April 8, 2025 • 26 mins
Award-winning conductor, pianist, and entrepreneur Robert Emery joins Beverly as they talk about the world of music, creativity, and marketing. From performing with the Ukraine Philharmonic to working with legendary film scores, Robert shares how classical music—and bold branding—can move people in unexpected ways. Discover how early curiosity, storytelling, and purpose fueled Robert’s career, and how marketers can learn to orchestrate unforgettable experiences too.
Three Key Topics Discussed:
- Music as a Memory Anchor: Robert and Beverly explore how music connects us to emotions, memories, and moments—and how marketers can use that sensory power in brand storytelling.
- Making Classical Music Accessible: Robert shares how he’s transforming the image of classical music from stuffy to fun, and why it’s all about how we market the experience.
- The Story That Changed a Life: Hear how one spontaneous invitation during a concert brought a young autistic boy out of his shell—and why generosity is a powerful brand strategy.
Follow Robert:
Robert Emery | Instagram
Robert Emery | Facebook
Robert Emery | YouTube
Robert Emery | Website
P.S. Take the first step (will only take you 3 minutes) to awaken your brand magic with our personalized Brand Clarity Quiz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Beverly (00:00):
Did you know that classical music has been shown
(00:02):
to increase brain function,boost your productivity, and
even enhance creativity?
But despite those incrediblebenefits, classical music is
often misunderstood andoverlooked in today's world.
Welcome to another musicalepisode of the Spark Ending
Night Year Marketing podcast.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell,founder and fairy godmother of
(00:24):
brand clarity at WickedlyBranded.
I have over 25 years ofexperience helping hundreds of
purpose-driven entrepreneursawaken their brand magic and
boldly bring it to life so thatthey can magnify their impact on
the world.
Joining us today is theincredibly talented Robert
Emery, an award-winningconductor.
Pianist and entrepreneur who hasperformed with some of the
(00:46):
world's most renowned orchestrasand musicians.
Robert has dedicated his careerto making classical music more
accessible, engaging, and I caneven say it.
Fun, which is amazing.
He is the mastermind behindClassical Connections, the
world's largest musicalinstrument resource.
Ted's list and oral meditations.
(01:08):
The first meditation musicrecorded with a full symphony
orchestra.
Robert, welcome to the show.
Robert (01:15):
Thanks, Beverly.
Lovely to be on.
Beverly (01:17):
I'm excited to talk to you.
'cause my husband and I areformer band geeks.
I played piano, played flute.
I tried the oboe into mymother's chagrin.
She was like, no, you need totake that back.
Robert (01:28):
Yeah.
The oboe is a specialinstrument.
Beverly (01:30):
Especially for someone who never did a read instrument.
It was a whole nother level.
Yeah.
And my father plays the guitar.
My husband's mother plays thepiano like we do music
appreciation Saturdays at ourhouse.
So we will listen to everythingfrom like Les Mis to the Gypsy
Kings to drop kick Murphy's.
We often take our kids to thesymphony.
(01:51):
The symphony is our favoritedate, or musical theater,
probably, our two favoriteplaces.
But we have taken our kids tolike the eighties done by a
orchestra or Star Wars done bythe orchestra.
We think it's so important forour kids to understand and
appreciate orchestra music andall the different sounds and the
way they blend and all of that.
We are like, we love it.
(02:12):
But we are clearly not astalented as you are.
We can appreciate it when I wastalented as you are.
So talk about how you got intothis space particularly, and you
even started performing and.
Touring at the age of 10.
Robert (02:27):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I started playing the piano atthe age of seven.
And it was an accident.
Here in the uk there was atelevision program on a Friday
night called Top of the Pops,and I'm sure you have someone
the same in the States.
It was a chart topping program.
And it would say back in theback in the eighties for me, or
early, late eighties, earlynineties, what was number one
(02:47):
that week.
And I would used to listen towhatever was number one.
And if I liked it, I would thengo to the family piano, which
was my grandmother's that was inour house, and I would just go
and start playing it.
And as a 7-year-old kid, thenice thing about that, it's.
You don't think of it asanything special or unusual or
different or slightly freaky.
(03:08):
You just go ahead and do it.
And after about a year of doingthis and just being able to play
stuff, my mom went, okay, Ithink I need to get your lessons
now.
So I had lessons with a localteacher and after about a year,
so I was eight by then, she saidI can't do anything more for
you.
You need more specialisttuition.
So then I went to a dedicatedmusic school which I joined when
(03:31):
I was nine.
And then I went to the RoyalCollege of Music when I was 17
in London and did four yearsthere and graduated when I was
21.
But it was always piano.
That was my instrument.
That's what I was put on thisearth to do originally is play
piano.
And the nice thing about being ayoung kid and playing the piano
is everybody thinks it's cuteand awesome.
(03:51):
And so you can go out on tourand a bit of money.
So I started doing that when Iwas 10.
And I had a bit of fun with it.
And I guess when I was at theRoyal College I came to the
realization that piano was fartoo much hard work and too big a
risks to try and make money outof it.
And so I should expand my remitand I should go into the world
(04:11):
of musical theater.
You mentioned Les Mis I'veworked with Claude Michelle
Schomberg, who wrote Miz.
Yes.
You mentioned the Gypsy Kings.
I worked with the Gypsy Kings ona show called Zoro here in
London's West End.
So I branched out to musicaltheater as well.
Love doing that.
And then you mentioned starWars.
One of my last gigs that I wasdoing was touring Europe and
(04:32):
with the music of John Williamswhich of course includes Star
Wars and ET
Beverly (04:35):
I total fan girl over John Williams.
Robert (04:37):
He's a living legend.
He's really a genius.
And that's, a real word for him.
And and that was with theUkraine Philharmonic.
We managed to get the UkrainePhilharmonic out of Ukraine.
It took them 47 hours to get outof Ukraine on a coach.
And get into Europe.
We met them in Belgium and thentoured Belgium, Germany, France,
Switzerland and performed withthem all this amazing film,
(05:01):
music conducting the orchestra.
