February 20, 2025 • 26 mins
Join us for a conversation with the co-founder of 8VA Music Consultancy, Patricia Price. She shares her journey to becoming an industry leader in classical music marketing and PR.
We also explore the evolving role of digital media in arts PR, the balance between traditional and digital platforms. Patricia shares insights on building a compelling artistic narrative and how blending business skills with creativity leads to long-term success.
Additionally, She highlights her work with artists like Sandbox Percussion, Andy Akiho, and Graeme Steele Johnson, emphasizing the power of thoughtful communication strategy. We look ahead to how technologies like AI and data analysis are shaping arts marketing, and how they work alongside the irreplaceable human element in sharing great art.
All episodes are also available in video form on our YouTube Channel. All episodes are hosted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bowman.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:00):
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to
the Scene Room.
Today I have Patricia Pricehere.
She is one of the managingdirectors for 8VA Music
Consultancy, one of the world'sleading marketing and public
relations firms.
She and her husband, mattHerman, founded 8VA in 2012.
Their roster, if you look attheir website, includes
(00:23):
conductor Alexander Shelley,Anne Akiko Meyers , clarinetist
Anthony McGill, Bravo! Vail, theBeijing Music Festival, the
Cliburn Competition, the CurtisInstitute of Music, the Dover
Quartet, just to name a few.
I'm looking forward to chattingwith Trish.
All about the business, Trish.
Welcome to the scene room.
Patricia Price (00:45):
Lizzie, thanks for having me.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:47):
I thought this was appropriate attire for
today.
Patricia Price (00:50):
We have hoodies.
I need to get you a hoodie.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:53):
Oh, I'd love a hoodie.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I didn't realize this came inhoodies as well.
This is like what if this wasfrom your 10th anniversary for
8VA?
Yes, yeah, three years ago,
I think that was my first real outing in New
York after the pandemic shutdown.
Patricia Price (01:11):
Yes, we say it was the best and last party we
will ever have, becauseeverybody was so ready to get
out and about.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:19):
Yeah, no, it was great, and it was great to
see everyone's faces and therewere many, many great artists
present and performances and,yeah, it was really fun.
For the listeners who aren'tfamiliar with 8VA, which is the
company that Trish and herhusband, Matt, founded, can you
tell us a bit about what you doand how the company came to be?
Patricia Price (01:42):
So we are very simply a publicity firm for
classical music, but in broaderterms, we are the leading
strategic consultancy inclassical music for a lot of
arts organizations, top soloists, conductors, festivals,
competitions, and we work withorganizations and artists all
(02:06):
over the world on amplifyingtheir impact.
Elizabeth Bowman (02:10):
Okay, 8VA started, let's rewind.
Let's go to your beginnings.
Were you an artist before?
What's your background?
What's your education?
How did you land in 8VA?
Patricia Price (02:23):
I started out as a pianist so I've been training
for our work since I was three.
I'm also lucky that I'm notsaying would you like fries with
that Because I went on to getpiano performance degrees and
graduate degrees in pianoperformance.
I studied in Vienna as aFulbrighter and then came back
(02:43):
and started my career in therecord industry and I was lucky
to come into the record industryat a time when it was really
compressing.
So I was given a lot ofresponsibility at a pretty early
stage and I ran the classicaldivision of a late grown media
group which was a largedistributor at the time with
about 70 distributed classicallabels at the time with about 70
(03:09):
distributed classical labels,and I thought I wanted to be the
executive director of anorchestra someday.
So I got my MBA and while I wasworking then a perfect position
for me came up as the executivedirector of Portland Piano
International, which is a greatnonprofit in Portland Oregon and
they have a recital series anda festival and that was
wonderful experience as theirexecutive director, working on
(03:31):
the nonprofit side and seeingwhat that was really like.
And for me the fundraising partof being an executive director
was not as close to the music asI wanted to be.
I wanted to be in dailyconversations with artists
making an impact in an artisticway, so I started consulting on
the side, which quickly grew tobe 8VA, what would later become
(03:52):
8VA.
We had a business partner inLondon for a while and now we've
had the current iteration forabout 13 years.
We feel really lucky to do whatwe do.
My husband came from the PRside PR and marketing side so
our combined skillset was acomplimentary offering for
musicians and organizations andit's really nice that I still
(04:14):
get to be involved in thenonprofit side of a lot of
organizations.
But in this way I feel like I'mable to make a larger impact in
our beautiful classical musicworld.
Elizabeth Bowman (04:25):
Can I ask how 8VA measures the impact of your
work for arts organizations andindividuals?
Patricia Price (04:32):
So it depends on the client, because I think for
every client they're wanting tomake sure that their artistic
product is seen and experiencedat as broad of a level as it can
be and that doesn't look thesame for any two of our clients.
For some festivals that mightbe a large media hit where
(04:58):
they're getting a large featurein the New York Times.
For some of our artists thatmight be a more comprehensive
feature where they are reallyseen for their artistry in an
expansive, more intimate way.
So we have different things.
You can measure the advertisingvalue equivalent where you take
a multiple of what the paidadvertising would be for earned
(05:22):
media.
You can see reach of socialmedia posts.
There are a lot of actualmetrics you follow, but
ultimately my level of successfeels like when an artist is
really satisfied and feels likeour work is helping them reach
more people.
Elizabeth Bowman (05:38):
For the bigger arts organizations.
