Guest Blog By Adalia Wen ’29
My J-term marketing internship with Boston Baroque allowed me to gain hands-on experience with marketing and general exposure to a business environment, while reconnecting me with my musical roots. I gravitated towards this internship because I grew up in Boston’s classical music scene, and I knew I wanted to try engaging in the arts in a different way than performance or teaching. During high school, I helped manage the chamber music program I attended, working directly under its director in a wide variety of administrative tasks. With this winternship, I looked to expand on that past experience in a more professional manner.
Boston Baroque is a local arts non-profit and baroque orchestra, and they focus on baroque, classical, and occasionally contemporary music. Boston is home to quite a few classical music ensembles, including the BSO, Boston Lyric Opera, Handel & Haydn Society, Mercury Orchestra, Apollo Ensemble, A Far Cry. In this throng of peer organizations, Boston Baroque must constantly reaffirm its unique identity and distinguish its programming. Since marketing directly works to curate the nonprofit’s expression of these core values, the department is an essential piece of the puzzle and has the perspective to make guiding insights and consequential suggestions for the operations of the organization.
My main project during these three weeks was to design a campaign for Boston Baroque’s upcoming performance of Mozart’s Idomeneo in April. However, before I got started with that, my supervisor allotted time towards covering the basics of marketing and helping me become acquainted with Boston Baroque and its peer organizations. The latter was accomplished through a project where I created a report assessing BB’s peer organizations and comparing their work to Boston Baroque’s. I was also allowed to compile suggestions that had come to mind in the process of making the report, from things as minor as changing certain links on the website, to my reactions on new creative directions that Boston Baroque had freshly undertaken. Not only did this exercise effectively familiarize me with BB and Boston’s classical music scene from the inside out, it also showed me how these organizations dealt with having something as intangible as “art” as their product.
As for the main project, the assignment was very engaging to work on for its artistic components and classical music subject. I was able to do research on the opera, covering its cultural context, musical significance, position in Mozart’s career and life, legacy, and more; I studied how other companies marketed their productions of Idomeneo; and I examined the way Boston Baroque marketed their operas in the past. As I pulled together the final look of the campaign and consolidated my pr ideas, I also made mockups of posters, flyers, emails, and social media posts. Overall, it felt good to have made a contribution to the team while indulging in one of my passions.
I deeply appreciate that this internship allowed me to have my own project without sacrificing my relationship to the rest of the team. Though it was a virtual office space, and I was mostly left to my own devices while designing the campaign, I did not feel siloed. I attended staff meetings, chatted with every staff member one-on-one, and had fun in the #social channel on Slack. Being able to connect with every member of the staff ended up feeling as meaningful as submitting my final project. Because I had a lot of respect for the staff, in turn, I believe, they received my ideas thoughtfully. All and all, I was very grateful for their trust. Furthermore, from my one-on-one conversations, I was able to hear about how Boston Baroque’s nonprofit status shaped the way their roles looked, and was introduced to some interesting considerations, such as, “how can the core values/mission of an organization be designed so that it may survive changing times and give itself space to grow?”, and “where does a brand exist and how?”.
Overall, this internship offered me a great view into the mechanics of non-profits and arts organizations simultaneously, while giving me workplace experience. I am more interested in marketing than I ever thought I’d be; I gained insight into the operation of non-profits, which I’m interested in working with in general; and I fulfilled my initial goal of working in the arts world in a non-performance capacity.
But most importantly, I was able to work side by side with people who have similar backgrounds and considerations for their careers as life-long music lovers. It was gratifying to see that they love their job because the product is something they believe in 100%.
