Akropolis offers 4 workshops designed specifically for optimal effectiveness in the virtual arena.
Akropolis Mastermind
Akropolis Mastermind is our brand new, 1-week, completely online, artistic business intensive to help emerging musicians and ensembles turn their artistry into a thriving business and the career of their dreams!
Take the leap! We believe all young artists can make a living directly from their talent. We forged our career from scratch, built a $300,000+ annual revenue generating business ourselves, and we want today's music students to do the same. Akropolis Mastermind offers 1-on-1 mentorship sessions, entrepreneurial workshops on a variety of business topics, peer to peer networking, connections to a community of like-minded performers, and unprecedented access to experts within our field who've advised leading artists on how to create successful and sustainable careers.
Following the immense success of its inaugural, fully-online Mastermind workshop for 10 professional, early career artists in July 2020, Akropolis is making the Mastermind experience available to enterprising students at colleges and universities nationwide. The Mastermind is an intense, deep diving workshop for artists who are serious about pursuing a self-managed music career centered upon creative music-making and business enterprising.
The Mastermind is intended for a small group of students, is fully online, and the exercises and workshops allow students to fully customize their own learning to the career they envision for themselves. The Mastermind includes guest appearances, a hard copy workbook enabling personalized takeaways for every session, and a variety of learning mechanisms including self-reflection and collaborative breakout conversations.
Feedback from Akropolis’ inaugural Mastermind participants in July 2020 includes the following:
“Thank you all for providing us with such a fantastic experience at the Mastermind. It was an incredibly informative, meaningful, and thought-provoking week and we are moving forward with renewed energy to do a deep dive reflecting on our collective ‘why.’”
“I just want to say thank you so much for all of this, and for giving me individual time to pick your brains and open up. I actually teared up a bit after we ended. So thank you for creating that space.”
“We are standing around basking in the glow of the workshop and talking about how incredibly energized we feel, how much we feel part of a larger world, and how grateful we are for the hard work you put into the Mastermind.”
Student Composer Commissions
Akropolis will take a number of student composers through the professional commissioning experience, including the initial conversation to establish the collaborative culture and goals, sketches and feedback during the composition process, workshopping the work once complete, and finally, a new video recording of each work premiered on Akropolis YouTube channel. Akropolis will also give a virtual recital for the composers’ student body including these new videos.
Akropolis has premiered the work of more than 50 student composers K-12 through college and has immense experience performing, publishing, and advocating for the work of young people, including its annual residency at three Detroit high schools and through appearances at colleges and universities nationwide. Akropolis treats young artists as professionals and colleagues.
Here are examples of Akropolis performances of student compositions:
Virtual Master Classes and Individual or Chamber Music Mentorship
Students will pre-record videos of performances, either as soloists or ensembles, and Akropolis provides feedback in a Zoom studio class-style meeting.
Akropolis also offers semester-long mentorship and goal setting for individuals and ensembles, including meetings throughout the term to establish and check in on career and artistic goals. Having weathered isolation as an ensemble and nonprofit organization, Akropolis has generated new ideas, furthered its financial stability, and established a deeper creative and interpersonal culture among its members. This positive and forward-looking outlook will be the centerpiece of its master classes and mentorship with college-level musicians.
Creating During Isolation
This workshop was created to help students be active, creative, and produce musical content right now.
The workshop is structured to allow each student to bring their own unique situation, challenges, and goals to discover what they want most in their career, and how the current climate can be a catalyst for important growth and innovation that will last far beyond this socially-distant moment.
Students will learn the most important components to running successful online events, tools for developing greater creativity within constraints, how to record audio and video content, and best practices for social media and other digital marketing tools.
Each component will include real-life Akropolis examples since social distancing began, including their Mastermind online workshop, Club Paradise Virtual Soirées, their approach to social justice through music, audio and video content including split screen videos, a new, socially distant work by Kate Pukinskis, and more.
For more information or to book Akropolis for any of these virtual offerings, please contact Matthew Kulas at matthew@arielartists.com or 617.213.0378.