I assume ticket sales must playinto the measurement as well,
in terms of like, if you'repromoting a Carnegie Hall
concert, would thatresponsibility come on to you,
or is it a shared idea?
Patricia Price (05:54):
Sometimes it depends on the scope of our work
.
For some artists or artsorganizations we are
specifically focused on themedia hits we are getting and
not necessarily marketing theconcerts, but sometimes we do
market various concerts and thenwe're very focused on how to
get tickets sold.
Elizabeth Bowman (06:12):
The past.
I guess 13 years that's how old8VA is 13?
.
The landscape of artsjournalism and then the rise of
the importance of digital media.
How has that changed the waythat you approach each case, now
that short form videos are soimportant and there are less
(06:34):
arts journalists employed byeach paper and now you have to
do a lot of cross-pitching?
Tell me a bit about that.
Patricia Price (06:41):
So it's interesting because when we
started, we were one of thefirst companies to help artists
with their social media, whichsounds crazy.
Everything I say lately soundsvery old, and that's one of the
things that sounds very old thatartists weren't really
outsourcing social media help,so they weren't outsourcing
(07:01):
social media advertising.
They weren't outsourcing socialmedia posting, and that has
grown to be an important pointof contact for audiences with
artists and arts organizations.
Obviously, it's an imperativepart now.
You can't be a serious musicianwho's trying to reach audiences
or a serious organizationthat's trying to reach audiences
without social media.
(07:22):
That being said, the pendulum isa little swinging back as far
as I advise clients to make surethat they're not investing a
black hole amount of time insocial media, because if you
want to be a TikTok influencer,you can spend all of your
working time focused on TikTok,and that's not necessarily what
we want the great violinists orpianists or cellists of our time
(07:44):
to be doing, and that's notnecessarily what we want the
great violinists or pianists orcellists of our time to be doing
.
So that's something where I tryto really focus our artists and
arts organizations on what willmake the largest difference With
the change in the medialandscape.
There are so many onlineoutlets that we try to have a
mix of media coverage, soartists and arts organizations
(08:07):
feel like they are gettingwell-rounded coverage, even if
it's not the big New York Timeshit or a big Wall Street Journal
hit, while those are veryimportant still, and often we
are lucky to get them with ourclients.
It's something that we alsolike to supplement with some of
the great online outlets, and inthose outlets often you get a
(08:28):
more comprehensive picture ofwhat the artistic experience is
like, and that can be morevaluable through the echo
chamber of the artist's socialmedia than one big hit that goes
in the newspaper bin the nextday.
Elizabeth Bowman (08:40):
Yeah, I was thinking, as you were saying,
that one thing that I think is acommon mistake for artists is,
when they get a story in thepaper, to simply leave it in the
paper and not compound it ontheir social media platforms.
But there are certainly ways todo it that are more interesting
, like grabbing quotes from it,doing carousel posts on
(09:03):
Instagram or even TikTok, ifanyone's on there anymore.
Patricia Price (09:09):
If TikTok's open again, yeah, I've got golden
retrievers and you know, greatinterior design and some of our
artists on TikTok that I scrollthrough, unfortunately, probably
at least 30 minutes a day,which is pretty, pretty good.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:25):
Yeah, I mean it's your job to to obviously
have a look at what's going onwith your clients, and so it's
excusable.
Patricia Price (09:33):
I would say I don't think golden retrievers
are part of my job, but I wouldlove to find a way to have
golden retriever puppies be apart of my job.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:43):
Yeah, speaking of common mistakes that artists
might make, do you haveanything to add to that?
Are there things that artistscan do and should not do when
thinking about their image?
Patricia Price (09:54):
On social media specifically, I always recommend
we always recommend athree-legged stool of content.
Sometimes artists get a littletoo self-focused or can get to
the point of having theiraudiences be alienated because
it's a little too promotional.
So the three-legged stool toolis one leg being
(10:16):
self-promotional.
So I've got this concert comingup, here's this album, here's a
great collaboration I am doing.
One leg shareable content.
So here is my take on thisgreat work and this is how I
conduct it.
Or this is how I play it.
Or here's another reallywonderful artist I'm admiring.
Look how they do this.
(10:36):
And then the third leg, whereit's just a more personal look
at the artist or organizationand that doesn't mean too
personal.
This means their goldenretriever puppy or their dinner
or something that their travels,something that's interesting
and personal, but not anovershare.
Elizabeth Bowman (10:55):
I call it curated honesty.
Yeah for sure, yes, yeah Tosome degree with boundaries.
Yeah, I mean, if you're a publicfigure, there certainly should
be boundaries.
So I don't feel that's an uglyterm, it's just.
It is what it is.
It's curated honesty and it'salso somewhat calculated when
you're thinking of your careerarc and building up to certain
(11:17):
events and building interest onthose outlets.
So it makes.
It makes a hundred percentsense and you don't want to post
too much.
I find some artists are justit's just too much too like it's
going because they've beenencouraged to post like every
day for the algorithm.
Patricia Price (11:36):
Post every day, which will obviously decline.
Usually you see a decline inthe followers if you do that.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:41):
Yeah, it's not a good idea.
I'm not sure why that adviceever surfaced on the on the
internet, but I've taught PR anddigital media, most recently
Banff Center in Joel Ivany'sopera program there, and that's
been something I've heard thathas been taught in some young
(12:03):
artists programs that theyshould be posting every day, and
I have to absolutely disagree.
You have to have purpose behindevery post.
