Podcasting with Midwest Young Artists

For the past month, I have been hosing and producing a podcast for Midwest Young Artists, a Chicagoland organization encompassing orchestral, jazz, choral, and chamber offerings. To me, this podcast (which can be found at WMYA.FM is a fantastic idea, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the process. In addition to handling the nitty-gritty of this podcasting prodcution, I have for the past several years taught many of the double bassists in this organization, and it is a lot of fun getting more involved with this organization. This group is a veritable content machine, and having a media channel of their very own (WMYA.FM) allows them to easily broadcast their content to the entire world.

Why don’t more groups like MYA do podcasts?

I’m certainly curious as to why more musical organizations don’t harness podcasting for their promotional efforts. Many of the professional orchestras that have dipped their toes into the podcasting pool have done so in pretty tepid fashion. With a group like Midwest Young artists (producing content that they have the right to recut, repackage, and rebroadcast however they see fit), podcasting is perfect. Want to let the grandparents see that concert that they were dying to check out? Now they can, either on the web, via e-mail, or over their Apple TV, TiVo, or Media Center (probably not for most grandpaents!).

For the technologically challenged grandparents, folks can simply burn the podcast episode to CD and put it in the mail. Simple!

Master classes and video episodes also available

In addition to putting on a wide variety of performances, this organization hosts master classes with soloists, orchesttral musicians, and jazz artists, and putting these events out in podcast form not only allows students from the MYA to check out any classes they mised, but having this material available online helps to promote the artist/teachers featured, foster learning, and promote hte program outside of the Chicago metro area. For a group that spends a significant amount of time and resources touring, having a media channel like this is invaluable.

The power of having a podcast

By owning and operating WMYA.FM, this organization essentially controls their own broacast channel, and can publish content in any matter they see fit without having to negotiate with station managers or compete for time with other arts organizations. There are only 24 hours in a day, after all, and television and radio outfits therefore have a finite number of slots that they can make avaialble per day, week, and month. With podcasting, the sky’s the limit, and one is only limited by one’s creativity and ambition. Want more listeners? Devise innovative ways of promoting the podcast. The podcaster retains much more control of the product in this scenario, which is a good thing for content creators.

Go MYA! Check out the podcast at WMYA.FM.