Classical:NEXT debrief: networking, inspiration and the power of connections 

Michelle Lynne: Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Feels Artist podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Lynn, and today I am very happy to have my brand new friend. Actually, we’ve been friends before, so, but you’re now my in-person, real-life friend. Ghenadie, please introduce yourself. You’re an accordion player from Moldova living in Austria, and you have your podcast, which I was thrilled to be on last season. Yeah, for the sake of our audience, first of all, welcome. Thank you for being here, and I would love to hear about you.

Ghenadie Rotari: Michelle, thanks for the invitation. It’s really great to be here. And yeah, we’ve met in Berlin like five days ago maybe, but we’ve been in contact for a very long time, so I’m really excited to be on your show and to talk to you. And yeah, I am originally from the Republic of Moldova. I lived for almost 10 years in Italy where I did my bachelor’s and master’s degrees as an accordion performer. Later, I moved a lot, and now I landed, well, six years ago I landed in Austria and kind of stayed here. So yeah, I have lots of different interests. I also have a podcast that kind of started in the beginning as a podcast dedicated to everything accordion, so it’s called Everything Accordion. But at some point I felt that my other interests were kind of coming out, so I decided to also do a career Friday series where I talk to musicians, where I talk to you, and you were a guest on that series, about the different aspects of self-management and the career of a musician. I also have a blog where I tackle different topics about marketing, finances, career, and so on and so on. So yeah, really excited to be here and to talk to you.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, me too. Thank you for sharing all that. I know I think it was on your podcast like over two years ago ’cause you reached out and we didn’t, we didn’t have our podcast yet. That’s why I didn’t invite you onto mine. And we just had a really nice conversation. And I know you knew also Bernhard Caris. Did you do the “Be Your Own Manager” program with him? Anything with him?

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, actually my journey started in 2020, or 2000, I think, but I enrolled in the online course of “Be Your Own Manager.”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: It started kind of all opening up because up until that point, like I believe 99% of musicians was kind of roaming through the fog, through the darkness, trying to feel my way through as a musician. And thanks to that course, the fog started lifting up and they started seeing more clearly. So I kind of started documenting this journey, but Bernhard has been a real inspiration and yeah, ever since, I’m really interested in this, in this topic.

Michelle Lynne: Which of his courses did you do?

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, I did the base course, I think it was like 12 webinars, and then I did the intensive sales course.

Michelle Lynne: So everybody listening, Bernhard Caris, he has “Be Your Own Manager,” and I cannot highly recommend him enough. I’m currently doing his coaching program. Actually, I’m flying to Vienna in three days to go finish the second course that I’ve done with him for coaching. I’m working towards getting credits with the International Coaching Federation, and he’s offering this. I saw it come through in the newsletter. Actually, this is why you need to read newsletters, people, because I just saw, he was like, “Yeah, I’m offering this coaching course, the Vienna coaching course, and you can get credits.” And becoming an ICF coach was something that I’ve thought about for a long time, and I was like, “What, Bernhard’s doing this?” And so I’ve been to Vienna now twice in person. The rest of it has been online, and I’ve learned so much about being a coach. You know, the ethics behind it, the ideas behind it, what the International Federation’s looking for. Bernhard is fantastic. I’m gonna get him to come on the podcast. He’s promised me he’ll come, but for everybody listening, please check out his courses. He’s got sales courses, marketing stuff. He’s the former CEO of the Vienna Opera. He went into Silicon Valley. He’s a former baritone as well. And he’s just like an amazing person. We love Bernhard. So I think that’s how you and I also connected, Ghenadie, ’cause I knew when you had invited me onto your podcast, I had heard your episode with Bernhard. So yeah, that’s really cool. And then we had the awesome chance to meet this week in Berlin. I didn’t know that you were coming to Classical:NEXT. For everybody listening, we went to the Classical:NEXT Conference, which is one of the largest classical music conferences in the world.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yep.

Michelle Lynne: And I was just minding my own business, walking along, and then Ghenadie‘s like, “Michelle!” I’m like, “Oh my gosh, what?” This is so crazy, ’cause I don’t know if, did you know that I was coming in advance?

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, I am listening to your podcast and I think…

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Ghenadie Rotari: One of the episodes you mentioned something about going to Berlin. I was like, “Berlin!”

Michelle Lynne: Oh, thank you.

Ghenadie Rotari: I was like, “Okay, yeah.” So I was, I was confident that we will meet, so I kind of cheated there… a little bit…

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing. Okay, cool. No, I was, I was just glad that I recognized you. I think the fear is always like, because I’m on stories so much, people who don’t use stories like that, they’ll obviously recognize me immediately and then I’m like, like, uh, I don’t know who you are, but I wanna be really polite. But with you, I knew obviously immediately it was so great to connect with you, and then we ended up hanging out like most of the, at least every day. I saw you for a chunk of time, so I wanted to have you on immediately ’cause I need someone to debrief with. I mean, for me, the conference was amazing, but it was like a lot. And so I’d love to hear your thoughts, your experiences. First of all, if you maybe wanna share as a freelancer, you decided to invest and go into this, and I think you paid like 250 or something like that, plus your travel and accommodations and all that stuff. So just again, the right mindset of like, can you explain to everybody, um, what you knew, like, “Okay, this is an opportunity that I need to be there.”

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, look, I am in this lucky position and privileged position towards which I worked, to be able to afford certain investments in my career and a certain type of strategic actions. So I knew about this Classical:NEXT conference since, since I think 2022 or something.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: For some reason I saw that all of the guests were managers of major labels, managers of orchestras, CEOs of, um, I don’t know, like big organizations… And somehow I thought, “But maybe it wasn’t for me.” But then at one point I decided, “Well, you know what?” Um, I think we talked about this on, on my episode, uh, on my podcast when you were a guest, but I decided like I would start investing into myself and into my career a certain amount, or I would attend certain conferences and seminars per year. So this year I am planning on attending two. One I already attended…

Michelle Lynne: Oh.

