Eric Booth
Eric Booth (born October 18, 1950) is an American author, speaker, teacher, and international advisor in the field of arts learning. He has devoted much of his career to building the field of teaching artistry, and has created the commonly accepted definition of a teaching artist: “a practicing professional artist with the complementary skills, curiosities and sensibilities of an educator, who can effectively engage a wide range of people in learning experiences in, through, and about the arts.”[1]
He has also helped to pioneer new concepts of community engagement for arts institutions of all kinds, working with major U.S. orchestras and other arts organizations to shift from conventional outreach efforts to authentic community partnership. In 2015, Booth was honored with the Americans for the Arts’ Arts Education Leadership Award for his impact in the field of teaching artistry.[2] In 2019, the National Guild for Community Arts Education gave him its National Service Award for exceptional service to the National Guild and the community arts education movement.[3]
Booth has advised and led arts learning change initiatives[4] for institutions including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, the New York Philharmonic, and the Tanglewood Music Center. He helped to found the Teacher's Center of The Leonard Bernstein Center[5] (now Artful Learning[6]), co-founded The Arts and Education Program and the Mentoring Program at The Juilliard School, and was the founding editor of The Teaching Artist Journal.[7]
In 2012, he co-founded the International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC)[8], with an inaugural conference in Oslo and subsequent biennial world conferences across the world. In 2021, he led the launch of the ITAC Impact: Climate initiatives,[9] which commission teaching artists around the world to create community arts projects that activate those most impacted by climate change.
Booth, who pursued earlier careers as an actor and entrepreneur, is also a leading consultant, writer, and activist in the field of arts education for social change.[10] He has published numerous books, including The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator; The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life; and Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music. His latest book, Tending the Perennials: The Art and Spirit of a Personal Religion (2019) focuses on the ways that art and spirituality overlap in everyday life.
Early Theatrical and Entrepreneurial Careers
Eric Booth began his professional career as an actor. His Broadway credits include A Walk in the Woods, Whose Life is it Anyway?, Golda, and Cesar and Cleopatra, John Guare’s Lydie Breeze, and Noel Coward’s Design for Living. As a Shakespearean actor, Booth performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival[11] and The New Jersey Shakespeare Festival[12]. In 1981, performed a national tour of the one-man show "St. Mark's Gospel."[13]
In 1984, Booth launched a company, Alert Publishing, that published newsletters, books, and reports analyzing research on trends in American lifestyles. This led to a syndicated radio program on the Business Radio Network, The Research Alert, from 1989 to 1991.
Teaching Artistry and Arts Education Policy
Introduced to teaching artistry at Lincoln Center Institute (now called Lincoln Center Education) in 1979, Booth was deeply influenced by the Institute’s lead philosopher Maxine Greene to pursue the growth of teaching artistry as a distinctive field. In 1980, he began teaching for the Institute, and went on to develop Lincoln Center Institute satellite locations in multiple cities, including Nashville, where he was the senior teaching artist at the Nashville Institute for the Arts. In 1993, he was named Founding Director of the Leonard Bernstein Center’s Teacher Center, which led to the national network of Artful Learning schools.
Beginning in the 1980s, Booth also developed a career as program designer and strategist for national arts organizations, including The League of American Orchestras, The National Guild for Community Arts Education, Chorus America, and Opera America. He co-designed and taught the Arts and Education program at the Juilliard School, where he led the Morse Fellowship program from 1994 to 2003, and helped to design arts programs and conferences across the U.S. In keynote addresses to UNESCO arts education conferences in the 2000s, Booth emphasized the central role of creative arts education in building cultures of peace, equity, and community across the world.
In 2011, Booth was a co-founder of the International Teaching Artist Conference (ITAC), whose first conference took place in Norway in 2012, led by Booth and Marit Ulvund through Seanse Art Center. ITAC has held bi-yearly conferences since then, in Brisbane, Edinburgh, New York, and Seoul. In 2018, ITAC became the year-round International Teaching Artist Collaborative, the first global network of artists who work in communities and schools.
Also in 2011, Booth co-founded the Community Engagement Lab in Vermont, of which he continues to be Engagement Director. In 2014, he co-founded the Teaching Artist Development Labs at Lincoln Center Education, leading the Teaching Artist Leadership Lab there 2016-2019.