Music is wonderful.
We all listen to it.
It's all in our everyday lives.
It's all really important to uswhether we realize it or not.
If you've ever tried to see StarWars, there's a great clip on
YouTube.
If you Google star Wars withoutmusic, there's a fantastic scene
that they put in there.
Removed all the music and youjust have Chewbacca and
(05:23):
everybody else on there makingsilly noises.
And it looks like some sort ofamateur dramatic society gone
wrong.
It's really bad.
And, but then you throw theamazing John Williams score
underneath it and all of asudden it's like this epic thing
that's happening on his screen.
And that's the power of music.
So it doesn't matter if it'smusical theater, if it's film
music, if it's Beethoven, downthe symphony it's all phenomenal
(05:47):
and it all stems from the sameplace.
And I guess that's what Irealized is that I don't want to
just play piano.
I'd like to cover much more of amusical world and do different
things.
So that's what I set out to do.
Beverly (06:00):
Once I saw the eighties music from the symphony, I told
my husband, I never wanna listento Non Symphony eighties music
again.
It's so good.
Like it's so rich and there's somany tones and sounds and
Robert (06:13):
Yeah.
Having the eye of the tigerplayed right we with a 60 piece
symphony orchestra and a rockband.
It's fantastic.
I love it.
Beverly (06:20):
We get really excited.
So our kids, when we took them,it was a family friendly show,
which is amazing.
We are from Detroit, so it wasthrough the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra and they encouragedthe kids to dance and stuff.
And even my younger one, elderson, he is 19 now, but he loves
eighties music and he played thetrumpet, he was in musical
theater.
All the things.
(06:40):
I think that those kinds ofexperiences can really impact
their love of music in a waythat you didn't even know was
possible.
My dad played the guitar growingup and he was in a cover band
for The Beatles when he was inschool.
So he was Paul and he played allthese Beatles tunes and
everything.
And he graduated in 1970.
Yeah, 70.
(07:01):
Super fun and I think of growingup, but he played the guitar all
the time, and I just think ofmusic as literally the
soundtrack of my youth.
Like I can associate music anddifferent things associated with
different times in my life.
It's such a powerful sensoryexperience that there's actually
memories embedded in the musicthat I hear now.
(07:22):
And really being in musicaltheater from like 14 to 18.
Even those scores they are partof my soundtrack to my youth,
right?
So when I hear oh, stuff fromBrigadoon or I'll hear something
from, we did a show calledRunaways.
We did Wizard of Oz, we did allthese different ones that are so
(07:42):
powerful.
When I hear them it takes meback too.
So music is so incrediblypowerful and I can't imagine
life without it.
Like you said, like the scene ofChewbacca, even our lives, how
boring they would be withoutmusic.
Robert (07:58):
Yeah.
Completely agree.
Beverly (07:59):
Being in this industry, I'm sure there's some things
that frustrate you,
Robert (08:03):
It's a nightmare.
Beverly (08:05):
If you could change one thing about how classical music
is perceived or marketed orsomething that you've done, what
would it be?
Robert (08:12):
Classical music.
And when I say the wordclassical I mean it in a wider
sense of anything that is.
Symphonic or anything that iswritten essentially either a
long time ago or is very nichesymphonic now.
So it's a wide term to use whenyou say classical music.
(08:32):
And I think the problem I haveis it is a complicated art form.
There's no doubt about it.
You listen to an Ed Sheeran songfor two and a half minutes and
then you put on a BeethovenSymphony for 40 minutes.
Of course, the BeethovenSymphony is gonna be more
challenging to listen to.
Yeah.
But that doesn't necessarilymean it's less rewarding.
It just means you have to put ina bit of extra patience and a
(08:55):
bit of extra work.
But also that's a bit likesaying if you're gonna drive a
car, you should only drive aFormula One car or a nascar.
Because you know you need todrive 150 miles an hour.
No, you don't.
You could easily drive a car 20miles an hour.
And so with classical music, youdon't have to go straight into a
Beethoven Symphony.
You could just go to a symphonicconcert of John Williams, like
(09:17):
we've talked about or eightiesto start you off.
There's some really wonderful,accessible music which is in
verte classical music.
We all know Beethoven's fifthit's probably the most famous
notes ever written.
If that's at your localsymphony, go and see it.
You'll be blown away by what youhear.
Just go with an open mind and mybiggest bug bear about classical
(09:37):
music as a genre.
It has this this image of beingold, stuffy, complicated, scary,
inaccessible.
And do you know what?
It's not the audience's fault.
They think that it's our fault.
And when I say our, I mean myfault and all my fellow
musicians and all the people whoare working in this industry.
(09:58):
Because when you are marketingsomething, you are giving an
impression to everybody elsewhat that product is?
In my field, the product isclassical music and everybody's
giving the impression it'sdifficult and scary and boring.
And I try and I.
Desperately fight against that.
And so I created this seriescalled Classical Connections.
(10:19):
They're short YouTubes, three tofive minutes long each.
I play a bit of music.
I talk about a bit of aninteresting story to do with the
composer who made the music.
Most of the music is famous.
And then I do a bit of dressingup as a composer as well.
So I try and make it fun,lighthearted.
And it's the idea that you candip your toe into this, and if
you like it, then you can go andinvestigate a little bit more.
(10:41):
And so I try my best to changean angle on classical music, but
I alone, I'm not gonna achievethat.
We all need to do that.
And so one of my things is beingon podcasts like this, telling
the world how classical musiccan be and is amazing.
And everybody who's listening tothis should just be brave.
Go to a concert.
(11:01):
If you don't like it, you canalways leave halfway in the
interval.
It's 45 minutes of your life,but I guarantee you won't regret
it.
Beverly (11:08):
Agreed.
We just went to a performance,it was called the Knights, and
it was Andrew Lloyd Weber sirElton John.
And, who was the other one?
Oh, Paul McCartney.
Sir.
Paul McCartney.
And it was all done Orchestra,symphony arrangements.
