Meet Our New Intern!

As all businesses have done over these past 6 months, we had to adapt and change with the times. Although there have been many changes to some of our normal operations over the last few months, we have had the opportunity to keep some things the same. One of those things that has stayed the same is that we still have the opportunity to continue offering our wonderful internship program. For a number of years, we have hosted an Audience Experience Intern every collegiate semester. Normally, these interns are either undergrad or graduate students at the Eastman School of Music and help us with our social media, marketing, public relations, website development, and music production. This semester, however, our intern is from Nazareth College and has a very interesting career path planned out. Read below to meet our Fall Audience Experience Intern: Brandan Parks!

Hello everyone!
My name is Brandan Parks and I am currently a senior Music Business major with minors in Legal Studies and Communication/Media at Nazareth College. I am a baritone vocal primary and a piano secondary. My hometown is Herkimer, NY, which is 15 minutes east of Utica, NY. The Music Business program at Nazareth is within both the School of Music and the School of Business and Leadership so over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to receive a state-of-the-art education in multiple different disciplines. Musically at Nazareth College, I am the Vice President of Nazareth’s chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, the Bass 2 Section Leader for the Chamber Singers, one of the lead singers in Rock Ensemble, and I am currently preparing the role of Aeneas for Opera Workshop’s performances of Purcell's “Dido & Aeneas” in January 2021. Outside of music, I am the Vice President for the Class of 2021, Co-President for Nazareth College’s Chapter of the Society for Leadership and Success, Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society Member, a Student Ambassador, an Orientation Leader, and a Center for Student Success Peer Mentor.

As mentioned, I am taking a much different path into the music industry than most. Unlike many others within my major, my path will be delayed for at least three years after graduation. This is because I plan on attending law school in the fall of 2021. At law school, I intend to concentrate in entertainment law. Attending law school to study entertainment law has been something I have wanted to do since the summer before starting my academic journey at Nazareth and it is both exciting and nerve-wracking that the time has arrived to start my application process. I feel that everything that I have done at Nazareth over the past three years has led up to this point and my eventual acceptance into law school (fingers crossed), making this one of the most important times in my life. It is a love for both the music and entertainment industries in addition to a love for law that drew me to this career field. Ever since being introduced to the concept of entertainment law via the New York Law Journal while interning for the Herkimer County Family Court, I knew that it was my destined career path.

During every internship experience with SCMR, it is the intern who is in charge of running the social media pages. Throughout the semester, I plan on posting things that our Board Members or Artistic Directors are doing in the music community, things other music societies are doing, and some history of chamber music. Over the past few months, our social media presence has grown so make sure you are following/subscribed to our new Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn accounts for the newest and up-to-date content! Also during my internship experience, I will be working on editing the website to make it more user friendly, where applicable. With this, I am also working on the website's search engine optimization (SEO), which will help our website rank higher in search engine results and hopefully grow our fanbase. One area of focus that has been added specifically for my internship experience is that I will be working on editing and modifying our current Musician Agreement Form and SCMR’s by laws. For these, I will be reviewing the documents and making suggestions for changes after close collaboration with Board Members and the Artistic Directors. These are projects that I am especially excited about because it will give me the opportunity to get introduced to the concept of contract writing, while also giving me the opportunity to learn more about the topic through our collaborative efforts.

To say that I am excited to work with the Society for Chamber Music in Rochester this semester is an understatement. This internship offers real-world opportunities that I would never have if it was not for SCMR’s stellar internship program. I am excited to a part of the SCMR team and can’t wait to see what the semester has in store!

-In music,
Brandan Parks
SCMR Fall 2020 Audience Experience Intern

PS: Stay tuned, we are finalizing the first half of our 2020/2021 season and will back in touch soon!