Patricia Price (12:11):
And the good takeaway.
Part of that advice is thatsometimes young artists don't
dedicate an hour a day to theircareer, and that's very useful
and imperative.
Artists do need to answer theiremail every day, respond about
contracts, think about theirwebsite, think about their
social media channels.
And some young artists makegreat, beautiful music and think
(12:36):
that that will turn into alarge career and are rudely
awakened when they have to havea combination of business skills
and beautiful musicality.
Elizabeth Bowman (12:44):
Yeah, it is a necessary evil, I guess, for
lack of a better term forartists these days.
They have to be entrepreneurs.
Even if they're hiring a PRfirm or a marketing firm to help
them with their strategy, theystill need to actually be
involved in that.
That's another thing.
Do you have people that mightcome to you and think that you
(13:07):
just have magic without theminputting enough?
Patricia Price (13:10):
We are lucky to have our clients come to us in
all cases these days, which is areally beautiful place to be,
and when artists come to us,usually I look for performances
and key press center dates, somelevel of recording component,
and then what I call specialsauce, which means that they
(13:34):
have a reason for why they areimportant now, why we need to
get them coverage now.
And if they don't have at leastthose first two things so
performances and key centerdates and some level of
recording that can be video tooThen they're a little too early
for us to be able to help themfully.
We're also looking forlong-term relationships, so we
(13:56):
don't work on projects.
There are a lot of great PRfirms who do work on a CD or one
performance, where we arereally after long-term
relationships with clients wherewe can help them build a career
or an organization over severalyears.
So they're coming to us at acertain point when they have all
of those things in place.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:15):
That's something that makes sense for
all PR and marketingrelationships with clients, this
yearly idea, this continuousrelationship, because, first of
all, if you have one project,you need sometimes you need a
year of lead time to get theresult that you're going to want
(14:35):
to get, to be satisfied.
So, if you have an album comingout, you need your publicist or
your marketer or whoever'sinvolved in your career to be
thinking about the angle beforeyou even step into the recording
studio, because you don't knowwhat behind the scenes footage
you're going to want to grab.
You're going to want to have astrategy in place with all those
(15:00):
assets and I understand it'sdifficult because budgets don't
allow it and, especially withyounger, emerging artists, they
are challenged with a marketthat won't fund the same way it
used to.
Patricia Price (15:11):
Yeah, there are a lot of really wonderful
competitions and young artistsprograms that if you win them,
you get more comprehensivesupport through the prize and
that's a great way for artistswho are really going to be able
to break to have that supportthat they need early on.
Elizabeth Bowman (15:29):
That's a good piece of advice.
Competitions obviously areextremely high, high pressure,
but obviously the business ishigh pressure, so it's no
different than the business.
So what competitions come tomind when you're thinking of,
let's say, a pianist or aviolinist or a singer?
Patricia Price (15:47):
It's interesting from your home country, the
Honens competition.
They look for the completeartist, which is an interesting
angle that has a component ofbeing able to speak with media,
to be able to think aboutprogramming, to have a unique
perspective on a career, and Ifind that very useful because
(16:08):
that creates a winner that's notjust a technician.
There are so many reallybeautiful, wonderful technicians
these days.
The conservatories areproducing amazing musicians at a
constant rate.
So to be able to break throughthat pretty deep landscape of
artists coming out, you alsohave something unique to say,
(16:28):
and I think that the completeartist is a way of thinking
through that.
And Honens is also reallywonderful in supporting the
laureate, which is what theycall their winner for the time
period after their win, for thattime period, so they are able
to get up on their feet andbuild a career within that nice
block of a couple of years.
Elizabeth Bowman (16:48):
How do they measure that?
Do they interview?
Patricia Price (17:06):
each of the participants.
So I think they are on tosomething, as far as let's not
just see who can play rock threethe best Although I was in the
hall when won the Cliburncompetition and that was a once
in a lifetime performance thathas launched one of the greatest
careers probably we will eversee.
That's also important, butthat's probably also a once in a
(17:28):
lifetime performance.
It's not not necessarily enoughto play rock three really,
really well.
Elizabeth Bowman (17:34):
Can you share uh, I know these relationships
are confidential, uh, sometimesso with your clients and the
work that you're doing?
I mean I used to say, uh, if mywork is silent, then I've done
a good job.
You know like, if if no oneunderstands that, then I've done
(17:54):
a good job.
You know like, if no oneunderstands that you know there
was anyone helping you, thenI've done a good job.
But if you can share a successstory where a client saw
dramatic transformation, theycame to you and they had a need
to perform certain repertoireand and they were known a
certain way, and then you had toshift that, or an organization
was struggling and then youbrought success.
Patricia Price (18:16):
Some of the most gratifying work are the young
artists that we have theopportunity to work with.
So we're really lucky to workwith household names like A and
Anne Akiko Meyers and LeonardSlatkin and George Schwartz and
all these really amazingmusicians that our job is to
amplify what they're doing andthey are going to be great
(18:37):
musicians, with or withoutPatricia Price, and people will
pay attention.
Hopefully I honor theirbeautiful careers with a lot of
help and amplification, butthey're going to be fine without
me.
What's really exciting for meare the young musicians we get
to work with and grow throughour work, and sometimes that
turns into the difference ofmusicians having a large career
(19:02):
and maybe just having a smallercareer.
Sandbox Percussion is one.
We've been with them forseveral years.