And again, like surprising theclassical music, they still
played some of that during theperformance.
(11:29):
They played, I think one or twoclassical pieces that were
older, and then they played theknights.
And so this idea of it can beboth.
It doesn't have to be one or theother.
It doesn't have to be old oreven new.
And I guess probably for you andI was born in 75 but for us,
even like Sir Paul McCartney isprobably a little old.
(11:50):
Yeah, he's no vintage, right?
He's not classical, he isvintage.
But I think about that even thecrossover from those three men
who created music, how beautifuland how they wove that into a
performance and how wonderful itwas.
So I agree with you.
Just go look at your symphonies,what they have coming, and I'll
(12:11):
bet you they'll have somethingmodern.
They'll have somethingclassical, they'll have
something.
There's a one that's coming upnow that's just percussion.
It's more about percussion.
And my son, he's nine and wantsto play the drums.
That's like his thing.
We're probably gonna go to thatparticular thing.
There's something for everyoneessentially is what I think is
great about it.
So you'll find one show I'm surethat you'll be interested in.
(12:32):
My husband loves Metallica andthey did a whole orchestral
Metallica performance.
Cool.
And loved it.
Were you part of that?
Don't tell me you were part ofthat.
Robert (12:41):
No, I wasn't actually, sadly not, but I think that's an
excellent idea.
I love that idea.
I worked with Meatloaf bad OuttaHell, Jim Steinman.
We did a an orchestral thing ofhim and we did a piece of
musical theater as well, whichin fact, we bought to Broadway
bad Outta Hell on Broadway.
So yeah, they're all amazingpeople to work with.
Beverly (12:58):
He's brilliant.
Just brilliant musicians.
You can take anything and youcan add this element, extra
element of a full symphony toit.
That's it's beautiful.
I wanna hear your story abouthow you affect people, but I
went to a corporate function onteam building that was ran by a
conductor of a symphony, and hehad the band the band member sit
(13:22):
all throughout the place thevenue separate from each other
and not on stage.
So sat in the audience and allof us were.
To choose to sit next to one ofthem.
And I sat next to a cellist andhe asked us to do several things
during the presentation.
(13:42):
So the first thing he did is hesaid, okay, I want you guys to
play the music that you learnedor whatever.
'cause they had practiced acouple times.
That's it.
He made a call and they all cameand they practiced a couple
times before this particularthing.
And they did.
And they were kinda like, youcould tell, like they were
trying to find theircollectiveness together as this
new group.
(14:03):
And then he proceeded to talkabout how these were the kids
that were stuck in their roomspracticing hours and hours while
you were outside playing, andthat they were essentially
athletes.
And he said, watch their body asthey play.
And he made us like, pick apart,like he picked apart the entire
performance essentially, andmade us appreciate all that goes
(14:24):
into being a musician, but alsohow you have to work together
and how you have to followpeople and how one small change
can make it a funeral marchversus a parade of cheer.
And like all these differentthings and how it can be
affected and essentially as acorporate person.
If you're not working togetheror you don't have the same goal,
(14:46):
or you don't have the samething, you're not gonna get the
result you want, is essentiallywhat he was coming to at the end
of it.
But it was one of the mostprofound ways to talk about
teams and to talk about how apiece is created and how
important a leader is versuseven a leader of a section like
the violin section.
And how important it's that,that we knew that the person
(15:08):
who's playing the instrumentdoes the work too, practices and
all the things.
And it was brilliant, absolutelybrilliant.
And again, a totally differentperspective of how a symphony
works together and how magicalthat whole process is from the
athleticism to the dedication tothe team that works together to
(15:28):
create this beautiful thing atthe end of the day.
And what a gift you give to theaudience.
It was beautiful.
So tell me a story of how aclient or working with a
specific group has really helpedthem, and what's the
transformation been like forthem?
What did it look like?
Robert (15:49):
Music as we all know, has strange and unusual magical
powers, and sometimes you cannever quite predict what's going
to happen.
And I think this is a greatlesson in life actually, I think
we all are so busy in thismodern age and we are also focus
on our screens and what we do.
We tend to have this tunnel andwe see what we see and we
(16:11):
blinker out everything elsearound us, which can be a really
useful skill to focus of course.
But I think we were at a dangerpoint of missing out a lot of
other opportunities that couldcome to us if we don't open wide
our eyes a little bit more.
And I'll give you an example.
It's not a group of people, it'sjust one individual.
(16:32):
I was at a concert on New Year'sEve in London at the Barkin I
was conducting.
And in the front row I saw this,I don't know, 12 14-year-old kid
who was having the time of hislife, he was conducting in his
own little way.
In the seat.
And at the very end of theconcert, it was the last concert
of the year.
(16:52):
I grabbed the microphone, I wentdown into the audience,
everybody looked a bit confused,and I went and stood next to
this young chap, this12-year-old kid.
And I said would you like tocome on stage and stand with me
on the podium?
Awesome for the oncall.
And I can see you theremimicking my movements and
(17:13):
pretending to conduct.
Would you like to come on stage?
And and you can have a bit offun on the podium.
And the audience, four and ahalf thousand people in the
audience went crazy.
Took him up on stage onto thepodium.
And we did actually it was a bitof funny, it was the John
Williams theme from Superman.
It was the on call.
So we played that.
He was there conducting the way.
I thought nothing more of it.
(17:35):
I thought it was a nice thing todo.
It was a nice thing to finishoff the evening and the year, in
fact the audience loved it.
There are tricks to getting anaudience on your side, just like
when you're in a businessmeeting.
There are tricks to negotiatingand getting people to do what
you need them to do.
It's the same with performinggames.
It's exactly the same.
People like Taylor Swift upthere in a stadium.
She knows exactly how to get theaudience on her side.
(17:57):
It's all a skill.
I thought nothing more of thisuntil I had an email the next
morning from the parents sayingthank you so much for inviting.
This young boy, I'm not gonnamention his name on stage he has
severe autism.
And this is the first everconcert he's been to.
And he rarely talks.
