Monday, October 25, 2010

AE Stories—Chelsea Schumann & Ian Wenz

Northern Ohio Music Festival

Today, I spoke with Bowling Green State University Senior Chelsea Schumann. A Bassoon Performance major and Entrepreneurship minor at BGSU, Schumann also serves as the AEBG chapter president. Last summer, Chelsea co-directed the second annual Northern Ohio Music Festival (NOMF) in her home town of North Olmstead, OH along with fellow AEBG member Ian Wentz. The festival, designed to bring local musicians together for a day of performances, featured over 20 musicians and had over 500 people in attendance.

This festival was most impressive because it was conceived, developed and implemented by Schumann in 2009 and it was such a success that she needed to bring on a second director to manage the rapidly growing event. When asked what drove her to work on the festival, Schumann stated, "I love sharing my interest in Arts Enterprise with others and using it as a tool to connect with the community. NOMF has allowed me to know my community on a local level. It's cool to see local friends and family here with their kids to listen to a grassroots, community festival."

When asked about the biggest difference in this year's festival as compared to last years event, Ian Wenz stated, "We have a more eclectic lineup of musicians. Lots of different music is represented, especially folk influenced groups. I think we reached a new demographic because we tapped into a local audience and performers. Reaching out to the North Olmstead community resulted in a greater grassroots feel for the festival."


From a planning prospective, the second year of the festival was much easier. "People now know what the Northern Ohio Music Festival is," said Schumann, adding, "The festival was a lot easier to put together because we knew what resources were available to us and who supported us from the start."

Schumann, who plans on returning to the Cleveland area upon graduation viewed NOMF as a great career building opportunity. She found great value in the networking aspect of co-directing the festival. "Soliciting businesses for support has given me a great opportunity to build my networking skills and it's something that will be especially helpful for me when I return to the area."

The Northern Ohio Music Festival hits at the very core of the Arts Enterprise movement and its values. Arts Enterprise believes events such as the NOMF helps our members become more creative, passionate, and driven. Regardless of the event, the leadership skills developed when you design and implement a program can prove incredibly useful as you prepare to enter the workforce, regardless of your chosen career path.

Speaking on behalf of Arts Enterprise, I would be thrilled if the Northern Ohio Music Festival has inspired you to launch your own community based music festival but we hope the message here is broader in scope. In developing this festival, Schumann took her love of North Olmstead, combined with her love of music and found an opportunity to develop an idea that fused these two passions together.

Have a great program idea yet? In order to help inspire you, I'll leave you with three questions that might enable you to create and lead your own program in the future:
  • What are you passionate about?
  • What do you do better than anyone else?
  • Can you think of a time when you were able to combine your passions with your personal strengths?

After you answer these three questions, see how quickly your AE program ideas take shape. If you'd like more information about the Northern Ohio Music Festival, please feel free to send Chelsea an email at schumann.chelsea@gmail.com.

Note: Over the next several months, we will be highlighting several Arts Enterprise members through AE Stories, a behind the scenes look at their work and what inspires them about Arts Enterprise.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is what I am talking about!!! Young people supporting and nurturing the arts!!! I'm all about it!! Well done! I have written a webseries about artists and am looking to give FREE PROMOTION to ALL ARTISTS!! Check out indiegogo.com/paint-a-webseries for more info!!!

Once again well done!!!
Franklin