Ghenadie Rotari: And, um, so I decided to give it a shot and see what happens. Also, because increasingly I believe more and more that the network, our network, is actually, uh, one of the most important things. I have heard on a different podcast from a businessman, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s kind of true: Your network is your net…

Michelle Lynne: Net worth. Yes, I’ve heard it too.

Ghenadie Rotari: You know, people, when you get to know people, people get to know you. And it’s always easier to accept something from a person that you know, or it’s easier to kind of talk to or connect or even create something together with someone who you know and hopefully trust as well. So.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, that’s awesome. I know there were 1500 people. I mean, luckily I had a friend send me the application to go speak at the conference. He’s like, “I’m sure you know about this, but just so you know, they’re doing open calls for, for speaking applications.” And I was like, “I’ve never heard of this.” So that was really lucky that he sent it to me and, um, threw in an application and I got to speak on artist branding. But I, I feel like I missed a lot of the conference because there was so much happening. I mean, what you’re describing, it’s, it’s kinda like a trade show. So there are booths set up, uh, in a huge event center, and then there are cinemas, there are like five or six cinemas, and in each movie theater, there’s a presentation going on basically simultaneously. So there was stuff, a lot about, um, AI, a lot about funding cuts. There was a lot about diversity, inclusivity. That was basically the keynote speech was around that as well. Um, how was it for you? What did you pick up? What did you glean? And then of course, every evening there were like performances. I mean, it was a lot, it was amazing. But yeah, it was just like, this is why I need you. I need to debrief and process. Like, what, what do we just experience?

Ghenadie Rotari: Sure. No, I mean, congratulations. I’m sorry I missed your talk, but that’s great that you kind of jumped into this and went, uh, I don’t know if it’s out of your comfort zone because you’re still teaching and you’re also organizing webinars, so you are kind of in your comfort zone. But of course, it’s a different feeling when you are at this huge event, right?

Michelle Lynne: I know, like the most exciting thing for me was I had this clicker ’cause they, like, I was supposed to be at a roundtable with eight people and then the second day there was so much, uh, interest. Also, I was kind of just inviting people. I was like, “Oh, you should come to my session.” And so then I was like, “Can I actually get a bigger space for this thing?” And they’re like, “Oh, we had a cancellation in the cinema. Uh, you can go into one of the movie theaters.” Like, this is a dream! So then they put my slides on the movie screen and I had this clicker. I felt like I was doing a TED Talk. It was super cool. So, yeah. Thanks for pointing that out. I was, I was loving it.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, no. Great. Well, in terms of things happening a lot, I actually, I remember I experienced something similar when I went to the Darmstadt courses for new music, the famous courses of contemporary music. At that time, the courses were, I think it was 2016. The courses were almost three weeks long, and I remember after eight days, nine days, it was a Sunday. I, I really couldn’t take it anymore. So I was like, “Okay, I don’t want to see anyone. I don’t want to hear anyone.” It just like, really, after that experience, um, yeah, because there were so many things happening all at once. But here I saw everything and everything clashing, a lot of interesting conversations, conferences, and I just said, “Well, you know what? Um, I think we talked about this on, on my episode, uh, on my podcast when you were a guest, but I decided like I would start investing into myself and into my career a certain amount, or I would attend certain conferences and seminars per year.” So this year I am planning on attending two. One I already attended… Oh. And um, so I decided to give it a shot and see what happens. Also, because increasingly I believe more and more that the network, our network, is actually, uh, one of the most important things. I have heard on a different podcast from a businessman, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s kind of true: Your network is your net… Net worth. Yes, I’ve heard it too. You know, people, when you get to know people, people get to know you. And it’s always easier to accept something from a person that you know, or it’s easier to kind of talk to or connect or even create something together with someone who you know and hopefully trust as well. So. So I said, “Well, you know what? I’m, I will choose the ones that I’m more interested in and just let go of the other things because, you know, you, you can go to any of these conferences, but you cannot go to all of them.” And also, uh, a very cool thing happened because I met and got to know some, some new people, some new musicians. And actually we kind of had this thing that we would meet after maybe a couple of hours and would go, “Oh, which conference did you go?” “Okay, well I went to this conference. Was it interesting? Yeah, we talked about this and this and this.” “Where did you go?” So we kind of, three or four people, we basically went to all of the conferences and just got sort of a summary or the main points of, um, of different conferences. But yeah, if I were to think, “Okay, I need to go here, I need to go there,” and run around, I would just feel really overwhelmed and, um, yeah, not, not enjoy the experience as much. So,

Michelle Lynne: That sounds like a really good strategy you to like kind of divide and conquer, like, “Okay, you go here and I go there.” I know I had a, a friend come with me as well. Actually, Aida, she was my former assistant for The Fearless Artist. And uh, she was, first of all, she’s like, “Okay, I’ll be your content creator all week.” So she was filming as I was presenting and stuff, but then we did split a couple times and she went to a different talk. Or, you know, you, you just get stuck up by the booth, going to visit each booth and seeing where people from. I connected with a ton of Canadians. Actually, I did a summer program, uh, when I was, I think 16 years old in New Brunswick, and the, the artistic director of that festival was at Classical:NEXT. And so I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is crazy! It’s been like, I don’t know, 15, 20 years.” Um, they gave me a Canada pin. I was so excited and like…

Ghenadie Rotari: Where that was from. Okay.