(18:19):
He rarely makes any noisewhatsoever, and he's normally
very insular and he doesn'tsmile.
Since that concert, he hasn'tstopped talking.
He hasn't stopped smiling, andhe's decided he wants to learn
the piano, and we getting him apiano next week and it genuinely
(18:39):
has changed his life.
Now, I didn't plan that and I'mcertainly not taking credit for
it because it was justhappenstance that I saw him
there.
I thought it might be a nicething for him to do, but it
shows you not only the power ofmusic, because obviously that's
my field, but on a wider sense,you just don't know in life.
When you walk into that meetingand you've got one plan and one
(19:02):
goal, you just don't know wherethat road is going to take you.
So I think it's always a cleveridea just to always have 20% of
your mind just open to differentideas, open to different
thoughts and opinions.
And just to be a bit malleableand flexible because you just
never know what's gonna happen.
Beverly (19:21):
It is a beautiful story.
It gave me chills.
It's beautiful.
The power of music is justincredible for those kinds of
situations.
One of my dear friends, hisdaughter has a brain development
disorder and through music.
She has learned to speak insyllables, like beats almost.
Oh, really?
And it's because of music thatshe's been able to find a way to
(19:41):
communicate with her family.
And it was all like you said,like by happenstance.
Like they were listening to somethings and Benji plays the
guitar and some other things.
And his episode is actually onthe podcast, if you're
listening.
I think he's probably podcastnumber two or three.
But his story is really powerfulabout how he and his daughter
found a way to communicatethrough the power of music.
(20:03):
And I think when you really lookat those kinds of base things
like how music can really affectyou, it's pretty powerful.
My grandfather, he unfortunatelyhad a heart attack and had to be
resuscitated when he was 68years old and he was considered
brain dead.
And my grandmother was playingmusic.
He loved Patsy Klein and JohnnyCash and all from those eras
(20:26):
and.
His foot tapped and he was braindead, but the body still
remembered.
It's so powerful.
I love that story so much.
It gave me chills that you,that's crazy.
This young man has now beenforever influenced and yeah.
Changed from that experience.
Robert (20:41):
Your podcast, your tagline is your marketing and
obviously marketing is somethingthat surround us in the world.
All the time.
Everywhere we look there ismarketing in some way.
And I think one of the mostpowerful techniques I ever
learned about marketing issimply called the power of
reciprocation.
And it's as simple as you, ifyou want something from
somebody, give them somethingbeforehand.
(21:03):
And they will feel obliged togive something back to you.
Yeah.
Now I use it on stage, want thataudience to, to go away going,
wow, that was just the bestconcert I ever went to.
I gotta go and see this RobertEmery guy again.
He was amazing.
That's of course my musical egogoing, that's what I need to
happen.
And I knew the trick of if Iinvited the kid onto stage with
(21:24):
me, I knew the audience wouldlove it.
They would fall for it.
I didn't know the result of it.
Yeah.
But of course that was the powerof reciprocation.
That was me saying to theaudience I'm gonna do this for
you and in return, I hope thatyou are gonna go home and Google
me and you are gonna join mymailing list.
Go to robert emery.com.
And then you'll come to otherconcept that I do is that power
of reciprocation.
I'm on stage, I'm marketingmyself.
(21:46):
I'm marketing the symphony.
I'm marketing classical music.
It's what I do day in, day out.
It's why I'm here.
And it's all about the power ofreciprocation.
So I think it's just the mostuseful thing to know.
And the second thing that, thesecond tip that I can give,
which is just so common sense,it's crazy and so many people
don't know it.
(22:06):
It's that you mimic the personthat you are working with or
that you're negotiating with, orthat you're talking to.
And you mimic them.
It makes them feel comfortable.
So if they're talking loud andthey and excited and and
animated, then you talk likethat.
If they're very chilled and laidback and quiet and slow, then
you'd be like that too.
You help them, you get yourselfonto their wavelength.
(22:28):
And it's such a obvious simplepersona.
Element to use, and it's amazingthat most people don't know
about this.
And that goes for yourmarketing.
You've got your own audience.
Maybe it's, I dunno, 18 to 20year olds.
They're probably gonna be moreenergetic than your 60 to 70
year olds, so make sure that youare reflecting that.
(22:51):
But if your audience is 60 to 70year olds make sure you're
reflecting that too.
None of it is rocket science.
None of it is complicated.
It's just about trying toremember to use all these
techniques.
I do that on stage every day.
Other people do it in a meeting.
It's the same thing.
Beverly (23:06):
It's a pretty grand meeting that you have when you
are in front of an orchestra.
Robert (23:09):
That is true.
I'm lucky.
Beverly (23:11):
Yeah.
I think the orchestra and theperformance side of it is such a
give and take and experiencewith an audience.
Like you need the audience to bewith you.
And there's something about thatfor sure.
And in marketing, you need youraudience with you, otherwise
your message is gonna land flat.
Totally.
Yeah.
The concept of mirroring is sopowerful when you talk about.
Understanding where youraudience is from especially in
(23:32):
person when you meet them?
When I was first starting out insales and marketing a long time
ago when I worked for ChryslerAdvertising I was taught that
philosophy and I did not drinkcoffee, but I always accepted
coffee if they drank coffee.
Robert (23:45):
Yes.
Beverly (23:46):
And I would just like, not even sip, but just put it to
my mouth.
Robert (23:49):
Yeah.
Beverly (23:49):
Because it was an immediate way for them to say,
oh, she's like me.
Robert (23:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Beverly (23:53):
So there's a lot of that you can do that just make
people feel more comfortablewith you.
Yeah.
A lot of it, I just worry.
I never wanna be inauthentic, soI was like I moved a little bit
away from some of that, but Icertainly, when someone leans
forward, you lean forward.
When someone leans back, you canlean back.
There's a lot of that can happenin communication that's really
powerful.
I would agree with youcompletely on that.
So as an entrepreneur.
(24:14):
Which you have such a uniqueside of things in the music
industry, I feel is likeprobably a really challenging
industry.
Robert (24:20):
Yeah.
