244 Madison Avenue Suite 300 New York, NY 10016 TEL: (212) 947-4503 FAX: (212) 904-1302

alexanderbuono.com

Alexander & Buono International

Career consulting for the arts

As a company, Alexander & Buono International enjoys a global reputation as the only consulting firm of its kind, while occupying a unique position in the classical music and arts marketplace. With more than half a century of performance, marketing, and publicity experience as the bedrock for their work, Barry Alexander (Chairman & COO) and Cosmo Buono (Chairman & CEO) fully understand the issues associated with enjoying success in the fields of classical music, as well as the visual and performing arts, and are therefore able to offer clients counsel, expertise, and results-oriented guidance. Whether through performance, music education, arts administration, or a vast array of associated professions, the goal of the firm remains simplifying the process by which artists establish fulfilling careers in the classical arts. As the firm has grown, so have its companies, which are designed to facilitate this progression. With competitions for Piano, Voice, Strings, and Flute, publications, a music festival, and a foundation offering scholarships and study grants, ABI is continuing its commitment to helping artists realize their dreams. ABI’s focus is to treat the arts as one would any other business, while showing clients how to assess, market, and develop their skills in order to create greater visibility and awareness of their work. The firm also guides them in the processes of interfacing with companies, organizations, institutions, and potential audiences through publicity campaigns, and effective use of media. Individual client counseling, business seminars, and career guidance initiatives round out efforts to make sure that the firm is, in every way possible, helping to not only ensure a strong future for the classical arts, but also for those who will help define them.

The Alexander & Buono Competitions When Cosmo Buono began the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition in 2004, one fact was very clear: large numbers of aspiring pianists, many of them world class, were not being given the opportunities necessary to play professionally. Further, ways to pursue a career, both artistically and financially, remained elusive. Becoming known through winning major competitions, which can sometimes lead to success, was an expensive process that involved months of elimination rounds and travel, with no guarantee of winning a prize. Even the winners would often describe to Mr. Buono how they used the money they received to take more lessons and travel to other auditions, but once it was spent, they still did not have a career. It was for these reasons that Mr. Buono decided to do things differently. He and the late David Bradshaw allowed contestants to submit their applications by mail, along with a recording of their playing, thereby eliminating travel costs. Judges chose multiple first prize winners in five age categories from recordings alone. Also, instead of offering a monetary prize, they felt it was more important to provide the single, and perhaps most significant credential they knew of to help launch a career—a debut at Carnegie Hall. “After all,” said Mr. Buono, “what good are all those years of study and hard work if an artist is never heard in performance?” Hundreds of applicants later, the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition continues to help launch the careers of world class pianists through its annual Winners’ Recital at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall. One winner describes his own situation. “I was performing, but not a lot, before I won the Bradshaw & Buono. As soon as I was able to put Carnegie Hall on my CV, I was given invitations not only to perform, but also to teach. There is no question in my mind that Carnegie Hall made all the difference.” With the success of the Bradshaw & Buono steadily increasing, Mr. Buono hired Barry Alexander, a publicist, to help build more visibility for the competition. Given Mr. Alexander’s background as an opera singer, Mr. Buono thought it would also be possible to use the same business model to begin a vocal competition. They thus created the Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition, which had its first Winners’ Recital at Carnegie Hall in January of 2008. This led to establishing The Alexander & Buono International String Competition inaugurated in November of 2009, and the Alexander & Buono International Flute Competition, which began in 2010. The four organizations are now known as The Alexander & Buono Competitions, or ABC (alexanderbuono.com). Designed to help classical musicians further their careers, ABC presents selected laureates of the competitions in concerts throughout the world, and also as part of the Alexander & Buono Festival of Music, held annually. Career guidance and development are also offered, as well as seminars called “The Business of Music,” designed to help artists better understand how to manage their careers. Messrs. Alexander and Buono have also established The Alexander & Buono Foundation, and The Annual ABC Gala at Carnegie Hall, which raise more money for scholarships, study grants, and opportunities for the winners of the competitions to be heard. Their work is doing much to ensure that careers of the next generation of artists will be both developed, and sustained.

The Alexander & Buono Foundation (ABF) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation established in 2008 with a mission is to identify the world’s most promising classical musicians and help them launch and sustain careers, while developing new audiences who understand, value, and appreciate classical music.

