COMMUNITY IMPACT PROJECT INCUBATOR
CAG has partnered with the Global Leaders Institute to create a career launch program providing our artists with essential entrepreneurial skills needed to navigate and positively impact today’s music industry.
This unique 6-month program will offer early-career professionals access and opportunities to learn from industry experts, hone business fundamentals, and collaborate on experiential projects intended to empower purpose-driven careers.
What is the Community Impact Project Incubator?
Community Impact Project Incubator is a vital pillar of CAG’s Citizen Musician Training. Through it, artists explore new ways to create positive community impact beyond the concert stage. In this series of workshops, CAG roster musicians:
Identify community needs
Transform these needs into projects
Pitch to fund their project
Launch their project
Network for social impact
How Is It Accomplished?
6 MODULES
The progression of the modules in this training is designed so that each one builds upon and expands key tools from the previous.
1 CHALLENGE
After completing the training’s six modules, participants apply the knowledge and skills acquired through the training to write and pitch an implementation plan for a high-impact artistic project before a panel of experts.
INNOVATION PRIZE
Participants who excel in the learning process will have access to additional professional development opportunities, including pitching their project at Chamber Music America 2025, international travel to one of GLI’s 2025 Innovation Summits (Tuscany or Patagonia), or personalized mentorships.
“Through the Community Impact Project Incubator, I’ve been able to expand my vision of my potential, enhance the impact of my coaching business, and evolve my sense of interconnectivity. I’m very grateful for this unique and highly-valuable training!”
Adam W. Sadberry, CAG Artist
Program Faculty
Jessica Phillips
Faculty Co-Lead
Metropolitan Opera
The Juilliard School
Drew A. Forde
Violist
Entrepreneur
Stanford Thompson
Equity Arc
Executive Director
Monica Ellis
Imani Winds
Manhattan School of Music
Michael McRay
Author
Storytelling Coach
Toyin Spellman-Díaz
Imani Winds
Mannes
Felipe Orduz
GLI
Entrepreneurship Coach
Tom Cabaniss
The Juilliard School
Janet Fischer
Live Music Now (UK)
CEO
Inaugural Community Impact Project Incubator
Starting in January of 2024, CAG artists Britton-René Collins, Michelle Di Russo, Kyle Dickson, and Evren Ozel worked closely with consultant Dana Fonteneau and CAG staff through intensive monthly workshops to create projects that will positively impact their communities. Over the course of six months, they developed their projects through identifying burning issues, researching what their communities needed, learning the financial requirements of their project, determining the personnel needed, and much more. In June, they pitched their projects in front of an illustrious panel for immediate feedback.
Congratulations to the Inaugural Winner of CAG’s Weissberg Prize, Conductor Kyle Dickson!
Thanks to the generosity of CAG Board Director Norbert Weissberg, this $5,000 prize helped Kyle kickstart his project MUSIC REPRESENTS — a live concert experience featuring a dynamic, newly commissioned work for chamber ensemble and narrator celebrating the captivating stories of influential black composers.
“Developing my thoughts through the Social Impact Project Building workshops helped me to focus my long-held convictions into MUSIC REPRESENTS — a concrete way to help my community fall in love with music as I did as a teenager. With the aid of this award, young people from silenced communities will see themselves represented through classical music, and I'm humbled and grateful for the opportunity to usher the next generation of diverse artists into this beautiful tradition.”
— Kyle Dickson
Thank you to the illustrious panel who listened to the artists’ project pitches and provided invaluable feedback:
Pedja Mužijević, Artistic Administrator Baryshnikov Arts Center, Artistic Advisor Tippet Rise Arts Center
Tom Novak, Director of Artistic Planning Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Eric Oberstein, Managing Director Harlem Stage
Katelyn Simone, Writer, Fundraiser, Consultant Katelyn Simone Copywriting
Lisa Williams, Managing Director Goldman Sachs, Strategy Investment
Ed Yim, Chief Content Officer and Senior Vice President WQXR
Nathaniel Zeisler, Provost, The Colburn School
Jessica Phillips, alumna of the MBA program at the Global Leaders Institute and Clarinetist the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra