(Published as “How I Pivoted, Part 2” in the August 2022 issue of Music Inc Magazine) On a Wednesday morning in early January 2021, I was at The Mayor of Old Town, a popular beer bar in Fort Collins, Colorado, the same town where I run my dealership Boomer Music…

by Drew Holmes “Ugh, this show is going to be a pain to prep!” my assistant exclaimed when we heard. The Naples Philharmonic Orchestra had been hired to perform at the American Airlines Arena in Miami. The headliner for the performance? Luciano Pavarotti. We had backed famous tenors before. My…

by Drew Holmes Myra Janko Daniels, President, Chairman, and CEO of The Naples Philharmonic passed me in the hallway outside the library. “Working hard?” she asked. “Nope, working smart!” was my pithy reply. Immediately I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach. Did I just accidentally quit? A…

by Drew Holmes Summer was winding down and I was in the waning days of my time working at Tanglewood, summer home of the Boston Symphony. …

by Drew Holmes I took a deep breath as I grabbed the handle of the floor buffer, again, and tentatively squeezed. Immediately the force of the machine jerked it out of my hands, spun it around and, again, squarely smacked my shin. Struggling to stand, I had only one thought…

by Drew Holmes Let me tell you a secret. In creating these weekly essays, I have had one unspoken goal: To write as horribly as possible. Why would I set a goal to be terrible at something? A few years ago, I published a bi-monthly newsletter for Boomer Music. I…

by Drew Holmes Those of us who attended Drew University in the mid 1990’s remember the celebrity we briefly had in our midst. We knew him at the time as an up-and-coming actor who had graced stages in the greater NY area and was destined for big things. …

by Drew Holmes as published in Music Inc Magazine June/July 2022 Music Inc Magazine June/July 2022 Edit descriptionarchive.maherpublications.com In the early days of COVID, my store was under a state mandated one-month closure. Schools shifted away from in-person instruction and the needs of my core customers — music educators and their students — changed overnight. Podcasting and…

by Drew Holmes Practice had ended and the team climbed the bleachers. We stayed late to witness a classic debate settled once and for all: Who was better — the sprinters or the distance runners? Being a javelin/discus thrower, and therefore a resident of neither camp, I did not have…