Bedford Youth Performing Company co-founder Jeff Davison talks about leading a performing arts school through Covid-19 and beyond, on this show about music school leadership.

Central to Jeff’s teaching philosophy is the mission to never let a student go. His experience with 25+ years of teaching and leading a full-time large staff in multiple arts disciplines is just phenomenal. Together, BYPC has currently transitioned all of its classes online. What a feat that is!

Today, we’re going to get down to how he’s managing it all. You’ll pick up a lot of takeaways and ideas from this episode on building your business, student recitals, approaching students and so much more.

Transcript of the Show

If you’d like to download a PDF transcript of this episode, please click below.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to lead your team and support your students even through hard times:

• [05:41] Running Bedford Youth Performing Company, a non-profit performing arts school in Bedford, NH.
• [08:01] Learn about their students and the instruments they study.
• [09:21] How their team of teachers work.
• [10:59] The story behind building a non-profit company.
• [13:34] Creating an arts and dance integrated preschool curriculum.
• [17:08] A look into their current student performances.
• [22:18] Planning goals for student recitals.
• [25:36] Thinking through issues on audio, tech and copyright for online classes and recitals.
• [29:12] Issues and advice about online recitals and what students look forward to about them.
• [31:35] The importance of asking inputs from students and their parents.
• [32:55] Integrating a mix of online and face-to-face classes.
• [35:10] Looking at a different approach in teaching students.
• [38:24] Teaching Jeff’s favourite students – teenagers.
• [41:27] Jeff’s experience inside TopMusicPro membership.
• [44:42] The next 25 years for his career.

Links Mentioned

• Bedford Youth Performing Company

About our Guest

Jeff Davison, along with his wife Ann, founded a multi-disciplinary performing arts school in Bedford, New Hampshire, US, where he’s taught music for 25 years. Jeff attended Berklee College, New England Conservatory, and has studied with Dorothy Taubman. He currently enjoys playing in a reggae band in addition to teaching and running the 501(c)3 school, Bedford Youth Performing Company.

Today’s Sponsor

tonebase is an online education platform that gives you access to the world’s leading classical musicians. With our library of 400+ video tutorials, you can unlock the insights of GRAMMY award-winning players, international competition winners, and pedagogues from top music schools like Juilliard and Yale. Whether you’re just starting out and looking to learn foundational techniques or ready to take on the most advanced concepts and pieces, there’s something for every passionate musician on tonebase. Find the knowledge and inspiration you need to take your playing to the next level! 

Thank you for tuning in!

In conclusion, there are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, and I’m grateful that you’ve chosen mine. Whether you’re at the gym, on the bike or in the car, I know that you and your students will get lots out of what you learn in the long run.

Just make sure you try out some of the ideas before they get lost in the business of your next lessons!

If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it by using the social media buttons on the left of the page.

Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes or on my Facebook page. Reviews are extremely helpful when it comes to show’s ranking and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally.

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live.