Classical Music Consultants

Alexander & Buono International specializes in the building and sustaining of careers for classical musicians. Our worldwide network of advisors, teachers and marketing specialists, coupled with decades of performance experience, have given more than five hundred aspiring students, teachers and concert artists a launching pad for their work.

We are not agents or managers. One of the largest misconceptions of the classical music world is that anyone with a conservatory degree should immediately seek management. What managers themselves will tell you however is that the time to get a manager is “when you have something to manage.”

Instead, our firm helps provide you with a platform of concerts, recordings, and result-based career counseling that leads to the creation and fulfillment of goals associated with a professional career.

Why ABI?

Far too many artists believe careers are built on talent alone. They spend immense amounts of time and money on formal education coupled with private lessons, coachings, and competitions hoping it will all lead to a big break and ultimately a career, while all too often learning that much more is needed to create true career advancement.

Our firm is successful because of an approach that addresses the needs of classical musicians in exactly the same way as those of any other industry. For us, repertoire is inventory, audiences are customers, and talent is a product. We show clients how to package and properly present that talent, while establishing the professional and artistic relationships that get them noticed, one performance at a time. During this process we provide strategic advice and consultation expertise leading to effective artistic and business decisions, thereby creating career momentum in both the short- and long term.

The scale of our impact is reflected in our affiliations, the publications our artists have been featured and the thousands of CDs sold by the artists we support.

Our Services

  • Many of our clients know that they want success, but they don’t know how to go about achieving it. This is why we ask all potential clients during an initial consultation to describe their expectations for a career: where they would like to perform, what kind of repertoire appeals to them, cities where they want to work, and even what they consider appropriate fees.

    Once we have a sense of their “perfect world” ambitions, we begin tailoring and honing their ideas into a carefully curated plan of initiatives, goals and actions, all designed to move their careers forward as intelligently and strategically as possible.

  • We pride ourselves on being able to help artists make decisions not only about their overall career, but also those surrounding personal presentation, repertoire building and programming, as well as initiatives related to recordings, performance venues, and everything related to career building.

    We also map out career plans over 1, 3, 5, and 10 years, working backward from what our clients tell us are their desired goals, and what they hope to achieve. This approach allows us to then measure and fine-tune our career strategies based on needs and changes in the classical music marketplace, just as with any other industry, all along the way.

  • Our firm advises artists on their publicity while helping them to address matters such as interviews, media materials, publicizing their events, and all related issues.

  • We provide our clients with as many tools as possible for building, augmenting, and sustaining marketing initiatives, whether it is reaching out to specific individuals and organizations; planning strategies that will help advertise events; or creating profiles designed to help expand their social media presence. We don’t just suggest goals and objectives, but calculate them so that we can measure the value and effectiveness of all efforts at every turn.

  • We have a social media manager as part of our team, as well as a creative managers that help us design the hundreds of posts we publish for our clients.

  • We make it very clear to our clients that we are not managers of agents.

    Why?

    Because an artist does not need a manager until there is a career to manage. Between completion of studies and the start of a career are numerous steps and processes requiring the building personal and professional relationships leading to management.

    Our job is to help all of our clients secure the type of artistic reputation and credibility which can lead to their ultimately being sought out by managers and agents.

Client Profile

Our typical client is someone who has either just begun a career and is seeking to build the types of professional relationships that will bring them to the attention of presenters and promoters who can engage them, (thereby helping them acquire more professional experience); or a mid-career artist seeking to augment their previous accomplishments with more advanced levels of professional sponsorship and presentations that will lead to an expansion of their audiences and career opportunities.

A client’s goal in coming to us, at whatever stage, is to create or further build a professional mechanism providing greater opportunities for career advancement. 

  • “Consulting with ABI has had a huge and positive impact on my career, and I am forever thankful for their expertise.”

    John Nalan,
    Young Steinway Artist

  • “Nothing else offers the combination of musical development, performance opportunity, and mentorship given by ABI.”

    Ria Persad, ABI Laureate; Founder & Chair of StatWeather; Graduate, Harvard, Princeton, and Cambridge Universities

  • “Messrs. Alexander and Buono have been invaluable mentors to me, and I’m grateful for their insightful guidance and artistic encouragement.”

    Anna Shelest, Recording Artist, Sorel Classics