With the turn of the calendar page to a new year, we’ve asked a few Women@Work members to reflect on the year that was, what they’ve learned, how they’ve invested in themselves and grown in confidence as they look forward to opportunities in 2025.
Harpist and composer Alexandra Chang is co-director of Improv Spaces, a Saratoga County-based nonprofit that provides space and opportunities for performance, practice and workshops for musicians and artists involved in improvisation.
How would you assess your last year at work/in business — what were the high points and challenges you confronted?
The past year has been filled with a range of new challenges as well as emotions. I have been challenged to build audience and sponsorship recognition so that folks who we would like to attend our programs as well as fund our projects will know who we are in a very real way. They need to trust us, that we are aligned in goals and initiatives for our funders and that we are connecting deeply in terms of our audiences and donors. They have come to fundamentally believe in what we are about and why our hearts are in our work. For me, co-directing Improv Spaces with my creative partner, percussionist Adam Forman, is about a desire to provide resources and build community, both with improvising musicians and collaborators, but also for the broader community in terms of audiences in the Capital Region and for folks to have access to live improvisational performances.
There is a profound sense of responsibility to these ongoing relationships that we are building — that we feel to these communities and the people we meet, from audiences to donors, who tell us how much they appreciate having access to the talented musicians we are working with and presenting. And also there is this sense of responsibility to the artists, so that they know they are valued and that we will try our best to have their work supported properly, as musicians/performers have historically not been treated well in terms of value and support. I have found that funding for artist fees is often specifically something that sponsors do not support, so it has been a concern that we’ve been working on strategically in terms of targeted grant writing, our hopes for building donors, and puzzling out budgets for projects and programs. It remains an ongoing challenge.
What did you learn about yourself this past year?
I learned that I sure can write a lot of grants in one month! In seriousness, I have learned how hard it is to build a nonprofit from the ground up in its first year when people are wondering, ‘who are you and what are you capable of? ‘ But I also have learned, or perhaps realized again, that either I’m a sucker for pain, or I’m just an eternal optimist, and that I would rather try and fail to build something I believe in and think should exist than not try at all. So I’ll continue to write grants for funding for collaborative projects, programs and partnerships.
What is the best investment you’ve made in yourself recently?
I have invested time in developing my practice as a harpist and composer. It is hard to find time to be able to work on composing and practicing the harp, but these are things that help me feel balanced as both an arts administrator, but also a practitioner. You have to find a balance. I am also a mother and teach at the Rutgers University Department of Arts, Culture and Media, but I was able to go to a three-week artist residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity for Jazz and Sonic Arts this past summer. That was life-altering as an experience in terms of developing my work and allowing myself time away to concentrate on my practice that I never have had before…