else, and we need only to walk forward with eyes open and a backpack full of good questions (and great gear), and with that - we’ll face our next dragon.
I’ve created XLab for Amplify This, our online academy, for fellow musicians who feel that same nagging suspicion that ‘the box’ they currently inhabit is too small to contain them, that the times we’re living in are calling them forth to something larger, that they too want to think of themselves as creators, as storytellers, as activists, and agents of change.
Hi, I’m Isabelle, Producing Director of Amplify This.
I was raised in a family of artists, my father a singer/songwriter, my mother a painter, and my brother a sculptor. I was a dancer, uninterested in anything else, always scurrying to ballet class after school. I couldn’t listen to music without choreographing in my head. I lived and breathed dance, but I had another love, math. I was fascinated with the puzzles, the organization, the challenges, the discovery, and problem solving. Sitting down with my math homework, be it algebra, geometry, calculus, was great fun for me.
My young life, driven by two obsessions, math and dance, led me to pursue a career in business exclusively for the arts and creative industries. I’ve tried to think about applying for finance positions in non-arts companies and I hyperventilate at the imagined boredom. The love I find in processing financial transactions comes from the arts context, the stories money tells me about what it takes to create and produce art are what keep me engaged and happy.
Before joining forces with Todd to form White Ivy, LLC and Amplify This I held positions in Finance Management and Direction for organizations like Jacob’s Pillow, HERE, the World Music Institute, BRIC, and the Williams College Dance Department. Through White Ivy I have contributed my administration, finance, and creative services to countless projects both at home and abroad. White Ivy worked in partnership with Holland America Line to create music and programming for Lincoln Center Stage, I’ve developed payroll systems and music licensing services for Bella Baby Photography, provided event management for Cycling ‘74’s Max Expo at Mass MoCA, and coordinated Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night in the Northern Berkshires since 2016, to name a few.
Inside the creative development of Amplify This, I’ve discovered a newfound interest in teaching, leading, and supporting artists directly. So many artists, including Todd, greatly benefit from guidance in their financial, budgeting, and business lives, and rarely have that support at hand. True, I find math and money to be fun, but as an artist I understand and experience the stress and anxiety finances can bring and what it takes to move through them.
Creating a financial plan is empowering and liberating. It is thrilling for me to inspire our clients to transform their relationship to money, providing greater freedom and possibility around numbers, budgets, and outcomes.
SCHEDULE & FEES
This program includes:
Two Training Sessions each month
Monthly Group Coaching Sessions with Todd & Isabelle
Two 1 on 1 Coaching Sessions with Todd
One individual Budgeting and Business Session with Isabelle
Full access to our Solution Series programs designed to set you up with tools and practical applications in a variety of topics
A built in community and tools for support and accountability
COST: $4000
*Partial & full scholarships and payment plans available
“Todd Reynolds is incredibly knowledgeable and great at helping people grow. He’s been instrumental, (yes a pun, but it fits), in helping me figure out what I’m doing musically. ”
SPECIAL GUESTS (TBA)
Past guests include:
RHIANNON GIDDENS: Grammy award winning songwriter, composer, singer, speaker of truth, educator, banjo and fiddle player, activist, storyteller, and 2017 MacArthur Fellow.
DAN TEPFER: a pianist who defies boundaries and defines musical breadth and depth with his music, programming, and expansive integration of art and technology.
PAUL DE JONG: cellist, composer, archivist, producer, revolutionary sound designer, and member of the legendary duo The Books.
MICHAEL LOWENSTERN: the creator of the YouTube channel, Earspasm Music. We'll be talking about recording, content creation, the distinction of bringing your audience to you or going to them, why is that a choice?
“Todd Reynolds was the very person who helped me solidify the notion that it is okay to take the road less travelled— it is okay if you do not fit neatly into the box of classical tradition, albeit a beautiful one. Regardless of the genre, Todd’s innate ability to maintain technical prowess and effortless musicality is unparalleled. All the more, Todd is also one of the most invigorating and empowering musicians my string quartet and I have been lucky enough to work with. His devotion and enthusiasm for making music is unbelievably contagious. Todd helps you identify your strengths alongside finding the determination to challenge your own limits and grow out of your weaknesses.”
Ready to register? Still have questions? Give us a call!
“Todd Reynolds is, plain and simple, a legend. His musical scope and reach is paralleled by few, and as a performer, the man never plays a sour note—you name the style/genre! That alone is inspiration, but despite his obvious genius, I’ve never met a musician with a heart and mind so open, so eager to learn and continue to grow, as a musician and as a human (are they different?). As a mentor, Todd fearlessly holds nothing back, neither love and support nor brutal honesty and constructive criticism. ”