Michelle Lynne: Yes, meeting me, you know, meeting Canadians in Berlin. It was, they were all there. And, uh, just going from booth to booth to try and get connected. I think it sounds like you had a good strategy. My strategy was to line up podcast guests, so I was, I don’t know, I didn’t really aim for a number, but I think I have eight people who are gonna come on the podcast from the conference.

Ghenadie Rotari: Nice.

Michelle Lynne: Then, um, another thing was to have as many people come to the mentoring session and to give them all two things. You have one of them. Everybody was getting a one-on-one, and everybody else got… Yes. Okay. If you’re not watching this on YouTube…

Ghenadie Rotari: A tote bag. We’re thriving artists.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Ghenarie Rotari: Not starving artists. We’re thriving artists. Thanks.

Michelle Lynne: So much. I’m really proud of these tote bags. If you’re not watching this on YouTube, then Ghenadie, you just held out a really beautiful tote bag. That’s our merch. You can get your own on, uh, our website or join our mastermind and then you get a free one. Yeah, that was, those were my two goals. So I have eight new podcast guests, and, uh, a bunch of people got tote bags and they were actually excited about them. So that was a, that was a win for me. Okay, so what are some of the talks that you heard in these three days that stuck out to you? What were some of the ideas that were being shared that where you were like, “Yeah, this is cool.”

 

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, first of all, I noticed that of course it’s a topic of diversity and inclusion is very big. And also AI, I heard more conferences and also assisted at, uh, different presentations of different new platforms and applications of AI, which I found very exciting, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what’s happening there. And I also will contact and invite them on the podcast to…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: To talk about these applications.

Michelle Lynne: Okay, I am gonna be tuning into that. So wait, wait, wait. Which side of AI are you on then? You’re like, you’re, you’re for it. You’re with it. I hear a lot of pushback, you know, like there are people who saying like, “It’s bad for the environment,” or like, “What about ethics?” Or, you know, “Is it lazy to use?” Or, you know, I just, there’s a lot of people with, um, concerns. Also, it makes mistakes. I mean, one after I went to that presentation is the same one as you did, and it was basically five German tech founders talking about their startups and what they’re, how they’re using AI. Um, to first of all, like analyze customer data, concertgoer data. They can pull up information. Like right now, if you can tell it, “Tell me the top five highest sold concerts from last season,” um, you can speak to it in normal language, just how they were presenting it, rather than having to use those like, uh, you know, what are, what are the filters when you put in?

Ghenadie Rotari: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: Tell me all audiences, except those, you know, you, you know, you have to be trained in this. But now with AI, you can just talk to it like a regular, let’s say, person. Natural language is what they say, and then it’ll just pull up the answers for you. Um, he was also showing us how they were applying for funding for Classical:NEXT next year. It’s in 2026 in Budapest. And, uh, he was using AI to like write his funding application and just like showing us in real time, like what he was telling it, like based on the prompts he was giving it. But that was really interesting. It…

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: It kinda like feeling like, is this allowed? Like are we, are we okay with this? Like yeah, we’re just watching it.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, it kind, it kind of feels a little bit like cheating and a little bit like, I don’t know. I, I think it’s still, for most part, it’s still a taboo. I actually ran, um, a poll on my Instagram account of a podcast if the followers ever used or are using AI and more or less half uses it, more or less half doesn’t use it. Of course, I had only 20 people reply, so, you know, it’s not a good statistic. But, um, yeah, there is a pushback. Of course, it’s new technology. We still haven’t cut up to all the different ethical and moral questions about the use of AI and also with, in terms of royalties and copyright and so on and so forth. So, you know, it’s, uh, it’s still growing. Well in the case of AI, I am on the side of, it’s a tool. It’s a very efficient tool if you hone your skills and use it.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Ghenadie Rotari: I talked, well, of course I teach to kids and also teenagers, and some of the teenagers tell me that we to kind of accelerate the process of homework. They’re using some of the AI tools, and that’s something that I am against.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: I see AI, I want AI to be my assistant, so I don’t want to delegate my thinking to it, but if it can, if it can, I, learn from my way of, let’s say, for example, writing captions, for writing a copy for a podcast episode. You know, as much as I love doing podcast episodes and recording them, one of the most tedious things, which I really, yeah. One, one, one of the reasons why I wouldn’t do podcast is the editing part, and writing part, and publishing part.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: If I were to have an assistant as an AI assistant that would do that for me or with me, I’m all in for it. And yeah, I actually also some applications. Of course, I’m always correcting, I’m always checking, editing. Um, so, you know, in terms of boosting productivity, all in for it. In terms of other issues, um, no. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a really gray area because the technology is still so new and it’s developing right now, so, yeah. But I feel, but I feel that using it can, not that it can give you an advantage, but using a new technology is useful in many ways.

Michelle Lynne: Yep.

Ghenadie Rotari: I mean, just, just use it as a tool, just like our smartphone or social media. You…

Michelle Lynne: Yep.