Beverly (24:21):
What has been the biggest challenge of your career
and how have you overcome it?
Robert (24:25):
Had two, two or three real big sort of themes of
challenging.
Beverly (24:29):
Hey there, you've just finished part one of the
Sparking Night, your marketingepisode.
How are you feeling?
Excited, inspired, but we'rejust getting started.
Next Tuesday we're dropping parttwo, and you won't wanna miss
it.
Be sure to subscribe to ournewsletter, so you'll be the
first to know when it goes live.
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Did you know that classical music has been shown
(00:02):
to increase brain function,boost your productivity, and
even enhance creativity?
But despite those incrediblebenefits, classical music is
often misunderstood andoverlooked in today's world.
Welcome to another musicalepisode of the Spark Ending
Night Year Marketing podcast.
I'm your host, Beverly Cornell,founder and fairy godmother of
(00:24):
brand clarity at WickedlyBranded.
I have over 25 years ofexperience helping hundreds of
purpose-driven entrepreneursawaken their brand magic and
boldly bring it to life so thatthey can magnify their impact on
the world.
Joining us today is theincredibly talented Robert
Emery, an award-winningconductor.
Pianist and entrepreneur who hasperformed with some of the
(00:46):
world's most renowned orchestrasand musicians.
Robert has dedicated his careerto making classical music more
accessible, engaging, and I caneven say it.
Fun, which is amazing.
He is the mastermind behindClassical Connections, the
world's largest musicalinstrument resource.
Ted's list and oral meditations.
(01:08):
The first meditation musicrecorded with a full symphony
orchestra.
Robert, welcome to the show.
Robert (01:15):
Thanks, Beverly.
Lovely to be on.
Beverly (01:17):
I'm excited to talk to you.
'cause my husband and I areformer band geeks.
I played piano, played flute.
I tried the oboe into mymother's chagrin.
She was like, no, you need totake that back.
Robert (01:28):
Yeah.
The oboe is a specialinstrument.
Beverly (01:30):
Especially for someone who never did a read instrument.
It was a whole nother level.
Yeah.
And my father plays the guitar.
My husband's mother plays thepiano like we do music
appreciation Saturdays at ourhouse.
So we will listen to everythingfrom like Les Mis to the Gypsy
Kings to drop kick Murphy's.
We often take our kids to thesymphony.
(01:51):
The symphony is our favoritedate, or musical theater,
probably, our two favoriteplaces.
But we have taken our kids tolike the eighties done by a
orchestra or Star Wars done bythe orchestra.
We think it's so important forour kids to understand and
appreciate orchestra music andall the different sounds and the
way they blend and all of that.
We are like, we love it.
(02:12):
But we are clearly not astalented as you are.
We can appreciate it when I wastalented as you are.
So talk about how you got intothis space particularly, and you
even started performing and.
Touring at the age of 10.
Robert (02:27):
Yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
I started playing the piano atthe age of seven.
And it was an accident.
Here in the uk there was atelevision program on a Friday
night called Top of the Pops,and I'm sure you have someone
the same in the States.
It was a chart topping program.
And it would say back in theback in the eighties for me, or
early, late eighties, earlynineties, what was number one
(02:47):
that week.
And I would used to listen towhatever was number one.
And if I liked it, I would thengo to the family piano, which
was my grandmother's that was inour house, and I would just go
and start playing it.
And as a 7-year-old kid, thenice thing about that, it's.
You don't think of it asanything special or unusual or
different or slightly freaky.
(03:08):
You just go ahead and do it.
And after about a year of doingthis and just being able to play
stuff, my mom went, okay, Ithink I need to get your lessons
now.
So I had lessons with a localteacher and after about a year,
so I was eight by then, she saidI can't do anything more for
you.
You need more specialisttuition.
So then I went to a dedicatedmusic school which I joined when
(03:31):
I was nine.
And then I went to the RoyalCollege of Music when I was 17
in London and did four yearsthere and graduated when I was
21.
But it was always piano.
That was my instrument.
That's what I was put on thisearth to do originally is play
piano.
And the nice thing about being ayoung kid and playing the piano
is everybody thinks it's cuteand awesome.
(03:51):
And so you can go out on tourand a bit of money.
So I started doing that when Iwas 10.
And I had a bit of fun with it.
And I guess when I was at theRoyal College I came to the
realization that piano was fartoo much hard work and too big a
risks to try and make money outof it.
And so I should expand my remitand I should go into the world
(04:11):
of musical theater.
You mentioned Les Mis I'veworked with Claude Michelle
Schomberg, who wrote Miz.
Yes.
You mentioned the Gypsy Kings.
I worked with the Gypsy Kings ona show called Zoro here in
London's West End.
So I branched out to musicaltheater as well.
Love doing that.
And then you mentioned starWars.
One of my last gigs that I wasdoing was touring Europe and
(04:32):
with the music of John Williamswhich of course includes Star
Wars and ET
Beverly (04:35):
I total fan girl over John Williams.
Robert (04:37):
He's a living legend.
He's really a genius.
And that's, a real word for him.
And and that was with theUkraine Philharmonic.
We managed to get the UkrainePhilharmonic out of Ukraine.
It took them 47 hours to get outof Ukraine on a coach.
And get into Europe.
We met them in Belgium and thentoured Belgium, Germany, France,
Switzerland and performed withthem all this amazing film,
(05:01):
music conducting the orchestra.
Music is wonderful.
We all listen to it.
It's all in our everyday lives.
It's all really important to uswhether we realize it or not.
If you've ever tried to see StarWars, there's a great clip on
YouTube.
If you Google star Wars withoutmusic, there's a fantastic scene
that they put in there.
Removed all the music and youjust have Chewbacca and
(05:23):
everybody else on there makingsilly noises.
And it looks like some sort ofamateur dramatic society gone
wrong.
It's really bad.
And, but then you throw theamazing John Williams score
underneath it and all of asudden it's like this epic thing
that's happening on his screen.
And that's the power of music.
