Kara Kane is the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association executive director, the nation’s largest chamber music competition, with international reach. In our interview with Kara, she talks about the importance of organizations honing in on their missions 👇.
We’ve noticed that this is a trend among many nonprofit leaders who we interviewed. Knowing the purpose of your organization’s work helps nonprofit leaders better understand what goals to commit to, how to best direct their asks, and where their team should spend their time. Purpose becomes an organization’s north star, offering clarity, focus, and stability.
The Fischoff National Chamber Music Association is committed to music education. They partner with schools and community centers to make music education accessible and safely did so during the pandemic. Below we’ve included selections from our interview.
Let’s start with the basics. Tell us your name, title and a little bit about your organization.
Kara: I’m Kara Kane, the executive director for the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association. We’ve run each May the largest and nation’s longest-running chamber music competition. It’s based on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. But this year will be our second virtual competition. We didn’t think we’d be saying that again but we’ve had about 7,400 musicians cross our stage, with both junior division, as well as senior. We break them into winds and strings.
The senior level is collegiate and higher. These are musicians that really are ready to launch a career in chamber music. This is sort of the turnkey competition that once you win the competition or even get in.
We also do a lot of outreach and education. Since 1995 we’ve reached about 89,000 students in our tri-state area. And that’s ranging from K through 12. We do elementary level outreach and education…to really ignite that spark in kids to get them to want to be music makers.
And then we do more intensive education outreach with the music makers in junior high and high school.
What is Chamber Music?
Kara: So for those of you that don’t know exactly what chamber music is, it’s a group, an ensemble of three to six musicians, and they perform works that are of the classical style.
Our mission is inspiring lives through breathtaking performances. How do you do that when you don’t have that sort of spark and that connection in that live relationship?
Kara: We’ve leveraged some of the philosophical inspiration this year [from] Beethoven. You know, he has this great quote that says “art demands of us that we do not stand still”. And so we said, okay here’s a guy who grappled with deafness and leveraged technology to hear, to express himself. So we’re going to harness that sort of entrepreneurial spirit and we’re gonna figure it out.
And so we still have been trying to focus on how do you give a live experience and how do you connect personally?
Kara: The competition is in May. And so we still have been trying to focus on how do you give a live experience and how do you connect personally? And even though the performances were pre-recorded last year, we had virtual check-in rooms, where we at least got to meet everybody. One ensemble was based out of Paris but was quarantining in Poland. One was in Salzburg and one was still in Paris. The other group that logged in was based out of Andover, MA, but they were relocated to North Carolina. Another group was based out of Arizona. They all still got to meet each other and talk.
Kara: This year we’re really trying to figure out ways to intersperse live elements. So we’re going to have a conversation with one of our jurors, Rachel Barton Pine, who also runs a foundation of music by black composers. So she’s going to give a live seminar, well really a conversation, and then play examples of music that she’s uncovered over the past 20 years of great African-American and black composers.
We had our gala which is usually this amazing in-person performance with one of our groups. And so what we did is we still had our groups there and then the silver lining was instead of just highlighting one, we brought five in. And we were able to talk to them, get to know them.
We also brought in a classmate and friend of mine from undergrad who is a James Beard award-winning sommelier, who’s been doing virtual events for MasterCard since the pandemic in March. And so she came in and Stephanie Gallo from Gallo wine helped us talk about one of their wines and gave a great auction item.
And so we really tried to just stay focused on how do we give that experience to connect these folks.
You’re not the first person we’ve talked to who’s used the term entrepreneurial thinking. We think that that’s been a huge trend for a lot of organizations and we love that! We love the creativity that’s coming from it.
Kara: For us, like a bunch of other organizations, you have plans A-B-C-D-E and F. We have to remain nimble because we might have to go to plan Z, right?
It’s really thinking about sustainability and honing in on what is our mission and what can we do. And I would say the other thing we’ve been thinking a lot about is partnerships.
So many organizations have a limited pot of resources available. We’ve been rethinking how we’re engaging with communities and what communities we’re engaging in. All of us are really focused on, how can we use our platform to do good. Small things like our Chamber Music Academy. Those are our local students in high school that are working with professional chamber musicians including the Euclid quartet here based at IUSB.
We’ve been really trying to think about how music brings us together and to make sure that people realize it’s not a luxury good.
What is the best way for people to find you online to learn more about your organization or donate and support your mission?
Kara: Yeah! It’s fishoff.org. We’ve been really active on social media spreading the love of our alumni and the music that they’re sharing.
I recommend while you’re doing emails, running one of our playlists in the background. They are some of the best playlists out there. Just know that these are amazing young artists out there [who] are doing this music.
We’re on Instagram and Facebook very actively and have a YouTube channel.
Sign up for our mailing list to receive more updates like this!
GiveGrove is a fundraising event platform. Learn more at givegrove.com or reach out to us at info@givegrove.com.