A percussion quartet is alittle bit rare.
It's hard to break through as apercussion quartet.
They didn't come to us whenthey were too young, but we were
able to work with them and getthem a substantial New York
Times profile.
That took quite a while to get,but we were able to bend the
(19:25):
ears of the right writers whoreally got to know them, got to
know Andy Akiho, the greatcomposer, who wrote Seven
Pillars for them during thepandemic and that broke through
to be Grammy nominated.
We just had them on Tiny Desk.
So they're going frompercussion quartets, which are
(19:47):
by nature a little in obscurity,to platforms like Tiny Desk,
where you have the highestrecognition of artists.
We also had this reallyinteresting project this year
which was a little out of thenorm for us Graham Steele
Johnson, a great clarinetist,discovered this octet that he
beautifully restored octet thathe beautifully restored, that
(20:11):
he got from the Library ofCongress and premiered in DC and
New York and had a recordingand it's gone viral and it's not
something that I would havenormally thought, oh, this is
going to be an out-of-the-parksuccess.
But it's just such beautifulmusic and so earnestly performed
with such a dedication to thecraft that people are
(20:35):
experiencing it because we areable to put it in their hands
and they're loving it.
So it got New York Timescoverage.
It got Washington Post coverage.
This is an obscure composer inan obscure format, with the
octet, with a clarinetist.
It's like none of these piecesare what I would normally say.
Well, duh, this should getcoverage.
(20:55):
It was really exciting to beable to take someone's work when
they've so dedicated themselvesto something and then have it
work out.
I felt the same with Andy'sSeven Pillars.
He worked on that for years andyears and years before people
heard it.
So when you hear it and it'sthe greatest percussion work of
all time, I'm not saying thatlightly you think, oh my gosh,
(21:21):
thank goodness we got themassive New York Times profile,
because this deserves it, but itwasn't a sure deal that it
would get that.
So for him to do his thing andfor us to do our thing and for
the combination to result inwhat it needed to is really
exciting.
Elizabeth Bowman (21:30):
That's where your investment in your contacts
and their belief in you and yousaying this is the real deal,
this is worth listening to.
You have the right ears.
That's where this really makesa huge difference.
I mean, we're so lucky.
Patricia Price (21:49):
I get off my Zoom calls at the end of the day
and I think what is this lifethat I am living, where I've
been on six hours of Zooms andevery hour I've had geniuses of
our time on the other end and weget to talk about ideas and we
get to talk about what they'redoing and they're taking my
advice.
(22:09):
Why I don't.
I mean, I kind of know, andusually it's, it's very it works
out.
But I think I'm really lucky tobe able to share great
musicianship and ultimately ithas nothing to do really with my
contacts, it just has to dowith we are lucky to have an
amazing roster that's creatingbeautiful, beautiful music and I
(22:30):
get to tell people about it.
Elizabeth Bowman (22:31):
That's great.
Let's take this in a differentdirection Now.
I'm interested to hear how yousee AI and augmented reality
playing a role in the future ofarts marketing.
I know it, creativity and trueart will always have this human
component that no AI couldreplace.
Patricia Price (23:06):
You're not going to have a beautiful piano
performance that makes you singon the inside and the hair go up
on your arms, without a humansoul behind it.
That being said, I think thereare certain intellectual
property issues that need to bevery carefully guarded around.
So people's intellectualproperty is not taken in context
(23:28):
of composition, in the contextof very literature, et cetera,
et cetera.
Where I think it can be helpfulis as an inspiration for
writing, as an inspiration forcontent.
I find it helpful if I have ablank page and I'm having a
challenge thinking about what Iwant to say, fitting into Chat
GPT what I'm trying to do andseeing what it produces so that
(23:50):
I can write my own thing.
But sometimes it takes awaywriter's block.
You know there are also thingslike social media content that
can be interesting to see whatit creates and that can be a
starting point for saving time.
It's an amazing tool that weshouldn't be too precious to not
use it just because there areparts of it that need to have
(24:10):
boundaries.
This is a theme of ourconversation, but have
boundaries around.
Yeah, I think we will continueto evolve with it.
It's a theme of ourconversation but have boundaries
around.
Yeah, I think we will continueto evolve with it.
It's a really wonderful toolfor translation too.
I think we will continue to seehow it affects what we do.
But as far as actual musicalproduct I shouldn't say product
in this context, because in thiscontext I'm not meaning product
(24:32):
, I'm meaning musicalexperiences it's something that
we'll never be able to createmagic.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:37):
I would never want to go to an AI performance.
I wasn't trying to say in termsof the creative process for the
musician or the marketing tools.
Yeah, as a marketing tool.
I think it really can tool, Ithink it really can.
(25:02):
We have a statistics problem.
I think in arts marketing interms of reading numbers more
than others.
I mean, obviously there arealgorithms you can read,
facebook post goes up and youget your report back.
But in most big businesses theyhave data scientists who are
analyzing that data full timeand in the arts it seems like
there are not.
(25:22):
Like you won't have a datascientist necessarily hired on
staff for an opera company orsymphony.
I'm hoping that that ischanging, that they are going to
start employing data scientists, but I do think that AI will
help with budget constrictedorganizations like those in the
arts, to take that data andanalyze it in a way that is more
(25:48):
affordable, so that we can takeadvantage of it in the industry
as well and not necessarilyhire someone for $200,000 or
whatever these data scientistsare getting paid, because I
think they're getting paid quitea lot of money.
