Marianne Sciolino: From Nothing to Something — A Case Study in Tenacity (Part I)

Marianne SciolinoThe Marlowsphere Blog (#77)

Marianne Sciolino is the Executive Director of Sciolino Artists Management. Her roster of classical artists includes The Harlem String Quartet and virtuoso pianists Cipa and Misha Dichter, and National Philharmonic conductor Peter Gajewski, among a couple of dozen artists. Her company is eight years old.

Her current roster of artists is certainly impressive. . .now, that is. But eight years ago her roster was totally blank. It took her three years of chutzpa, very hard work, cold-calling, a lot of networking, and drive and tenacity—not to mention a significant depletion of her personal savings—to get her company to where it is today. Her story is one of personal courage and surmounting personal fears and challenges. It is an inspiring story, one that teaches that if you want it bad enough, you have to keep to your vision even when you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing and nobody knows your name.

I first met Ms. Sciolino in January 2006 at the Chamber Music America Conference. We were both stuffing goody-bags for the conference attendees. She had no money, not even a table at the conference. Stuffing bags was our collective way of attending the conference without cost. What follows is her story in her own words from my interview with her earlier this year.

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MARLOW: When did you actually start your business?

SCIOLINO: In January 2005.

MARLOW: So you’ve been in business eight years. Why did you decide to do this business?

SCIOLINO: I had worked on Wall Street for many years in international commercial and investment banking mostly having to do with Latin America. I was previously a Spanish professor and went back to school in the mid-eighties and did a master’s business administration in finance at New York University. So I combined the two careers—Spanish professor and finance—and worked in both New York and Mexico City in both commercial and investment banking.

MARLOW: So how did you start?

JoAnn FallettaSCIOLINO: I actually started in November 2004 when I flew to Buffalo, New York. It was an emergency trip. My mother had a stroke. We weren’t sure if she was going to make it. And to give me some reprieve I decided to go hear JoAnn Falletta conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic. I had bought a couple of CDs that I was going to give as Christmas presents, she was going to be signing CDs during the intermission. I quickly read her bio. Asked her to sign the CDs, starting chatting her up. She invited me to a concert in New York. I went back to New York and I said to my piano teacher at the time, “Gee, you said you were forming a chamber group, and I bet I would be really good at representing your chamber group because I’m fearless, I’ll talk to anybody.” That is literally how the company started. That was November 2004. I picked up the phone for the first time in January 2005. Made my first call to SUNY Buffalo because I figured I can use the Buffalo connection, that’s where I’m from,  and I figured the guy wouldn’t hang up on me.

MARLOW: What happened?

SCIOLINO: He talked to me and he was really, really nice. But he didn’t hire any of my artists until about five years later.

MARLOW: Why did it take five years?

SCIOLINO: This is really part of a broader question. How do you start a business when you’ve never done it before, you haven’t come out of the industry, and you’re not walking away from a Columbia Artists Management Inc (CAMI) with a stable of artists, so you have no supply, and if you’ve got no supply, how do you have any demand? That was the conundrum.  You really have no artists that anybody’s ever heard of and nobody in the marketplace has ever heard of you. So why should any artist join your roster? Why would the Buffalo Philharmonic pick up the phone and talk to you? That was really the challenge.

Marianne Sciolino and Chester LaneI lived off my savings for three years. Starting around 2007 I started to notice I was covering my business expenses, but back to the initial conundrum, I have a lot of chutzpa and I just kept making cold-calls and talking about the few artists I did have on the roster who were relative unknowns, but I knew they were really, really good. I’m a very good networker, I picked up the phone and called somebody from my university who lives in New York, Gary Kaufman, who’s a lawyer and lover of classical music and he said to me “You have to meet Sherrie Murphy because she does public relations for some classical musicians.” So, I was introduced to Sherry Murphy. Turns out Sherry knew all the same people I knew from the University of Toronto. We went out to breakfast and opened up the Rolodex. One of the names on the Rolodex was Chester Lane, to whom I am now married! The romance would have probably started sooner, but I didn’t want to meet him in person because I was terrified he would find out how little I knew. So, I only spoke to him by phone and asked him to review a few CDs, which he graciously did.