Ghenadie Rotari: As a, so if a social media drags you in and takes over your entire social life, maybe there’s something to be done about that. Same goes for AI. If AI takes over all your thinking, maybe you should consider your AI use. So, yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I, I appreciated that they were quite open. They were also very excited in that presentation, showing the possibilities, uh, for going forward. And yeah, I think they handled the pushbacks quite well. I agree with you. I think using it as an assistant, um, ’cause either I pay my assistant to write my podcast newsletters that go out every week, or she uses, like, you train the GBT about how we would word things and then we check it. We’re still the ones putting it out, the ideas. I mean, we’re still the ones having the conversation, but yeah, it’s interesting. And their, their biggest thing was, you know, 20 years ago people were arguing about if you need a website, and then 10 years ago people are arguing about if you need Instagram. I mean, even still now, some musicians are like, “Oh, should I use Instagram for professional uses?” If you’re listening to this and you’re not using Instagram professionally as a musician, please start first of all, and second of all, DM me, ’cause I will help you. But yeah, so they were like, “You know, you can decide right now how you wanna view AI.” Like it’s the same thing, just the next step.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, I mean, there’s a really great podcast done by Tristan Harris. I think his name is Tristan Harris. Well, Tristan, who he did movie for Netflix, Social Dilemma, and he does a really great work. I think the podcast is called Your Undivided Attention, and he has every single week or every two weeks different guests talking about the use of AI, the different challenges, the regulatory questions. And if you are someone who is interested in this topic, go and check it out ’cause it’s really, I mean, there are two camps, right? Because you have Silicon Valley and this will become a tech podcast. You have Silicon Valley that is racing towards releasing this new God, you know, this new technology. You have the regulators were saying, “Okay, look, we have one chance with this because before we had this thing with social media. We can argue the value of it, the harm it has done, but also the value it has brought. Again, a tool depends on how you use it. But this time around AI knows how to develop itself. It knows how to perfect itself and it’ll be better, not worse. So we need to be very careful about how we are using AI.” I mean, I, I went to one of the, one of the presenters and I asked them how do they feel about memorizing all of the chats? Because I deactivated that function simply because I don’t want it to learn all about me. You know, it will eventually at one point anyway, but I’m always very careful about what kind of information I’m giving it, what kind of prompts I’m giving it. And yeah, trying to stay as neutral as possible without the use of the memory function. So, yeah, it’s a, it’s a huge…

Michelle Lynne: Debate. Good for you.

Ghenadie Rotari: Just, you know, dipping your toes into it, trying stuff out. Also just for fun, experimenting with it. Just, just like people started experimenting with Instagram, “Oh, what’s this filter? Oh, what’s this post? Okay, how can I follow this? How can I do that?” You know? So…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: That’s that. What, what are some of your takeaways from this conference?

Michelle Lynne: Uh, well I wanted to talk to you next about the strategy for networking. ‘Cause I know when we met, I mean we made like an instant friendship because we have met online and developed a collegial friendship relationship first. So I wanted to just kind of make mention of everybody again, who’s not using social media strategically in terms of connecting with people so that when you do meet them in person, it’s like you’ve already jumped 10 levels of the getting-to-know-you. Like instantly we could connect, we could share ideas. It was just very, very easy to, to get the ball rolling in that sense. So, um, I know you were mentioning the importance of, why you came to this conference. You said that you wanted to invest in yourself, you wanted to come to two events a year. I think that’s a great thing to kind of have a goal around. How is it for you to strategically network at these things? You know, because we’re meeting, there’s like a thousand people kind of milling around. How do you approach these things? I noticed my elevator pitch got a lot better. I got a lot more confident by the end. I even pitched myself to the A&R lady from Deutsche Grammophon because I heard that they were talking about something with artist branding and I just like walked after. Okay. To be honest, I had to do a lap and take a couple. Oh, I think I ran into you at that moment, right? Because you were like, “Where are you going?” I was like, “I’m trying to get the courage to talk to the Deutsche Grammophon lady,” so.

Ghenadie Rotari: And as so, and as soon as she was free, like from talking to someone, you flew away. You are like, “God, in the section. Sorry, I’ll be back.” Just…

Michelle Lynne: Like, I like ran after her and then had to pretend like I wasn’t running after her and like, look cool. Right. I don’t know if it worked, but anyway. Yeah. What, what was your strategy for this? Because it’s, it is overwhelming. Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: It is. It. I don’t know about you, from what I see as a personality type, you are quite extroverted. I’m the opposite. I’m an introvert, so, you know, I, I would stay like in the middle of a room and I’ll feel comfortable with people around me, but just like not talking to me. But of course, that’s not the purpose of this event. So, you know, uh, I said, “Well, I, I will do one thing, which will be just be interested in the people I’m talking to.” You know, of course I also did laps around and like, “Okay, I would like to talk to maybe this stand or maybe to representatives of, I don’t know, the Nordic Council or, you know, the Italian associations and so on.” So yeah. And one at one point I remember, I think with one stand, I just counted up to five because I’ve heard this tactic somewhere like, “Okay, one, two, three, four, five, go. Hello, my name is…” And you know, you…

Michelle Lynne: Oh wow.

Ghenadie Rotari: Kind of doing that in interaction also because, I went to this event, which was basically, you, you had to send an email with an interest organized by the Australian Council. I, I…

Michelle Lynne: You went to the speed dating thing. Tell everybody on the, on the show, because I was kind of like, “Oh, I would’ve loved to be at that.” So you guys were, you had a long table. Yeah. You should just tell it.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, basically we had a very long table and I hope any Australians who were there listening, it’s, I hope it’s not a secret, but I let the cat out of the bag. So…

Michelle Lynne: It’s like…

Ghenadie Rotari: I…

Michelle Lynne: There’s, there’s a secret society. Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: No non-disclosure agreements, so, you know, I…

Michelle Lynne: Did you do any spit handshakes?

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, you know, this is a separate episode of a podcast.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. We’ll have you back.

Ghenadie Rotari: For subscribers only, follow us on Patreon.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s good.

Ghenadie Rotari: So, yeah, basically it was this, you know, it was a long table. So basically the members of the Canadian, UK, and Australian organizations, artists, and so on, were on one side and the rest of the world was basically on the other side. So we had five minutes to sit, talk to one representative from one of those countries, and kind of present something. Pitch something, get to know them. After five minutes, move one seat to the left. So at the end of that, I, I, I had a sore throat because we were shouting, all of us.

Michelle Lynne: Oh man.

