stepping with confidence

Through years of coaching from my music professors, I've learned to walk on stage with confidence, purpose, and a welcoming smile. With a love for the drama and excitement of live performance, I would always wear a look that said, "I've got something really cool to share with you and I can't wait to see your reaction!"  But lately I've been envying that girl I once was, wishing I had that same confidence in other areas of my life; with my speech, with my opinions, and with the half-dozen guys I have my eye on (except that most are fictional characters). Most especially, I wish I had more confidence when I'm working at the BSO.

For me, confidence comes from knowledge. I was always able to walk on stage with confidence because I knew my music inside and out. But I'm still in the process of learning all the different policies, procedures, and standard practices at BSO's admin office. The perfectionist in me wants to acquire a thorough knowledge of every piece of relevant information before I act, and in this situation that's just not possible. I have to learn as I go and submit to the fact that things aren't always going to turn out the way I want them to.

I'm not sure how I will accomplish it, but I need to make a change in how I conduct myself in the workplace, because I feel that by allowing this passive demeanor to dominate my life, I do myself an injustice.

"What gives you confidence?" 

- Responses from actors & directors at the Toronto Film Festival -

changes

This last week there were some rather unexpected changes in BSO's PR department. A sudden and substantial staffing alteration occurred. I have no interest in discussing the details, but I feel that because these events have had a big impact on me and my internship experience, it is fitting that I share a little bit about the changes on my end:

1) I will now be helping produce publications for BSO, such as Applause and Overture - magazine-style programs that are distributed at BSO concerts at Strathmore and Meyerhoff, respectively.

2) I will be maintaining BSO's online Press Room, which requires basic HTML formatting.

3) For the remainder of this internship, I will be paid a reasonable wage (what!?! crazy, right?)!

4) No more pizza box desk! I am now at the height of luxury:

I'm so spoiled!

a taste of Guerrilla Marketing

Today people walking around the streets of Baltimore are seeing this at their feet:

It's a sidewalk cling bearing an image of Joan of Arc (created by BSO's incredibly talented graphic designer, Elisa, who is also real sweetheart!).

When you go to WhoisJoan.org, you will see proof that sometimes I get to do things which are (a) Fun and (b) Somewhat Significant:

- Who is Joan? Video: Created by the brilliant people at Digital Cave, and I was fortunate enough to be able to accompany them for the filming. I made the "WHO IS JOAN?" signs and even have a cameo appearance in the video (watch closely)!

- Who is Joan? Text: If writing on the "Who is Joan?" landing page sounds oddly familiar, that is because I wrote it! As you will see, I was encouraged to exercise a colloquial, youthful voice; in hopes that our message would resonate with populations that aren't familiar with the BSO. But I never wanted this paragraph to appear first:

I wish they would remove that paragraph because then the first thing people will see when they arrive on the page is the sales pitch, which is going to immediately put them off! It totally ruins the intrigue and mystery we hoped to accomplish! Once they read that, they won't want to read any thing else, and they won't have any reason to! Really, really a poor choice to put that paragraph first. But what do I know? I'm only the intern.

rock your voices

In addition to being a band nerd, I was also a choir geek in high school (although I would never have admitted this in college, because by then I was instrumentalist snob and had to alienate myself from the vocalists and make them aware that their's was the lesser art form). Anyways, my memories of faulty choir risers, ill-fitting robes, and perma-smile show choir performances came rushing back to me this month at the BSO as we sought to engage an audience of a cappella lovers for our Rockapella concert.

Turns out a cappella is really big here, because every university has like 5 a cappella groups for every social circle imaginable, from the Jewish a cappella group Kol Sasson to Legally Sound, whose members are all law students. I have no idea if it has always been this way, or maybe it's gaining popularity become Glee has bestowed this "hot" new image on young vocal groups.

Well, in order to engage this population niche, we at the Baltimore Symphony created an a cappella competition, called Rock Your Voices, in which the winning a cappella ensemble gets to present a pre-concert performance for the Rockapella concert. We invited a cappella groups to submit a YouTube video featuring one of their performances, and now the public can vote for the winning ensemble on BSO's Facebook page.

Actually, you yourself can vote until around noon EST on Tuesday November 8th -> Please do.

Faux Paz - Current front runner in the Rock Your Voices competition as of 11/6

how to find internships

I'm no expert on internships, but I'll share a few resources that I've found helpful; and if any other former or current interns want to share some of their knowledge, comments are always welcome.

1) Your University's Job/Career Center: Whether online or in person, your school is bound to have information on internship opportunities, especially internships which are specific to your location. (For my SUU friends, this would be the Academic and Career Development Center; and you can search for local internships by using Hire a T-Bird in your MySUU portal, and selecting "Full-time/Internships/Part-time" under the "Job Search" Tab, and then specifying "Cedar City" in the "Job Location City" field.) Also, your respective department is bound to have a plethora of materials on internship opportunities in your field.

2) search.twitter.com: A Twitter search is one of my favorite ways to find internships (and jobs). Potential employers will post internship/job openings on Twitter all the time, so just search for whatever it is you're looking for: "broadcasting intern DC" "engineering intern CA" "green international internship" ...

3) InternMatch.com: Very user-friendly site, free of all the advertising clutter that you'll find at a lot of other internship/job search sites. You can specify your searches by location, season, and even paid/unpaid. You can search their listings without an account, but creating an account takes less than a minute (only have to fill in like 4 fields, no e-mail confirmation tomfoolery). As you would expect, the number of results your search yields will very greatly by state; so sadly some of the western states don't have any listings, but other states have hundreds of listings.

4) Create your own internship: Perhaps you're super enthusiastic about a certain organization, but they don't advertise any internships... why not just send them a coverletter/resume, offering your skills and free labor? It would be foolish of them to turn down your offer. Or if they are a smaller operation, you could even just call them up and ask them. I did this 3 summers ago with a non-profit up in Alaska, and they actually granted me temporary, paid position. Things like that give me a glimpse into the life that every intern dreams of: receiving fair, monetary compensation for my skilled labor :)