ABF began by supporting the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition (BBIPC), designed as an entrée for classical pianists into the world of professional piano performance. The success of the business model led to the founding of three other competitions for Voice, Strings and Flute by Messrs. Alexander & Buono, now known as The Alexander & Buono Competitions (ABC), that are designed to bring some of the world’s most promising new classical artists to the attention of the public through a debut at Carnegie Hall.

Since its inception ABF has helped to launch and sustain the careers of more than four hundred competition winners. The unique approach to the competition process allows entrants to apply via recordings rather than on-site elimination rounds, thereby removing travel and accommodation costs. Multiple first prize winners are chosen from different age categories using a panel of expert judges, both as a means of providing encouragement for all of the contestants whose talents merit recognition, and to take into consideration the different rates at which artists develop. The Carnegie Hall debut is supplemented with performance opportunities, publicity, and ongoing career guidance.

This business model continues to achieve excellent results. Pianist Jan Lisiecki went on to sign a five-CD contract with Deutsche Grammophon after winning the BBIPC; Ann Cravero began directing operatic productions throughout the world based on her win of the Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition; pianist Anna Shelest made debuts at Carnegie and Alice Tully Halls with orchestra, and her Kennedy Center debut, all in less than a year; cellist Hans Kristian Goldstein was offered performances with the prestigious Salon de Virtuosi, and chosen as Musical America’s Artist of the Month; and pianists George Ko and Thomas Nickell were named Young Steinway Artists. These are just a few examples of hundreds of artists enjoying success today as a result of their ABC wins, ABF grants, and our ongoing career counseling. Other Foundation initiatives include mentoring programs for executives pursuing careers in Arts Administration; advice in publicity and media relations for aspiring classical musicians; internship programs for classical music students interested in learning more about the business of music; and an educational outreach program to schools that provides free tickets for students to attend ABC events.

The Alexander & Buono Foundation

244 Madison Avenue Suite 300 New York, NY 10016 TEL: (212) 947-4503 FAX: (212) 904-1302

alexanderbuono.com

BARRY ALEXANDER & COSMO BUONO

With international competitions for Piano, Voice, Strings and Flute, a music academy, an annual music festival, and a not-for-profit foundation, Barry Alexander and Cosmo Buono are helping classical musicians worldwide launch and sustain careers as professional artists, while also building the next generation of audiences. In constant demand not only as musicians but also career consultants, advisors, and teachers, their work recently came to the attention of the prestigious TEDX Conference (Technology, Entertainment, and Design), who invited them to be guest speakers, thereby joining a list that includes Nobel laureates, heads of state, and some of the most significant innovators of our time.

Authors of The Classical Musician Today: Getting and Keeping the Career You Want, and founders of Alexander & Buono International (ABI), their company enjoys a global reputation as the only one of its kind, giving it a unique position within the classical music marketplace. With more than half a century of performance, marketing, and publicity experience as the bedrock for their work, they fully understand the issues associated with enjoying success in the field of classical music, and are therefore able to offer clients counseling, expertise, and results-oriented guidance.

Barry Alexander is the Chairman and Chief Operating Officer of ABI, the parent company of The Alexander & Buono Competitions, and The Alexander & Buono Festival of Music. A graduate of Princeton University and the Hochschule Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, Mr. Alexander began his musical career at age three, and gave his first recital at age four. His rapid advancement through school as an elementary student led to him starting his university career at age fourteen, and receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree at eighteen.

Upon completing a Master’s degree in English Literature, he auditioned for the Mozarteum and was accepted immediately. As a lyric baritone focusing on lieder by Mozart and Schubert, he began his operatic career singing recitals throughout North America, where Dean Nolan described him as “an artist of the highest caliber,” and musicologist Mark Lipson dubbed him “Alexander the Great.”

He concluded his professional singing career of nearly two decades following an engagement as a principal singer with Poland’s Warsaw Chamber Opera. Fluent in four languages, he then moved permanently to New York and started an international public relations firm for classical musicians. Mr. Alexander is co-founder of The Alexander & Buono Foundation, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, as well as Artistic Director of the Barry Alexander International Vocal Competition.