Ghenadie Rotari: Because it was 50 people, and of course talking over one hour, it was really, not ideal. So we should definitely work on that. But the main idea is, you know, we are here to do this selling, buying thing.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Ghenadie Rotari: So it was a very different environment because normally you wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t want to seem too salesy. You would…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: Kind of organically try to approach something. And here it was really like, “Okay, what do you have? What do you do? I have this festival.” “And we do this, we do that. What do you do? Oh, do you have an ensemble or do you play with an orchestra?” “Cause of the funding there.” And, you know, all of these things. So it was really very direct.

Michelle Lynne: Transactional.

Ghenadie Rotari: Very weird, very weird, uh, very eye-opening in a sense. But at the same time you see that we’re all in the same boat, you know? So,

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: Somebody feels more comfortable, somebody feels less comfortable. I mean, and I think one thing that you learn with these kinds of events is, I mean, nothing happens if somebody doesn’t want to talk to you. Or maybe if you are dismissed after like two minutes. ‘Cause it happens on a personal level. I’ve had people I wanted to talk to. The conversation fell after one minute and we’re like, “Okay.” And you survived. You know, and you move on. So, as scary as it might seem…

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: Before you do that, it is just normal. It’s, uh, human interaction. So yeah, I mean, I try, I try to be like on my podcast to try and be interested in the person that I’m talking to.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Of course there’s barriers sometimes like, “Oh my God, what is he going to sell me? Does he have something like some pitch or anything?” And when they see or hear, but you know, it’s just a conversation when we’re kind of a bit more relaxed. So in terms of networking, I always try to find some common denominator, maybe an acquaintance.

Michelle Lynne: Yes. Very good.

Ghenadie Rotari: Um, then if I followed them or looked something up before interacting with them, but there you go, more towards strategical networking. So if you’re really interested in a company or in something, a good strategy to do your own research and kind of get to know what we’re doing. So instead of just walking up and say, “Oh, hey, you know, I have this project with a singer that I would really like to pitch you,” and they never did anything with singing, you know? So…

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Ghenadie Rotari: No. But…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Our terms, just, you know, have conversations. You never know.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, that’s really good. I mean, I’m glad you’re sharing this ’cause I was going to just kind of offer a little template ’cause I also walked up to some people that normally I’d be super intimidated by, like one of the heads of, I can’t remember which organization, but he was presenting on how higher music education is influencing the industry. And he was leading the talk of, you know, 250 people in the audience. I thought he did an excellent job. So of course I walk up and at the beginning I was saying that I was from Code Arts Rotterdam ’cause I thought maybe that would give some more authority. Like I’m on, I’m on faculty at a university. But then I was like, “Wait, that’s not why I’m here. Like, I’m here to, to bring The Fearless Artist and its message.” So I just started like practically like, “Michelle Lynn, The Fearless Artist.” And, um, so one thing, what you’re saying is, first of all, be interested in the other person. Yes. Get your name rolling off like your name, your company so that people hear it over and over. You want that branding. Uh, you knew you like Everything Accordion the podcast and then finding that link in common, like just telling them why you’re talking to them as soon as you can. ‘Cause then that helps them be like, “Oh,” because their, their brain is thinking like, “What does this person want? They’re wasting my time,” or “They’re using my time,” or whatever. So as soon as you can say that link in common or what you want, or something you appreciate. So for me, I said, “You know, I highly appreciated how you facilitated this talk, and here’s what I wanted to share.” And then if you can get one step going forward, like either you say like you’re gonna connect with them on LinkedIn, or he mentioned another conference that’s happening in the higher education realm and asked if I was going to that, and I mentioned another contact. So just to kind of wrap up the conversation, then it’s like, “Okay, great. Nice to connect with you. Enjoy the rest of the conference.” Boom, it was like three minutes. But then you’ve stated who you are, you’ve stated the point in common, you’ve shared the exchange of ideas. And if you follow up with them on LinkedIn, um, then they’re going to remember you. So for me, I felt like I kind of found a rhythm with like how to introduce myself, connect, and then get out without it being this drawn, drawn out awkward, like, “Oh no, now what do I say?” You know? So that, that helped me, and I know you said I’m an extrovert, but like still approaching people who are of a higher status is still always gonna be a little bit intimidating, I think. But by, by the end, by the end, it got a lot easier.

Ghenadie Rotari: Sure. I mean, of course we want to be someone and kind of to belong to where, where we’re going towards. So if we’re, I don’t know, going towards being published by Decca or Deutsche Grammophon, we just don’t want to be like some random artist, right? We want to be like, “Oh, I’m representing this,” or “I’m doing this.”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Some, I feel that and that, that was a point before with me, for example. Um, sometimes we feel like this interaction is all or nothing. You know, we put so much expectation into this talk, into this interaction that we might go a bit over, you know, do a bit too much. It’s just…