Then JoAnn Falletta suggested I go to the League of American Orchestras conference. I had never heard of this group. And then I put two and two together. That’s where Chester Lane works as a senior editor for Symphony Magazine. So I called him up again in the spring of 2006 and met with him and then met with one of the staff members and started to pick their brains. So I went to the first League conference in June of 2006, a little over a year after I started the firm, went there and had three artists, three photos standing on this tiny little table, of course, nobody would talk to me, nobody knew who I was, and I spotted Steve Shaiman over at Concert Artists Guild (CAG). And I walked over and I introduced myself. I knew that CAG was a feeder organization, incubator for artists, and I asked him if he would have lunch with me. That led to my taking an ensemble called Antares on my roster which gave me a tiny bit of credibility because people have heard of Concert Artists Guild. I mentioned that to Chester—we were now becoming very good friends at that point—and he said, “Gee, maybe you should meet the people at the Sphinx Organization. They promote the careers of black and Latino string players.” And I said, “I’m fluent in Spanish, these are two cultures I have a lot of rapport with. I would love to get to know more about the Sphinx Organization.” And he said “Well, I’m invited to the Gala in October of 2006. Would you like to go as my guest?”

Aaron DworkinI got to sit in the League Box. Henry Fogel, then president of the League, was sitting in front of me, and I watched Henry Fogel jump up and clap wildly when the Harlem Quartet performed. And I said to myself, “These guys are really, really interesting. So I cold-called Aaron Dworkin, founder of the Sphinx Organization. He didn’t take my call the first time. Cold-called him again, second time dropped Chester Lane’s name. Dworkin called me back, met with him at the Apollo Theatre, and at that point I’m still an unknown, and the Sphinx Organization was much better known than I was. So we took a chance on each other. He let me take the Harlem Quartet on my roster. They are now probably the biggest artists on my roster. This led to my taking Elena Urioste whose career is taking off in spades.

So once I started to build up the credibility, and lot of blood sweat and tears, day in, day out, and struggling, it was just a long, long, long process. Then a little over two years ago I was able to hire my first fulltime employee, Mollie Alred, she’s absolutely spectacular—she’s really helped to take the firm to another level. That’s sort of the big picture.

Carter BreyMARLOW: How did you get piano virtuoso Misha Dichter on your roster?

SCIOLINO: The more important question is how did I get American cello virtuoso Carter Brey? I got Carter Brey through the conductor of the National Philharmonic. I cold-called Peter Gajewski—he didn’t know me at all. I just picked up the phone and called him because I heard through JoAnn Falletta, through someone at the Virginia Symphony that Sandy Cameron, a young violinist, had left CAMI.  I Googled her, saw that she had performed with the National Philharmonic, and cold-called Peter. I never took Cameron on my roster, but Peter and I became very good friends, and one day he said to me, “How would you like to take me on your roster?” I said that was a great idea, but I have to tell you I don’t know anything about conductors. And he said “We’ll learn together.” So, he came on my roster, and I didn’t know that Carter Brey performed there about every two years, and so, Peter said to me, Carter is leaving Opus 3. Opus 3 is one of the world’s leading classical music and performing arts management companies. He was going to go without management. So, I said to Peter, do you think Carter would come on my roster? “I don’t know. I could ask him.” The first time I got a flat “No. Not Interested. Not interested in management.” I waited a few more months, asked Peter again. “Would you go back and Misha & Cipa Dichterask Carter again? Maybe he might be interested.” Peter asked him again. This time Carter said “I’ll meet with her for coffee.” I was so nervous the day we met for coffee. I remember thinking, “how am I going to do this?” My hands were shaking. I said to myself pull yourself together. We met for coffee. We had a really nice meeting and he came on my roster. That was a huge coup for me. Then, Misha Dichter who was not entirely happy with his management at the time is buddies with Carter called up Carter and said “Are you happy with your management?” Carter said yes. He asked if I would speak to Misha. I spoke to Misha, and that’s how Misha Dichter and his wife Cipa Dichter came on my roster.

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Visit The Marlowsphere Blog next week for Part II of this interview with Marianne Sciolino and learn the three skills beyond chutzpa and networking Marianne says are needed to make the journey in the tough music business.

Please write to me at meiienterprises@aol.com if you have any comments on this or any other of my blogs.

Eugene Marlow, Ph.D.
September 16, 2013

© Eugene Marlow 2013

 

 

 

 

 

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