Steinway Artist Cosmo Buono is Chairman and CEO of Alexander & Buono International. Having completed his studies at New York University, Bard College, and The Juilliard School, he first came to international prominence with the Bradshaw & Buono piano team where he, along with the late David Bradshaw, did much to restore awareness of rare works written by Chopin, Liszt, Rossini, and Schubert. By continuing a tradition of distinguished piano duos begun with Liszt-Chopin and Debussy-Casella, they played in major capitals and festivals throughout the world including New York’s Alice Tully Hall, Wigmore Hall in London, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Mostly Mozart Festival, all while creating a discography that includes Grammy-nominated recordings.

In addition to performing, Mr. Buono has distinguished himself as one of the foremost teachers of the Leschetizky Method in the United States. Leschetizky was known for producing pianists capable of a resonant, almost voice-like quality on the piano, and it is that same technique which is part of Mr. Buono’s overall pedagogy. Advocating rich and expressive playing, he discourages students from note-perfect performances that lack enthusiasm, in favor of a complete understanding and communication of the musical idiom of the composer.

Mr. Buono heads The Alexander & Buono Festival Orchestra, while supervising music schools in Italy and Japan. He is also Artistic Director of the Bradshaw & Buono International Piano Competition, which been called “one of the most important piano competitions in the world.”

Barry Alexander and Cosmo Buono

IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE EXECUTIVE AND ADVISORY BOARDS OF

THE ALEXANDER & BUONO FOUNDATION

ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE

THE TENTH ANNUAL ABC GALA

A SCHOLARSHIP FUNDRAISER BENEFITING

THE ALEXANDER & BUONO COMPETITIONS, FOUNDATION AND ACADEMY

HONORING

henrik & viktoria von siemens

MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 17, 2017

CARNEGIE HALL SEVENTH AVENUE AT FIFTY-SEVENTH STREET, NEW YORK

COCKTAIL RECEPTION 6:00 PM CONCERT 7:00 PM

GALA DINNER 9:00 PM

FEATURING PERFORMANCES BY

KAREN BELUSO, Piano

THOMAS NICKELL, Piano

NICO PARADYSZ, Piano

SHELEST PIANO DUO

BLACK TIE OR FORMAL BUSINESS ATTIRE

ABCGALA.COM

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The Alexander & Buono Festival of Music (ABFM) has earned a reputation for providing hundreds of musicians worldwide with a mechanism for improving and enhancing their performance of classical music. With daily lessons, master classes, performance and business seminars, as well as concerts, ABFM continues to demonstrate its commitment to helping musicians make the transition from performer to artist. The Festival began in 1988 in response to a need Cosmo Buono and the late David Bradshaw saw was prevalent among accomplished musicians to “try out” new repertoire in small settings, while also being able to work with talented professors who would coach the musicians, and help them refine their performances of works to the fullest extent possible. Having originally been established in Tolentino, and later Venice, Italy, artists came from all over the world to take advantage of the daily instruction, practice time, and performance opportunities that were offered. Performers left the Festival with new ideas and approaches to works, and insights into how to perform them more effectively. This tradition continues with many of the Festival participants returning year after year to further their artistic and professional growth. Two years ago the seat of the Festival was changed to New York and Steinway Hall as both a means of facilitating the travel of participants to a more central cultural hub, and to offer the performance credentials of venues known throughout the world. While musical refinement has been a fundamental and guiding principle of ABFM, Messrs. Alexander & Buono have always believed it very important for musicians to also be good business people, fully aware of all aspects associated with having a career both of substance and longevity. This is why the Festival curriculum includes daily seminars on business, career marketing, stage presence, and social skills, as a means of honing these aspects along with talent.

The Alexander & Buono Academy (ABIA) provides education in performance, marketing, entrepreneurship and career development. With a curriculum designed to address all factors involved in becoming a classical musician, our faculty and staff help students to create a career foundation based on realistic goals that lead to sustainable success. ABIA was founded in response to a need expressed by artists throughout the world for a comprehensive program of musical study which would not only address enhancement of repertoire and technique, but one that combined the business and marketing tools necessary for substantive careers. To meet those needs, ABIA offers a curriculum that includes lessons, master classes, business seminars, as well as coaching and counseling sessions for artists of all ages, at elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels. The ABAI educational philosophy combines the TRIP Educational PrincipleTM (Technique, Repertoire, Interpretation and Performance), with a blended learning paradigm of business, entrepreneurial, and marketing skills specifically designed for classical musicians.

alexanderbuono.com