Michelle Lynne: One of the touch points. Yes. Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: So if you talk and, you know, I, I will, for example, I went to this conference, Opus XX, which is basically a platform which will be with AI and it will suggest, uh, women composers for your program. And for example, you can say, “Okay, I’m aiming at presenting a program with late romantic music. I would love to have a woman composer in the program,” and it looks up, you know, that. So I went to the presenters and I talked to them. Just really like saying it’s a really great idea because I was thinking about broadening also my repertoire. And we all know that looking for new pieces all is always a pain because we’re also, “Okay, we’re sticking to the classics, let’s call them.” But at the same time, we are looking for something new and you never know what’s new. I walked up to her, asked a couple of questions if they were also, you know, in thinking about expanding the project somewhere else in some other direction. Showed them another attempt at doing such a database for accordion done by Vincent Fanny Vincent, for example, which was first very important for us because it collected all of the works for accordion. But at the same time, um, yeah, I’m, when I ask the variable lines, so long story short, be interested in what the other person is doing and not focus exclusively on what you have to kind of offer. So…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: That’s the main takeaway in terms of networking. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, and just an excellent point that you make about keep it short and it’s just one touchpoint and your entire thing doesn’t hinge on that one conversation. Absolutely. You’re just making a connection. You’re gonna follow up on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook or whatever. Send a thank you message the week after. Then now you’ve got them on your social so you like can get engaged with their content. They’re gonna stay, you’re gonna stay on their mind. Yeah, it’s just that initial foot in the door. I think a lot of people overlook. And I just wanna share like my all-time strategy that I don’t know if anyone else really did at this conference, but it served me so well. So Classical:NEXT was reposting every single story that anyone, so imagine there are 1500 people at this conference. Everyone’s taking stories on Instagram and tagging Classical:NEXT. Classical:NEXT is reposting all these stories. So every single day I went through all of their stories, and I would click on the person’s account, and I liked their last seven posts, and I did that for every story. So probably I did it to a hundred people where I liked their last seven posts. So then when I was introducing myself in person, “Michelle, The Fearless Artist.” They’re like, “Oh, I’ve seen that name.” I’m like, “Yes, you have, because I was stalking your Instagram.” And if you are trying to get brand awareness, brand visibility, and get that name on people’s minds, you show up on their socials and then you introduce yourself. That’s two touchpoints. And then they already have some context of who you are. And then people have heard about my presentation, and then they have the tote bags. And then I had business cards, which is a funny story. I got stopped at the airport. You know this story, right? I should tell it on the… Oh, really? Okay. Well just to, just to finish my sentence. Yeah, exactly. But the point is, I was so proud of myself for using Instagram strategically to get the brand out there. So for anyone listening, like if you can give value through the socials during a conference, this is actually super smart. ‘Cause then people are gonna have that name come to them multiple times. Anyway, I had shoved a hundred business cards into my purse to get on this, uh, flight. ‘Cause I didn’t know how many I needed. So anyway, of course my bag got stopped at security. And uh, I’m like, “Oh, what happened?” Now I was annoyed. I was, I didn’t sleep enough and I hate when I forget, like a juice in my bag or something. ‘Cause I fly so much, I should have this down by now. Right. So he is like, “Excuse me, ma’am, I need to look at what all these cards are.” So I was so embarrassed and I pulled out a hundred cards of my face, you know, just like, felt so embarrassed. And then I looked at him and I was like, “I’m going to a conference to speak,” you know? And he, he’s like, “Okay, sure.” And then he looks at the cards and he is like, “Are you going to give a motivational speech?” And I was like, “Yeah, kind of.” I was like, “That’s actually exactly what I’m doing.” And then I was like, “You know, do you want a card? I can give you a one-on-one.” And he is like, “No, thank you, lady, but have a nice conference.” I was like, “Okay, whatever.” But, um, yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, it was funny. So when you can get multiple touchpoints with people, and then, I mean, for me, the day, the two days after, I’m just following up. Like I had so many people come to the sessions that you connect with for a second. Now I gotta go find ’em on Instagram, send them my calendar link, get the one-on-one, get talking to all the people that we set, or else if you don’t follow up, all of this goal is just gonna fall through the cracks and we have to make sure that we can take it to the end of what we started with everybody who’s interested.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, you’re very hardcore on this thing. I did something similar. I followed the accounts that interested me.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: Afterwards I would connect. Well, I’m more, I, I give it a little bit more time because it was so crazy. Four days of, you know, like from 10 in the morning until midnight and all the performances and so on. So in my case, I think, well, I, with the people with whom I talked, I, a lot…

Michelle Lynne: I.

Ghenadie Rotari: During this conference. I sent them a message today, for example, saying, “Oh, I hope your flight went well and, you know, great getting to know you. Maybe we will, we’ll meet around,” and so on. Actually wrote to you today as well, and that’s…

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Ghenadie Rotari: Oh…

Michelle Lynne: Thank you. Thank you for writing me. ‘Cause now we’re doing this podcast today. That was very good, very strategic of you.

Ghenadie Rotari: No, definitely. And, um, do you ever, uh, to put you in the hot seat, do you ever feel, well not overwhelmed, but kind of like this FOMO sensation with, uh, with Instagram where like, “Okay, I need this. You know, in the next two days or do this thing. Otherwise, the, the contact, the moment is gone.” Like, do, do you have that? And how do you cope with that?