So it doesn't matter if it'smusical theater, if it's film
music, if it's Beethoven, downthe symphony it's all phenomenal
(05:47):
and it all stems from the sameplace.
And I guess that's what Irealized is that I don't want to
just play piano.
I'd like to cover much more of amusical world and do different
things.
So that's what I set out to do.
Beverly (06:00):
Once I saw the eighties music from the symphony, I told
my husband, I never wanna listento Non Symphony eighties music
again.
It's so good.
Like it's so rich and there's somany tones and sounds and
Robert (06:13):
Yeah.
Having the eye of the tigerplayed right we with a 60 piece
symphony orchestra and a rockband.
It's fantastic.
I love it.
Beverly (06:20):
We get really excited.
So our kids, when we took them,it was a family friendly show,
which is amazing.
We are from Detroit, so it wasthrough the Detroit Symphony
Orchestra and they encouragedthe kids to dance and stuff.
And even my younger one, elderson, he is 19 now, but he loves
eighties music and he played thetrumpet, he was in musical
theater.
All the things.
(06:40):
I think that those kinds ofexperiences can really impact
their love of music in a waythat you didn't even know was
possible.
My dad played the guitar growingup and he was in a cover band
for The Beatles when he was inschool.
So he was Paul and he played allthese Beatles tunes and
everything.
And he graduated in 1970.
Yeah, 70.
(07:01):
Super fun and I think of growingup, but he played the guitar all
the time, and I just think ofmusic as literally the
soundtrack of my youth.
Like I can associate music anddifferent things associated with
different times in my life.
It's such a powerful sensoryexperience that there's actually
memories embedded in the musicthat I hear now.
(07:22):
And really being in musicaltheater from like 14 to 18.
Even those scores they are partof my soundtrack to my youth,
right?
So when I hear oh, stuff fromBrigadoon or I'll hear something
from, we did a show calledRunaways.
We did Wizard of Oz, we did allthese different ones that are so
(07:42):
powerful.
When I hear them it takes meback too.
So music is so incrediblypowerful and I can't imagine
life without it.
Like you said, like the scene ofChewbacca, even our lives, how
boring they would be withoutmusic.
Robert (07:58):
Yeah.
Completely agree.
Beverly (07:59):
Being in this industry, I'm sure there's some things
that frustrate you,
Robert (08:03):
It's a nightmare.
Beverly (08:05):
If you could change one thing about how classical music
is perceived or marketed orsomething that you've done, what
would it be?
Robert (08:12):
Classical music.
And when I say the wordclassical I mean it in a wider
sense of anything that is.
Symphonic or anything that iswritten essentially either a
long time ago or is very nichesymphonic now.
So it's a wide term to use whenyou say classical music.
(08:32):
And I think the problem I haveis it is a complicated art form.
There's no doubt about it.
You listen to an Ed Sheeran songfor two and a half minutes and
then you put on a BeethovenSymphony for 40 minutes.
Of course, the BeethovenSymphony is gonna be more
challenging to listen to.
Yeah.
But that doesn't necessarilymean it's less rewarding.
It just means you have to put ina bit of extra patience and a
(08:55):
bit of extra work.
But also that's a bit likesaying if you're gonna drive a
car, you should only drive aFormula One car or a nascar.
Because you know you need todrive 150 miles an hour.
No, you don't.
You could easily drive a car 20miles an hour.
And so with classical music, youdon't have to go straight into a
Beethoven Symphony.
You could just go to a symphonicconcert of John Williams, like
(09:17):
we've talked about or eightiesto start you off.
There's some really wonderful,accessible music which is in
verte classical music.
We all know Beethoven's fifthit's probably the most famous
notes ever written.
If that's at your localsymphony, go and see it.
You'll be blown away by what youhear.
Just go with an open mind and mybiggest bug bear about classical
(09:37):
music as a genre.
It has this this image of beingold, stuffy, complicated, scary,
inaccessible.
And do you know what?
It's not the audience's fault.
They think that it's our fault.
And when I say our, I mean myfault and all my fellow
musicians and all the people whoare working in this industry.
(09:58):
Because when you are marketingsomething, you are giving an
impression to everybody elsewhat that product is?
In my field, the product isclassical music and everybody's
giving the impression it'sdifficult and scary and boring.
And I try and I.
Desperately fight against that.
And so I created this seriescalled Classical Connections.
(10:19):
They're short YouTubes, three tofive minutes long each.
I play a bit of music.
I talk about a bit of aninteresting story to do with the
composer who made the music.
Most of the music is famous.
And then I do a bit of dressingup as a composer as well.
So I try and make it fun,lighthearted.
And it's the idea that you candip your toe into this, and if
you like it, then you can go andinvestigate a little bit more.
(10:41):
And so I try my best to changean angle on classical music, but
I alone, I'm not gonna achievethat.
We all need to do that.
And so one of my things is beingon podcasts like this, telling
the world how classical musiccan be and is amazing.
And everybody who's listening tothis should just be brave.
Go to a concert.
(11:01):
If you don't like it, you canalways leave halfway in the
interval.
It's 45 minutes of your life,but I guarantee you won't regret
it.
Beverly (11:08):
Agreed.
We just went to a performance,it was called the Knights, and
it was Andrew Lloyd Weber sirElton John.
And, who was the other one?
Oh, Paul McCartney.
Sir.
Paul McCartney.
And it was all done Orchestra,symphony arrangements.
And again, like surprising theclassical music, they still
played some of that during theperformance.
(11:29):
They played, I think one or twoclassical pieces that were
older, and then they played theknights.
And so this idea of it can beboth.
It doesn't have to be one or theother.
It doesn't have to be old oreven new.
And I guess probably for you andI was born in 75 but for us,
even like Sir Paul McCartney isprobably a little old.
(11:50):
Yeah, he's no vintage, right?
He's not classical, he isvintage.
But I think about that even thecrossover from those three men
who created music, how beautifuland how they wove that into a
performance and how wonderful itwas.
So I agree with you.
