In their new book, The Classical Musician Today: Getting and Keeping the Career You Want, they discuss the most important factors necessary for achieving success, from getting over nerves to putting together a great web site. As the title implies, the book has been written to help classical musicians understand what is required of them both personally and professionally for the best careers possible.

When people discuss ABI, they have nothing but the highest praise for all the work you are doing. One quote reads, "I know of no other arts organization that meets the needs of classical musicians so comprehensively." Another, regarding your piano competition is, "We believe the Bradshaw & Buono to be one of the most important competitions in the world." Please describe for us your approach to classical music in general and classical musicians in particular.

First of all, thank you for such high praise. We are very grateful. In working over the years both as performers and arts administrators, we have discovered that much of the help artists truly need to build their careers is not given consistently, nor is it designed to fit changing needs of a musician from one stage of the career to the next. This is perhaps one of the main reasons so many artists with great potential never realize it.

The artists who move classical music forward over time have not only had the luxury of a certain amount of financial support, but also a solid awareness of their own unique relationship to the music and what is needed for their individual talent to grow. One needs to know the personal and artistic demands being imposed in order to take the most intelligent next steps.

Our goal is to see to it that classical musicians have what they need at every stage of their development in order to fully maximize each opportunity, no matter how small. It is why, within the framework of ABI, we offer competitions, seminars, scholarships, and other initiatives that serve as building blocks for career-minded artists.

Is this also why you have written The Classical Musician?

Absolutely. The challenge for most artists is staying on course and not becoming discouraged, and not nearly enough artists know how. There are so many aspects of a career one does not really think about until he or she is confronted with them, and by then it is usually too late to make the most appropriate decisions. We want readers of this book to have the answers long before the questions get raised.

We also want them to understand how much they can do to foster their own success. Too many highly competent artists feel they are good only if someone else says they are, and they never take the time to evaluate their own talent. In order to be truly successful one has to know how to become the best musician possible psychologically, intellectually, musically, socially, and financially, from the inside out. We explain how to do this in the book and, in addition, have worked to discuss everything we think an artist needs to feel totally prepared at every point along the career path.

At the end of each chapter there are questions for the reader to answer, as well as more comments on each chapter at the end of the book. What is the purpose of presenting your materials in this way?

When it comes to professional issues, we want artists to keep to a minimum the sentences in life that start with "If I had only known...." We also want to engage the reader in a kind of self-dialogue that will reveal personal ideas, attitudes, and maybe even misconceptions that should be addressed. We show them how to develop a confidence in their own abilities that does not have to come from outside compliments or praise, but is a function of having set personal goals, musically and artistically, that one is able to continuously meet and even exceed.