Michelle Lynne: That’s interesting. I mean, I FOMO all the time. Like, like at this conference I had FOMO because what you’re saying, these simultaneous sessions, and like you can only choose one. And then also there’s a hundred people or, you know, a thousand people that you wanna try and talk to. Um, okay, so my strategy for this I learned from the tech bros. Okay, so all the tech bros had a giant QR code on their slides. So anyone sitting in the movie theater could hold their phone up and they scan the screen and then boom, they’re on the mailing list. That is the smartest thing ever. I didn’t know my slides were gonna be on the movie screen. When I prepared for this conference, so I just had to DM me the word GOLDEN on Instagram and we’ll send you our free PDF, and that’s how we build our mailing list. But I think I had like five people DM me GOLDEN out of like 45, so that didn’t really work. So I was like, “Okay, next time I’m gonna get that QR code on this screen.” Then I tried to jot down on the train home all the names of the people I remembered who were in my sessions. ‘Cause I did have a lot of great conversations with people where I was like visually, mentally remembering the room. Like, ’cause I tried to talk to every single person and then at least send them like the, “Hey, thanks so much for coming to my session” message. And I think I’ve still missed quite a few. And then now I’m at the point where it’s like I’ve offered them all, like their free one-on-one. Some people have booked in, some people haven’t. So there’s like a lot of juggling with that. So I don’t know. In terms of FOMO, it’s kind of just like I know that the people who need our message will come because like we can serve them. And I also know that we’re not for everyone. So like I’m just letting that go as well. But you just don’t wanna lose all the work that you put in. Especially when like TFA, we’ve been going for five years. So to have the potential opportunity to meet so many people quickly and to scale, like that’s what we’ve been really working on. And we’ve got like systems in place. I have a staff now. We’ve like, we’ve been working so hard to be ready to make major impact. I mean, I’m doing this podcast every week to make impact. So I’ve been working with my business coach a lot like, “You gotta make sure that your system is ready for the people to come in. Or else if people come in and your backend is messy, like you’re not organized or you’re losing names, or you can’t keep track of things or finances.” Like right now, Deanna‘s on maternity leave. So there’s a lot more on my plate, which I think I’m handling in a pretty good way, but like still, I, I’m like, you know, I’m writing a lot of things down and I’m sure I’ve dropped a few balls. But, um, yeah, I would say that’s just, I’m trying to catch everything, but also letting go and knowing, like sometimes for example, like I met this wonderful woman from Paris and we had a great conversation and she wants to get in some coaching with me, and then I went to DM her and I saw that we had DMed her in 2022 and then nothing had happened from that conversation. So I understand that like some of these things are really long term and just ’cause someone says no now, and this is so good for anyone also pitching concert promoters, just ’cause they say no for the 2024, 2025 season doesn’t mean that you won’t get booked by them in two years. ‘Cause they remember you. They remember your project, they know that you’re a great artist or it just wasn’t room for you this season or funding or insert whatever reason. It wasn’t personal. So this is so important, why we play this long game and keep putting in the work and keep showing up and being consistent and showing our faces at these conferences. I mean, I really like your goal of like two events a year. I think that’s really smart.

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, I think, well, I started with two also, you know, for, let’s call them for tax reasons. Why not invest into my own career and then just make it as a tax deductible in the end. So, so quite…

Michelle Lynne: It’s a win-win.

Ghenadie Rotari: It’s, it’s better that this money serves me than the. But the tax offices of the different countries where I work. But, uh, yeah, on the point. Well, for all of your listeners who hear you talking about these things, don’t get scared or overwhelmed because you hear Michelle juggling all of this thousands of balls in Vienna at the same time while doing a lot of, many things. Start small. It’s not like for Michelle, it came overnight, right? Like you work towards that. You learned and you upgraded your systems and your kind of, your strategies as well. So one very smart thing that you mentioned, and I think that’s really noteworthy, is, for example, the business cards, right? When you get them, try to get a chance of, I don’t know, five minutes after the interaction or…

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Ghenadie Rotari: In the evening, at night, write something on the business card or…

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Ghenadie Rotari: Scan, scan it and write a note somewhere. “We talked about this,” or “We talked about that,” because the next day I’m pretty sure more than half of the information is already gone. You know, so if you manage to write something there, like for example, I talk to many people and I, I use HubSpot for example, for my database, which is amazing.

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: And there I can also include the different notes or also put a reminder, “We said we will call each other on the 20th. Remind me to call this person on the 20th.” And when I write in the notes what we should be talking about, so. Yeah, and just building this relationship, building this follow-up. It’s not, uh, there was, there was an Italian guy who, who asked me, “Oh, but may I ask you, do you continue to write to people after they said no, or maybe after they didn’t reply?” I’m like, “Sure. As long as they don’t tell me, you know, as long as it’s not every day, and as long as it’s not aggressive and kind of wanting something from them and they don’t tell me stop, I will continue this conversation.” Yeah. And be like, “Oh, I saw that you’re doing this. Amazing. I actually met this person there and we were thinking about this,” or whatever, you know, but just keep this conversation and this relationship going. Otherwise, of course, it’s like if we hear each other in April 2025 and then you say, “Oh, I’m sorry, there was no space or whatever,” and then I contact you again in February 2026 telling you, “Oh, I have this concert proposal.” Put, put yourself in in their shoes. How would you feel if a person doesn’t contact you for any other reason except for pitching you their project? I mean…

Michelle Lynne: Well, it happens to me a lot as a concert artistic director. Yes.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, yeah. No.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Exactly. So you’re like, “Okay, I need to filter out what’s, uh, who are the people that really want a relationship with me,” you know, to also a professional relationship to, to help me out to create a concert series or a festival or whatever, or a project, and who are the ones who are simply, you know, sending emails, just like hundreds of neutral emails.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, no, writing down on the business card is a super idea. I’ve got the stack of business cards on my kitchen table right beside the unpaid speeding tickets that I have to deal with. So I’m just, I’m avoiding a few things right now.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah, I mean there’s, there’s, there’s lots of stuff happening all the time. There’s no one week without which I need to kind of deal with something, cyber…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Whatever.

Michelle Lynne: You know, but to your point about building, I just wanna say yes, we absolutely built The Fearless Artist as we go. So, um, as the, everything got bigger. I mean, at one point, I remember our membership was at four people, so we were like, “Do we scrap the membership?” You know, “What are we doing with this?” We weren’t making any money, we weren’t paying ourselves. I mean, Deanna and I talked about that in a previous episode. So definitely building as you go, seeing how things are needed, but just recognizing the potential opportunity, like when you have a conference like this, when you have this much visibility, when you’re able to be introduced to a large amount of people at once. I mean, I was also taught early on to have a clear vision and think three times bigger. ‘Cause we’re often holding ourselves back and being our own ceiling. So currently I have 40 in the membership. So what does it look like if there’s 120 people who are coming on? “Okay, then I’m gonna need more calls, then I’m gonna do monthly trainings, then I’m gonna make sure that I’ve got facilitators in the community besides me helping out,” you know? So I’ve got these plans of like how to sustainably grow. So for anybody listening too, just like trying to think three times bigger, having a clear vision. What is the reason that we’re doing these things? What’s the ideal career? I mean, these are also things that we discuss in the in the mastermind. I’m like, I’m like preaching now. I got excited.