You know I don't want to takejobs away from data scientists,
but throw us a bone in the arts,it's true, yeah, anyway, thanks
(26:08):
for coming into the scene roomand I really enjoyed our chat
today and I hope we'll do itagain Thanks for having me so
great to see you.
Hi, I'm Elizabeth Bowman and welcome to
the Scene Room.
Today I have Patricia Pricehere.
She is one of the managingdirectors for 8VA Music
Consultancy, one of the world'sleading marketing and public
relations firms.
She and her husband, mattHerman, founded 8VA in 2012.
Their roster, if you look attheir website, includes
(00:23):
conductor Alexander Shelley,Anne Akiko Meyers , clarinetist
Anthony McGill, Bravo! Vail, theBeijing Music Festival, the
Cliburn Competition, the CurtisInstitute of Music, the Dover
Quartet, just to name a few.
I'm looking forward to chattingwith Trish.
All about the business, Trish.
Welcome to the scene room.
Patricia Price (00:45):
Lizzie, thanks for having me.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:47):
I thought this was appropriate attire for
today.
Patricia Price (00:50):
We have hoodies.
I need to get you a hoodie.
Elizabeth Bowman (00:53):
Oh, I'd love a hoodie.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I didn't realize this came inhoodies as well.
This is like what if this wasfrom your 10th anniversary for
8VA?
Yes, yeah, three years ago,
I think that was my first real outing in New
York after the pandemic shutdown.
Patricia Price (01:11):
Yes, we say it was the best and last party we
will ever have, becauseeverybody was so ready to get
out and about.
Elizabeth Bowman (01:19):
Yeah, no, it was great, and it was great to
see everyone's faces and therewere many, many great artists
present and performances and,yeah, it was really fun.
For the listeners who aren'tfamiliar with 8VA, which is the
company that Trish and herhusband, Matt, founded, can you
tell us a bit about what you doand how the company came to be?
Patricia Price (01:42):
So we are very simply a publicity firm for
classical music, but in broaderterms, we are the leading
strategic consultancy inclassical music for a lot of
arts organizations, top soloists, conductors, festivals,
competitions, and we work withorganizations and artists all
(02:06):
over the world on amplifyingtheir impact.
Elizabeth Bowman (02:10):
Okay, 8VA started, let's rewind.
Let's go to your beginnings.
Were you an artist before?
What's your background?
What's your education?
How did you land in 8VA?
Patricia Price (02:23):
I started out as a pianist so I've been training
for our work since I was three.
I'm also lucky that I'm notsaying would you like fries with
that Because I went on to getpiano performance degrees and
graduate degrees in pianoperformance.
I studied in Vienna as aFulbrighter and then came back
(02:43):
and started my career in therecord industry and I was lucky
to come into the record industryat a time when it was really
compressing.
So I was given a lot ofresponsibility at a pretty early
stage and I ran the classicaldivision of a late grown media
group which was a largedistributor at the time with
about 70 distributed classicallabels at the time with about 70
(03:09):
distributed classical labels,and I thought I wanted to be the
executive director of anorchestra someday.
So I got my MBA and while I wasworking then a perfect position
for me came up as the executivedirector of Portland Piano
International, which is a greatnonprofit in Portland Oregon and
they have a recital series anda festival and that was
wonderful experience as theirexecutive director, working on
(03:31):
the nonprofit side and seeingwhat that was really like.
And for me the fundraising partof being an executive director
was not as close to the music asI wanted to be.
I wanted to be in dailyconversations with artists
making an impact in an artisticway, so I started consulting on
the side, which quickly grew tobe 8VA, what would later become
(03:52):
8VA.
We had a business partner inLondon for a while and now we've
had the current iteration forabout 13 years.
We feel really lucky to do whatwe do.
My husband came from the PRside PR and marketing side so
our combined skillset was acomplimentary offering for
musicians and organizations andit's really nice that I still
(04:14):
get to be involved in thenonprofit side of a lot of
organizations.
But in this way I feel like I'mable to make a larger impact in
our beautiful classical musicworld.
Elizabeth Bowman (04:25):
Can I ask how 8VA measures the impact of your
work for arts organizations andindividuals?
Patricia Price (04:32):
So it depends on the client, because I think for
every client they're wanting tomake sure that their artistic
product is seen and experiencedat as broad of a level as it can
be and that doesn't look thesame for any two of our clients.
For some festivals that mightbe a large media hit where
(04:58):
they're getting a large featurein the New York Times.
For some of our artists thatmight be a more comprehensive
feature where they are reallyseen for their artistry in an
expansive, more intimate way.
So we have different things.
You can measure the advertisingvalue equivalent where you take
a multiple of what the paidadvertising would be for earned
(05:22):
media.
You can see reach of socialmedia posts.
There are a lot of actualmetrics you follow, but
ultimately my level of successfeels like when an artist is
really satisfied and feels likeour work is helping them reach
more people.
Elizabeth Bowman (05:38):
For the bigger arts organizations.
I assume ticket sales must playinto the measurement as well,
in terms of like, if you'repromoting a Carnegie Hall
concert, would thatresponsibility come on to you,
or is it a shared idea?
Patricia Price (05:54):
Sometimes it depends on the scope of our work
.
For some artists or artsorganizations we are
specifically focused on themedia hits we are getting and
not necessarily marketing theconcerts, but sometimes we do
market various concerts and thenwe're very focused on how to
get tickets sold.
