2015, 2017-2018 - Launching Inception: Too Many Meetings
Here is the crossover point. I Don't Hate Practice (2018) was rewritten from I Hate Practice (2016). The majority of the book is presented in Chapters One thru Twenty-Five.
Inception began programming in 2018 with initial meetings in 2017.
So isn't it appropriate that the next wave of the journey starts in this time frame? Chapters from here on out are marked by date. Enjoy the Inception journey.
Dr. Heewon Kwon, my piano teacher from childhood, would be one of my first calls when the Inception journey began. You will be introduced to the majority of the players throughout this book, as really the biggest thing I have learned over the last few years, is to build an organization, it takes collaboration.
There are two parallel stories to be told. 1) Everything we have accomplished with the Inception Orchestra Young Composers Mentoring Program to date, and 2) everything it took to get me to the starting line.
One of the most important conversations I’ve ever in my life was with one of my day-job-bosses while I was adulting. Since 2009, I’ve supported my music/nonprofit endeavors by working as an Executive Assistant for five different bosses. Much like the Daniel Craig James Bond movies, the odd numbered ones are awesome, the even-numbered employers, not so much. I’m on number five now at the Fox Family Foundation, and the count starts with William H. Fain, Jr. at Johnson Fain (Odd-Numbered Boss Number One - Rating: 5 stars).
In 2015, I was sitting with Even-Numbered Boss Number One (Rating: 2 stars) at his table at the only restaurant it seemed he was able to go to (not because he was banned from anywhere else, he was just a creature of habit). He was hot-headed, feared by many, and respected across his industry, all in the same breath. I was about to turn 45. Part of my job responsibility was planning his upcoming 60th birthday. So I said to him point blank, “I’m going to turn 50 at your mandatory retirement age of 65. What do we want to accomplish by then?”
For me the answer was simple. I wanted to be heading an organization, preferably music, where I could have a competent seat at the table, and create a network of the best musicians, composers, and arrangers... all who knew more than me, and who would bring their time and talent and inspire the next generation of composers.
Okay, it wasn’t that specific, but the bones of the vision were there, and that would become the concept of Inception in the years ahead.
It was a leadership goal. Lead in the way you want to be led... where anyone who became a part of your organization could flourish, learn, and be uplifted.
I got sidetracked in 2016 by a great girl. I was on an odd-numbered boss then (Rating: 4 stars - point taken away for extreme disorganization). The girl was from the recent even numbered job.
(Side note. I made the most friends at that even numbered job. Probably because everyone agrees the company accomplishes a lot, but it is like a meat grinder. All the employees lean on each other for support.)
It was storybook summer romance, and by Christmas it was over. I had a piano gig at the President of the Huntington Library’s house for donors, and I was so anti-holiday celebration that my playlist included everything from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” to “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. (I can’t believe no one agrees with me that this is an appropriate Christmas song.)
But before we broke up, the girl had left me with encouragement to form a nonprofit. If I was not going to continue the best relationship of my life to date, I was going to practice like the devil until my arms fell off and do a concert. A nonprofit was the best way to raise capital.
As mentioned, Heewon was one of my first calls to join the Board, along with Miyeko Heishi, and Michael Sushel.
I can’t remember who casually suggested doing music education. It might have been me. It was more likely one of them. Moving from doing a piano concert to an education program…. Something bigger than myself… it was not only a no-brainer, but important, and frankly, appealing.
Between January 2017 and November 2018, there were so many meetings which factored into the Inception development process. You'd log off your computer if I recounted them all. Instead, I will give you the flyover.
There are many successful nonprofits throughout Los Angeles. The first question we heard over and over again was “what is it that you are doing differently?”
Through our due diligence, we discovered that these organizations were teaching instruments, but they were graduating kids to college who were behind on music composition and theory. And that was a perfect lane.
The goal was to provide access for under-represented high school aged composers to professional musicians and composers who would introduce their instruments and teach them how to compose.
The idea was loose. And while we began strategizing curriculum, the hunt for the leader of our composition education program had yet to reveal himself, herself, or themselves, despite a couple of excellent candidates.
There was also a virtual reality piece that hung in there for a really long time.
The concept was to film our mentoring sessions and release them on an app that we could distribute by smart phones (every kid has a phone).
Adrian & Alexa Zaw and Kirsten Hubble from Zaw Studios, took the mantle of recording and producing several of our sessions, rehearsals and concert in 2019 (after I repeatedly forgot to start the VR camera). We had thought about progressing, but the pandemic hit.
I received the best present in 2017. Our nonprofit status was confirmed by the Secretary of State on my actual birthday. I really had no idea this would become my life's work and passion.
By August 2018, a former LAUSD Board member and history teacher at my high school, John Marshall in Los Angeles, had signed onto our cause and set up a number of fabulous potential funding meetings.
This time the question was “everything you’re saying about what you want to do sounds great. What have you done so far?”
The answer to that question was always the same.
Nothing.
However good we were becoming at pitching the idea, we were, in fact, experts at executing nothing. Amazing progress for my life’s work.
We were met with polite smiles and encouragement, but no funding.
So what do you do to fund a passion project? One possibility I was already decent at… work a day job to help with the bills. The other… beg your friends and family.
I’ve spearheaded a lot of creative projects. All of them money-losers.
How I got friends and family to donate and support a mission that was just a concept, I’m not sure.“Hey, I’m starting a music education nonprofit” seemed to be just enough to get us through this initial hurdle.
(A huge thank you to everyone who had heard me dabble with “Twinkle Twinkle”, just enough to believe in the next music project, and to Board member Miyeko Heishi who stubbornly refused to let Inception die by lack of funds.)
To really get Inception under way, the solution here was obvious. I informed the Board that I was going to empty the accounts, and in November of 2018, we were going to do a pilot… and film it.
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