Just go look at your symphonies,what they have coming, and I'll
(12:11):
bet you they'll have somethingmodern.
They'll have somethingclassical, they'll have
something.
There's a one that's coming upnow that's just percussion.
It's more about percussion.
And my son, he's nine and wantsto play the drums.
That's like his thing.
We're probably gonna go to thatparticular thing.
There's something for everyoneessentially is what I think is
great about it.
So you'll find one show I'm surethat you'll be interested in.
(12:32):
My husband loves Metallica andthey did a whole orchestral
Metallica performance.
Cool.
And loved it.
Were you part of that?
Don't tell me you were part ofthat.
Robert (12:41):
No, I wasn't actually, sadly not, but I think that's an
excellent idea.
I love that idea.
I worked with Meatloaf bad OuttaHell, Jim Steinman.
We did a an orchestral thing ofhim and we did a piece of
musical theater as well, whichin fact, we bought to Broadway
bad Outta Hell on Broadway.
So yeah, they're all amazingpeople to work with.
Beverly (12:58):
He's brilliant.
Just brilliant musicians.
You can take anything and youcan add this element, extra
element of a full symphony toit.
That's it's beautiful.
I wanna hear your story abouthow you affect people, but I
went to a corporate function onteam building that was ran by a
conductor of a symphony, and hehad the band the band member sit
(13:22):
all throughout the place thevenue separate from each other
and not on stage.
So sat in the audience and allof us were.
To choose to sit next to one ofthem.
And I sat next to a cellist andhe asked us to do several things
during the presentation.
(13:42):
So the first thing he did is hesaid, okay, I want you guys to
play the music that you learnedor whatever.
'cause they had practiced acouple times.
That's it.
He made a call and they all cameand they practiced a couple
times before this particularthing.
And they did.
And they were kinda like, youcould tell, like they were
trying to find theircollectiveness together as this
new group.
(14:03):
And then he proceeded to talkabout how these were the kids
that were stuck in their roomspracticing hours and hours while
you were outside playing, andthat they were essentially
athletes.
And he said, watch their body asthey play.
And he made us like, pick apart,like he picked apart the entire
performance essentially, andmade us appreciate all that goes
(14:24):
into being a musician, but alsohow you have to work together
and how you have to followpeople and how one small change
can make it a funeral marchversus a parade of cheer.
And like all these differentthings and how it can be
affected and essentially as acorporate person.
If you're not working togetheror you don't have the same goal,
(14:46):
or you don't have the samething, you're not gonna get the
result you want, is essentiallywhat he was coming to at the end
of it.
But it was one of the mostprofound ways to talk about
teams and to talk about how apiece is created and how
important a leader is versuseven a leader of a section like
the violin section.
And how important it's that,that we knew that the person
(15:08):
who's playing the instrumentdoes the work too, practices and
all the things.
And it was brilliant, absolutelybrilliant.
And again, a totally differentperspective of how a symphony
works together and how magicalthat whole process is from the
athleticism to the dedication tothe team that works together to
(15:28):
create this beautiful thing atthe end of the day.
And what a gift you give to theaudience.
It was beautiful.
So tell me a story of how aclient or working with a
specific group has really helpedthem, and what's the
transformation been like forthem?
What did it look like?
Robert (15:49):
Music as we all know, has strange and unusual magical
powers, and sometimes you cannever quite predict what's going
to happen.
And I think this is a greatlesson in life actually, I think
we all are so busy in thismodern age and we are also focus
on our screens and what we do.
We tend to have this tunnel andwe see what we see and we
(16:11):
blinker out everything elsearound us, which can be a really
useful skill to focus of course.
But I think we were at a dangerpoint of missing out a lot of
other opportunities that couldcome to us if we don't open wide
our eyes a little bit more.
And I'll give you an example.
It's not a group of people, it'sjust one individual.
(16:32):
I was at a concert on New Year'sEve in London at the Barkin I
was conducting.
And in the front row I saw this,I don't know, 12 14-year-old kid
who was having the time of hislife, he was conducting in his
own little way.
In the seat.
And at the very end of theconcert, it was the last concert
of the year.
(16:52):
I grabbed the microphone, I wentdown into the audience,
everybody looked a bit confused,and I went and stood next to
this young chap, this12-year-old kid.
And I said would you like tocome on stage and stand with me
on the podium?
Awesome for the oncall.
And I can see you theremimicking my movements and
(17:13):
pretending to conduct.
Would you like to come on stage?
And and you can have a bit offun on the podium.
And the audience, four and ahalf thousand people in the
audience went crazy.
Took him up on stage onto thepodium.
And we did actually it was a bitof funny, it was the John
Williams theme from Superman.
It was the on call.
So we played that.
He was there conducting the way.
I thought nothing more of it.
(17:35):
I thought it was a nice thing todo.
It was a nice thing to finishoff the evening and the year, in
fact the audience loved it.
There are tricks to getting anaudience on your side, just like
when you're in a businessmeeting.
There are tricks to negotiatingand getting people to do what
you need them to do.
It's the same with performinggames.
It's exactly the same.
People like Taylor Swift upthere in a stadium.
She knows exactly how to get theaudience on her side.
(17:57):
It's all a skill.
I thought nothing more of thisuntil I had an email the next
morning from the parents sayingthank you so much for inviting.
This young boy, I'm not gonnamention his name on stage he has
severe autism.
And this is the first everconcert he's been to.
And he rarely talks.
(18:19):
He rarely makes any noisewhatsoever, and he's normally
very insular and he doesn'tsmile.
Since that concert, he hasn'tstopped talking.
He hasn't stopped smiling, andhe's decided he wants to learn
the piano, and we getting him apiano next week and it genuinely
(18:39):
has changed his life.
Now, I didn't plan that and I'mcertainly not taking credit for
it because it was justhappenstance that I saw him
there.
I thought it might be a nicething for him to do, but it
shows you not only the power ofmusic, because obviously that's
my field, but on a wider sense,you just don't know in life.
When you walk into that meetingand you've got one plan and one
(19:02):
goal, you just don't know wherethat road is going to take you.