Ghenadie Rotari: No, we, we, we can talk for hours about this and yes, think big, but then, like make it into smaller steps. Do it…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, it’s like think macro, but…

Ghenadie Rotari: Yes.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, act micro, think macro. You know what? I was already thinking I need to have you back for part two. So let’s do that ’cause this has been super helpful. Is there anything else from the conference that stuck out to you? Like any, any other thing that we didn’t touch today?

Ghenadie Rotari: Well, I think that more than the conferences themselves, I, I think it’s more the people that you meet.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Ghenadie Rotari: Let’s say that they are all about innovation, at least at this conference, and to the point of conferences, you know, where masterclasses webinars also free ones happening all the time. So if your budget doesn’t allow you at the moment to do that, look in your area because there might be some meeting somewhere or some, I don’t know, evening of networking and just, or if you know a local bar where musician or like students or…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Whatever, go there. Just…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Ghenadie Rotari: Go maybe with a friend if you feel intimidated in the beginning and to visit these places because being there, it’s already being inside on that radar. So, yeah, about innovation. But, uh, I was talking about this with, uh, colleague, of course, we’re very hardcore contemporary music performers because we are like on the forefront of most, you know. Probably newest, not ringing my own bell or to sound like very elevated or whatever. But true, like we are always in touch with what’s happening in the newest trends in music. And for me, for example, the, the innovation part in, the performances was that much innovative, not that much boundary pushing, but perhaps it’s also that I’m spoiled by all of his experiences. ‘Cause of course, if you have, if we talk about innovation and somebody presents a piece by Philip Glass with a recorded or a transcription of Arvo Pärt, which I like, I love his music. But a transcription of Arvo Pärt from violin and piano just on piano solo. I mean, maybe for the mainstream classical world, that’s a step forward. For me, it’s maybe an inch forward. But you know, that’s me. I don’t want to be too critical about that. Um, all in all, I think it’s more about the people. I’ve also had some other cool experiences, which I will talk about. Did you try the VR Philharmonic?

Michelle Lynne: No, I missed that, but I, I saw that was pretty cool. Did you, were you in there? Oh no, no. Don’t make me feel bad about this.

Ghenadie Rotari: I, no, but that’s one of those experiences that was worth it because it’s like, I, I would build a room. I would invest 3000 euros just to have that room of that system there and to experience being on…

Michelle Lynne: Explain what it is for…

Ghenadie Rotari: And, well, you are, you are being seated inside, uh, you are circled by this, um, uh, loudspeakers, very high quality, and you put on a VR headset, and when the experience starts, basically you are sitting and you start seeing the conductor in front of you. When you turn around, you look all over the place and you see 360 the hall as you would be sitting inside the orchestra. Then at one point we’re flying because it was like Finland or whatever. So images from flakes from Finland nature. Then it turned back to I was sitting next to the percussionist, so I mean, in 2020, 2021 when everyone was doing online concerts. I was thinking about this a lot because, um, online concerts or online experiences in music, I think make only sense when analog, so the live performance, cannot deliver that. So VR being on stage with the musicians and all also all of this super high quality. Uh, sound coming at you. That’s a product that I think has a why, and that’s a product that makes sense because it will, not that it substitutes, but it goes, it goes parallel, you know, to the live performances because live performances or online concerts, as much as I love online concerts. My preference goes to live events always. But in this case, for example, I would imagine, yeah. Having such a system at my home and just instead of, you know, watching a YouTube video of a symphony, feeling myself inside the orchestra and just looking around and, yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Wow, that’s cool. I mean, I hope that they have that again next year. If I, if I go back, are you planning to go back to next year?

Ghenadie Rotari: I am still not sure. I need…

Michelle Lynne: Okay.

Ghenadie Rotari: To see the schedule. Uh, but yeah, no, no, it was very interesting, but I still need to think about that.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been Budapest, so I’ve never been to Budapest. So I mean, yeah, depending on…

Ghenadie Rotari: So…

Michelle Lynne: Depending on the dates and what’s happening, I would definitely be, uh…

Ghenadie Rotari: Just go because Budapest is worth it, so…

Michelle Lynne: Okay, great. I’ll get the dates in my, in my diary. I already told my, my assistant Puck that I want her to come with me, so, uh, cool. Ghenadie, thank you so much. How can people find you, follow you, your podcast, Everything Accordion? Definitely go tune into that and on Instagram.

Ghenadie Rotari: Yeah. Well, Michelle, thanks a lot again for the invitation. It has been fun talking to you, and I feel that we can talk also for hours about different topics. We’re, we’re on the same wavelength.

Michelle Lynne: Yes, we are.

Ghenadie Rotari: Strategy and marketing and networking and so on. So, um, you can find me on my website, ghenadierotari.com. I know it’s not very easy my name, but Michelle will will link this in the description and…

Michelle Lynne: I will.

Ghenadie Rotari: You can find my, um, Instagram accounts, @ghenadie_rotari_accordionist, and also separately, Everything Accordion Podcast. So, you can find my music on all the streaming platforms, the podcast, the blog on my website. You can read, you have also some educational materials, some spreadsheets to help you with your budgeting and, uh, taxes. Free for download. So yeah, and reach…

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Ghenadie Rotari: Out if you have any questions. And I also offer a free coffee bookable on my website. So if you talk about anything, just book a session.

Michelle Lynne: That’s awesome. Okay. I’m definitely gonna be able to check out your blog. I mean, you’re already seeing setting goals in 2025, what worked last year and future improvements. I love it. Thank you so much. This has been great. Looking forward to chatting and hopefully seeing you again in the future. And, uh, yeah. Thanks for all your, for your conversation today.