Elizabeth Bowman (06:12):
The past.
I guess 13 years that's how old8VA is 13?
.
The landscape of artsjournalism and then the rise of
the importance of digital media.
How has that changed the waythat you approach each case, now
that short form videos are soimportant and there are less
(06:34):
arts journalists employed byeach paper and now you have to
do a lot of cross-pitching?
Tell me a bit about that.
Patricia Price (06:41):
So it's interesting because when we
started, we were one of thefirst companies to help artists
with their social media, whichsounds crazy.
Everything I say lately soundsvery old, and that's one of the
things that sounds very old thatartists weren't really
outsourcing social media help,so they weren't outsourcing
(07:01):
social media advertising.
They weren't outsourcing socialmedia posting, and that has
grown to be an important pointof contact for audiences with
artists and arts organizations.
Obviously, it's an imperativepart now.
You can't be a serious musicianwho's trying to reach audiences
or a serious organizationthat's trying to reach audiences
without social media.
(07:22):
That being said, the pendulum isa little swinging back as far
as I advise clients to make surethat they're not investing a
black hole amount of time insocial media, because if you
want to be a TikTok influencer,you can spend all of your
working time focused on TikTok,and that's not necessarily what
we want the great violinists orpianists or cellists of our time
(07:44):
to be doing, and that's notnecessarily what we want the
great violinists or pianists orcellists of our time to be doing
.
So that's something where I tryto really focus our artists and
arts organizations on what willmake the largest difference With
the change in the medialandscape.
There are so many onlineoutlets that we try to have a
mix of media coverage, soartists and arts organizations
(08:07):
feel like they are gettingwell-rounded coverage, even if
it's not the big New York Timeshit or a big Wall Street Journal
hit, while those are veryimportant still, and often we
are lucky to get them with ourclients.
It's something that we alsolike to supplement with some of
the great online outlets, and inthose outlets often you get a
(08:28):
more comprehensive picture ofwhat the artistic experience is
like, and that can be morevaluable through the echo
chamber of the artist's socialmedia than one big hit that goes
in the newspaper bin the nextday.
Elizabeth Bowman (08:40):
Yeah, I was thinking, as you were saying,
that one thing that I think is acommon mistake for artists is,
when they get a story in thepaper, to simply leave it in the
paper and not compound it ontheir social media platforms.
But there are certainly ways todo it that are more interesting
, like grabbing quotes from it,doing carousel posts on
(09:03):
Instagram or even TikTok, ifanyone's on there anymore.
Patricia Price (09:09):
If TikTok's open again, yeah, I've got golden
retrievers and you know, greatinterior design and some of our
artists on TikTok that I scrollthrough, unfortunately, probably
at least 30 minutes a day,which is pretty, pretty good.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:25):
Yeah, I mean it's your job to to obviously
have a look at what's going onwith your clients, and so it's
excusable.
Patricia Price (09:33):
I would say I don't think golden retrievers
are part of my job, but I wouldlove to find a way to have
golden retriever puppies be apart of my job.
Elizabeth Bowman (09:43):
Yeah, speaking of common mistakes that artists
might make, do you haveanything to add to that?
Are there things that artistscan do and should not do when
thinking about their image?
Patricia Price (09:54):
On social media specifically, I always recommend
we always recommend athree-legged stool of content.
Sometimes artists get a littletoo self-focused or can get to
the point of having theiraudiences be alienated because
it's a little too promotional.
So the three-legged stool toolis one leg being
(10:16):
self-promotional.
So I've got this concert comingup, here's this album, here's a
great collaboration I am doing.
One leg shareable content.
So here is my take on thisgreat work and this is how I
conduct it.
Or this is how I play it.
Or here's another reallywonderful artist I'm admiring.
Look how they do this.
(10:36):
And then the third leg, whereit's just a more personal look
at the artist or organizationand that doesn't mean too
personal.
This means their goldenretriever puppy or their dinner
or something that their travels,something that's interesting
and personal, but not anovershare.
Elizabeth Bowman (10:55):
I call it curated honesty.
Yeah for sure, yes, yeah Tosome degree with boundaries.
Yeah, I mean, if you're a publicfigure, there certainly should
be boundaries.
So I don't feel that's an uglyterm, it's just.
It is what it is.
It's curated honesty and it'salso somewhat calculated when
you're thinking of your careerarc and building up to certain
(11:17):
events and building interest onthose outlets.
So it makes.
It makes a hundred percentsense and you don't want to post
too much.
I find some artists are justit's just too much too like it's
going because they've beenencouraged to post like every
day for the algorithm.
Patricia Price (11:36):
Post every day, which will obviously decline.
Usually you see a decline inthe followers if you do that.
Elizabeth Bowman (11:41):
Yeah, it's not a good idea.
I'm not sure why that adviceever surfaced on the on the
internet, but I've taught PR anddigital media, most recently
Banff Center in Joel Ivany'sopera program there, and that's
been something I've heard thathas been taught in some young
(12:03):
artists programs that theyshould be posting every day, and
I have to absolutely disagree.
You have to have purpose behindevery post.
Patricia Price (12:11):
And the good takeaway.
Part of that advice is thatsometimes young artists don't
dedicate an hour a day to theircareer, and that's very useful
and imperative.
Artists do need to answer theiremail every day, respond about
contracts, think about theirwebsite, think about their
social media channels.