So I think it's always a cleveridea just to always have 20% of
your mind just open to differentideas, open to different
thoughts and opinions.
And just to be a bit malleableand flexible because you just
never know what's gonna happen.
Beverly (19:21):
It is a beautiful story.
It gave me chills.
It's beautiful.
The power of music is justincredible for those kinds of
situations.
One of my dear friends, hisdaughter has a brain development
disorder and through music.
She has learned to speak insyllables, like beats almost.
Oh, really?
And it's because of music thatshe's been able to find a way to
(19:41):
communicate with her family.
And it was all like you said,like by happenstance.
Like they were listening to somethings and Benji plays the
guitar and some other things.
And his episode is actually onthe podcast, if you're
listening.
I think he's probably podcastnumber two or three.
But his story is really powerfulabout how he and his daughter
found a way to communicatethrough the power of music.
(20:03):
And I think when you really lookat those kinds of base things
like how music can really affectyou, it's pretty powerful.
My grandfather, he unfortunatelyhad a heart attack and had to be
resuscitated when he was 68years old and he was considered
brain dead.
And my grandmother was playingmusic.
He loved Patsy Klein and JohnnyCash and all from those eras
(20:26):
and.
His foot tapped and he was braindead, but the body still
remembered.
It's so powerful.
I love that story so much.
It gave me chills that you,that's crazy.
This young man has now beenforever influenced and yeah.
Changed from that experience.
Robert (20:41):
Your podcast, your tagline is your marketing and
obviously marketing is somethingthat surround us in the world.
All the time.
Everywhere we look there ismarketing in some way.
And I think one of the mostpowerful techniques I ever
learned about marketing issimply called the power of
reciprocation.
And it's as simple as you, ifyou want something from
somebody, give them somethingbeforehand.
(21:03):
And they will feel obliged togive something back to you.
Yeah.
Now I use it on stage, want thataudience to, to go away going,
wow, that was just the bestconcert I ever went to.
I gotta go and see this RobertEmery guy again.
He was amazing.
That's of course my musical egogoing, that's what I need to
happen.
And I knew the trick of if Iinvited the kid onto stage with
(21:24):
me, I knew the audience wouldlove it.
They would fall for it.
I didn't know the result of it.
Yeah.
But of course that was the powerof reciprocation.
That was me saying to theaudience I'm gonna do this for
you and in return, I hope thatyou are gonna go home and Google
me and you are gonna join mymailing list.
Go to robert emery.com.
And then you'll come to otherconcept that I do is that power
of reciprocation.
I'm on stage, I'm marketingmyself.
(21:46):
I'm marketing the symphony.
I'm marketing classical music.
It's what I do day in, day out.
It's why I'm here.
And it's all about the power ofreciprocation.
So I think it's just the mostuseful thing to know.
And the second thing that, thesecond tip that I can give,
which is just so common sense,it's crazy and so many people
don't know it.
(22:06):
It's that you mimic the personthat you are working with or
that you're negotiating with, orthat you're talking to.
And you mimic them.
It makes them feel comfortable.
So if they're talking loud andthey and excited and and
animated, then you talk likethat.
If they're very chilled and laidback and quiet and slow, then
you'd be like that too.
You help them, you get yourselfonto their wavelength.
(22:28):
And it's such a obvious simplepersona.
Element to use, and it's amazingthat most people don't know
about this.
And that goes for yourmarketing.
You've got your own audience.
Maybe it's, I dunno, 18 to 20year olds.
They're probably gonna be moreenergetic than your 60 to 70
year olds, so make sure that youare reflecting that.
(22:51):
But if your audience is 60 to 70year olds make sure you're
reflecting that too.
None of it is rocket science.
None of it is complicated.
It's just about trying toremember to use all these
techniques.
I do that on stage every day.
Other people do it in a meeting.
It's the same thing.
Beverly (23:06):
It's a pretty grand meeting that you have when you
are in front of an orchestra.
Robert (23:09):
That is true.
I'm lucky.
Beverly (23:11):
Yeah.
I think the orchestra and theperformance side of it is such a
give and take and experiencewith an audience.
Like you need the audience to bewith you.
And there's something about thatfor sure.
And in marketing, you need youraudience with you, otherwise
your message is gonna land flat.
Totally.
Yeah.
The concept of mirroring is sopowerful when you talk about.
Understanding where youraudience is from especially in
(23:32):
person when you meet them?
When I was first starting out insales and marketing a long time
ago when I worked for ChryslerAdvertising I was taught that
philosophy and I did not drinkcoffee, but I always accepted
coffee if they drank coffee.
Robert (23:45):
Yes.
Beverly (23:46):
And I would just like, not even sip, but just put it to
my mouth.
Robert (23:49):
Yeah.
Beverly (23:49):
Because it was an immediate way for them to say,
oh, she's like me.
Robert (23:52):
Yeah, exactly.
Beverly (23:53):
So there's a lot of that you can do that just make
people feel more comfortablewith you.
Yeah.
A lot of it, I just worry.
I never wanna be inauthentic, soI was like I moved a little bit
away from some of that, but Icertainly, when someone leans
forward, you lean forward.
When someone leans back, you canlean back.
There's a lot of that can happenin communication that's really
powerful.
I would agree with youcompletely on that.
So as an entrepreneur.
(24:14):
Which you have such a uniqueside of things in the music
industry, I feel is likeprobably a really challenging
industry.
Robert (24:20):
Yeah.
Beverly (24:21):
What has been the biggest challenge of your career
and how have you overcome it?
Robert (24:25):
Had two, two or three real big sort of themes of
challenging.
Beverly (24:29):
Hey there, you've just finished part one of the
Sparking Night, your marketingepisode.
How are you feeling?
Excited, inspired, but we'rejust getting started.
Next Tuesday we're dropping parttwo, and you won't wanna miss
it.
Be sure to subscribe to ournewsletter, so you'll be the
first to know when it goes live.
Until then, take a breather, letthose ideas simmer, and we'll
see you next week.
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