And some young artists makegreat, beautiful music and think
(12:36):
that that will turn into alarge career and are rudely
awakened when they have to havea combination of business skills
and beautiful musicality.
Elizabeth Bowman (12:44):
Yeah, it is a necessary evil, I guess, for
lack of a better term forartists these days.
They have to be entrepreneurs.
Even if they're hiring a PRfirm or a marketing firm to help
them with their strategy, theystill need to actually be
involved in that.
That's another thing.
Do you have people that mightcome to you and think that you
(13:07):
just have magic without theminputting enough?
Patricia Price (13:10):
We are lucky to have our clients come to us in
all cases these days, which is areally beautiful place to be,
and when artists come to us,usually I look for performances
and key press center dates, somelevel of recording component,
and then what I call specialsauce, which means that they
(13:34):
have a reason for why they areimportant now, why we need to
get them coverage now.
And if they don't have at leastthose first two things so
performances and key centerdates and some level of
recording that can be video tooThen they're a little too early
for us to be able to help themfully.
We're also looking forlong-term relationships, so we
(13:56):
don't work on projects.
There are a lot of great PRfirms who do work on a CD or one
performance, where we arereally after long-term
relationships with clients wherewe can help them build a career
or an organization over severalyears.
So they're coming to us at acertain point when they have all
of those things in place.
Elizabeth Bowman (14:15):
That's something that makes sense for
all PR and marketingrelationships with clients, this
yearly idea, this continuousrelationship, because, first of
all, if you have one project,you need sometimes you need a
year of lead time to get theresult that you're going to want
(14:35):
to get, to be satisfied.
So, if you have an album comingout, you need your publicist or
your marketer or whoever'sinvolved in your career to be
thinking about the angle beforeyou even step into the recording
studio, because you don't knowwhat behind the scenes footage
you're going to want to grab.
You're going to want to have astrategy in place with all those
(15:00):
assets and I understand it'sdifficult because budgets don't
allow it and, especially withyounger, emerging artists, they
are challenged with a marketthat won't fund the same way it
used to.
Patricia Price (15:11):
Yeah, there are a lot of really wonderful
competitions and young artistsprograms that if you win them,
you get more comprehensivesupport through the prize and
that's a great way for artistswho are really going to be able
to break to have that supportthat they need early on.
Elizabeth Bowman (15:29):
That's a good piece of advice.
Competitions obviously areextremely high, high pressure,
but obviously the business ishigh pressure, so it's no
different than the business.
So what competitions come tomind when you're thinking of,
let's say, a pianist or aviolinist or a singer?
Patricia Price (15:47):
It's interesting from your home country, the
Honens competition.
They look for the completeartist, which is an interesting
angle that has a component ofbeing able to speak with media,
to be able to think aboutprogramming, to have a unique
perspective on a career, and Ifind that very useful because
(16:08):
that creates a winner that's notjust a technician.
There are so many reallybeautiful, wonderful technicians
these days.
The conservatories areproducing amazing musicians at a
constant rate.
So to be able to break throughthat pretty deep landscape of
artists coming out, you alsohave something unique to say,
(16:28):
and I think that the completeartist is a way of thinking
through that.
And Honens is also reallywonderful in supporting the
laureate, which is what theycall their winner for the time
period after their win, for thattime period, so they are able
to get up on their feet andbuild a career within that nice
block of a couple of years.
Elizabeth Bowman (16:48):
How do they measure that?
Do they interview?
Patricia Price (17:06):
each of the participants.
So I think they are on tosomething, as far as let's not
just see who can play rock threethe best Although I was in the
hall when won the Cliburncompetition and that was a once
in a lifetime performance thathas launched one of the greatest
careers probably we will eversee.
That's also important, butthat's probably also a once in a
(17:28):
lifetime performance.
It's not not necessarily enoughto play rock three really,
really well.
Elizabeth Bowman (17:34):
Can you share uh, I know these relationships
are confidential, uh, sometimesso with your clients and the
work that you're doing?
I mean I used to say, uh, if mywork is silent, then I've done
a good job.
You know like, if if no oneunderstands that, then I've done
(17:54):
a good job.
You know like, if no oneunderstands that you know there
was anyone helping you, thenI've done a good job.
But if you can share a successstory where a client saw
dramatic transformation, theycame to you and they had a need
to perform certain repertoireand and they were known a
certain way, and then you had toshift that, or an organization
was struggling and then youbrought success.
Patricia Price (18:16):
Some of the most gratifying work are the young
artists that we have theopportunity to work with.
So we're really lucky to workwith household names like A and
Anne Akiko Meyers and LeonardSlatkin and George Schwartz and
all these really amazingmusicians that our job is to
amplify what they're doing andthey are going to be great
(18:37):
musicians, with or withoutPatricia Price, and people will
pay attention.
Hopefully I honor theirbeautiful careers with a lot of
help and amplification, butthey're going to be fine without
me.
What's really exciting for meare the young musicians we get
to work with and grow throughour work, and sometimes that
turns into the difference ofmusicians having a large career
(19:02):
and maybe just having a smallercareer.
Sandbox Percussion is one.
We've been with them forseveral years.
A percussion quartet is alittle bit rare.
It's hard to break through as apercussion quartet.
They didn't come to us whenthey were too young, but we were
able to work with them and getthem a substantial New York
Times profile.
That took quite a while to get,but we were able to bend the
(19:25):
ears of the right writers whoreally got to know them, got to
know Andy Akiho, the greatcomposer, who wrote Seven
Pillars for them during thepandemic and that broke through
to be Grammy nominated.
We just had them on Tiny Desk.
So they're going frompercussion quartets, which are
(19:47):
by nature a little in obscurity,to platforms like Tiny Desk,
where you have the highestrecognition of artists.
We also had this reallyinteresting project this year
which was a little out of thenorm for us Graham Steele
Johnson, a great clarinetist,discovered this octet that he
beautifully restored octet thathe beautifully restored, that
(20:11):
he got from the Library ofCongress and premiered in DC and
New York and had a recordingand it's gone viral and it's not
something that I would havenormally thought, oh, this is
going to be an out-of-the-parksuccess.
But it's just such beautifulmusic and so earnestly performed
with such a dedication to thecraft that people are
(20:35):
experiencing it because we areable to put it in their hands
and they're loving it.
So it got New York Timescoverage.
It got Washington Post coverage.
This is an obscure composer inan obscure format, with the
octet, with a clarinetist.
It's like none of these piecesare what I would normally say.
Well, duh, this should getcoverage.
(20:55):
It was really exciting to beable to take someone's work when
they've so dedicated themselvesto something and then have it
work out.
I felt the same with Andy'sSeven Pillars.
He worked on that for years andyears and years before people
heard it.
So when you hear it and it'sthe greatest percussion work of
all time, I'm not saying thatlightly you think, oh my gosh,
(21:21):
thank goodness we got themassive New York Times profile,
because this deserves it, but itwasn't a sure deal that it
would get that.
So for him to do his thing andfor us to do our thing and for
the combination to result inwhat it needed to is really
exciting.
Elizabeth Bowman (21:30):
That's where your investment in your contacts
and their belief in you and yousaying this is the real deal,
this is worth listening to.
You have the right ears.
That's where this really makesa huge difference.
I mean, we're so lucky.
Patricia Price (21:49):
I get off my Zoom calls at the end of the day
and I think what is this lifethat I am living, where I've
been on six hours of Zooms andevery hour I've had geniuses of
our time on the other end and weget to talk about ideas and we
get to talk about what they'redoing and they're taking my
advice.
(22:09):
Why I don't.
I mean, I kind of know, andusually it's, it's very it works
out.
But I think I'm really lucky tobe able to share great
musicianship and ultimately ithas nothing to do really with my
contacts, it just has to dowith we are lucky to have an
amazing roster that's creatingbeautiful, beautiful music and I
(22:30):
get to tell people about it.
Elizabeth Bowman (22:31):
That's great.
Let's take this in a differentdirection Now.
I'm interested to hear how yousee AI and augmented reality
playing a role in the future ofarts marketing.
I know it, creativity and trueart will always have this human
component that no AI couldreplace.
Patricia Price (23:06):
You're not going to have a beautiful piano
performance that makes you singon the inside and the hair go up
on your arms, without a humansoul behind it.
That being said, I think thereare certain intellectual
property issues that need to bevery carefully guarded around.
So people's intellectualproperty is not taken in context
(23:28):
of composition, in the contextof very literature, et cetera,
et cetera.
Where I think it can be helpfulis as an inspiration for
writing, as an inspiration forcontent.
I find it helpful if I have ablank page and I'm having a
challenge thinking about what Iwant to say, fitting into Chat
GPT what I'm trying to do andseeing what it produces so that
(23:50):
I can write my own thing.
But sometimes it takes awaywriter's block.
You know there are also thingslike social media content that
can be interesting to see whatit creates and that can be a
starting point for saving time.
It's an amazing tool that weshouldn't be too precious to not
use it just because there areparts of it that need to have
(24:10):
boundaries.
This is a theme of ourconversation, but have
boundaries around.
Yeah, I think we will continueto evolve with it.
It's a theme of ourconversation but have boundaries
around.
Yeah, I think we will continueto evolve with it.
It's a really wonderful toolfor translation too.
I think we will continue to seehow it affects what we do.
But as far as actual musicalproduct I shouldn't say product
in this context, because in thiscontext I'm not meaning product
(24:32):
, I'm meaning musicalexperiences it's something that
we'll never be able to createmagic.
Elizabeth Bowman (24:37):
I would never want to go to an AI performance.
I wasn't trying to say in termsof the creative process for the
musician or the marketing tools.
Yeah, as a marketing tool.
I think it really can tool, Ithink it really can.
(25:02):
We have a statistics problem.
I think in arts marketing interms of reading numbers more
than others.
I mean, obviously there arealgorithms you can read,
facebook post goes up and youget your report back.
But in most big businesses theyhave data scientists who are
analyzing that data full timeand in the arts it seems like
there are not.
(25:22):
Like you won't have a datascientist necessarily hired on
staff for an opera company orsymphony.
I'm hoping that that ischanging, that they are going to
start employing data scientists, but I do think that AI will
help with budget constrictedorganizations like those in the
arts, to take that data andanalyze it in a way that is more
(25:48):
affordable, so that we can takeadvantage of it in the industry
as well and not necessarilyhire someone for $200,000 or
whatever these data scientistsare getting paid, because I
think they're getting paid quitea lot of money.
You know I don't want to takejobs away from data scientists,
but throw us a bone in the arts,it's true, yeah, anyway, thanks
(26:08):
for coming into the scene roomand I really enjoyed our chat
today and I hope we'll do itagain Thanks for having me so
great to see you.
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