In 2021, Booth founded ITAC IMPACT: Climate, the first global network of teaching artists committed to making a difference in the climate crisis, and the Climate Collective, a group of climate-passionate artists who meet regularly to build their network and effectiveness.
Music Education for Social Change
In 2009, Booth became interested in the pedagogy and practice of El Sistema, a music education for social change model founded in Venezuela in 1975 that is now an international movement for ensemble music education for children living in at-risk circumstances. For over a decade, he has served as advisor and consultant to El Sistema-inspired programs across the world and has written widely on the subject. In 2011, he co-founded (with author and music educator Tricia Tunstall) The Ensemble newsletter, the main vehicle for communications and connection between programs across the world that pursue music education for social change goals; the newsletter provides first-publication opportunities for arts education activists around the world. In 2016, he published Playing for Their Lives: the Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music (W.W. Norton), co-written with Tunstall.
Since 2015, Booth has served on the faculty of the Global Leaders Program. Since 2019, he has also served as senior advisor and lead faculty member for the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM), a global innovation program that seeks to enrich the field of music for social action by advancing pedagogical practice and organizational leadership, and as consultant for Community Arts Network (CAN), a European-based platform for increasing social impact through the arts.
Background and Personal Life
Eric Booth Miller was born in Manhattan, New York City on October 18, 1950 to magazine publisher A. Edward Miller and school administrator/author Mary Susan Miller.[14] He attended Rye Country Day School, Middlebury College, Emerson College (B.A. Theater Arts, 1972), and Stanford University (MFA Summa Cum Laude, Theater Arts). He lived in New York City until 1995, when he moved to the Hudson River Valley. He was married to Le Clanché Du Rand for over 20 years. He married Tricia Tunstall in 2020.
Adopting the professional name Eric Booth early in his acting career, Booth is the great-great-great-grandson of infamous American actor John Wilkes Booth and a relative of John Wilkes’ brother, Shakespearean actor Edwin Booth.
Awards and Honors
2019 National Service Award, National Guild for Community Arts Education.
2015 Arts in Education Award, Americans for the Arts.
2012 Honorary Doctorate of Musical Arts, teaching artistry, New England Conservatory.[15]
2004-2007 Montalvo Arts Center Lucas Artists Fellow[16]
Books
Tending The Perennials: The Art and Spirit of a Personal Religion, Betteryet Press, 2019.
Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music (co-authored with Tricia Tunstall), W. W. Norton & Co., 2016.
The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator, Oxford University Press, 2007.
The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life, Sourcebooks, 1997.
Articles
“The Time Has Come for a National Field of Teaching Artistry,” GIA Reader, Vol. 26 No.3 (Fall 2015)
- “Teaching Beyond and In-Between: Reframing a Flourishing Future for Arts Learning in Schools Through Isotonic Instruction,” The Harvard Educational Review (Spring 2013)
“An Inside Look at Colombia's El Sistema,” co-authored by Tricia Tunstall, Createquity (September 2011)
Video/Audio
“Let’s Just Go for It,” interview on Why Change? podcast of Creative Generation (4/27/2021)
"The Sonnet Experiment with Eric Booth," The Connected Musician, Carnegie Hall (7/20/ 2021)
"The Need to Connect with Audiences," The Connected Musician, Carnegie Hall (7/20/2021)
"The Irreducible Core Essentials in Activating Creative Potential,” AIE Conference, New Hampshire State Council on the Arts (11/20/2013)
"Eric Booth on Teaching Artistry," video series produced by Carnegie Hall (8/20/2012)
“The New Beginning for the Arts that You Can Create.” Commencement Speech, New England Conservatory (5/20/ 2012)
Major Speeches
- 2015 Keynote, Southern Progressive Education Summit, New Orleans, LA.
- 2014 Keynote, UNESCO Education Conference, Seoul, Korea.
- 2012 Commencement Address, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA.
- 2012 Conference host and closing keynote, London Olympic Arts Festival.
- 2012 Keynote, International Teaching Artist Conference, Oslo, Norway.
- 2009 Keynote, International Conference: Arts in Education, M/S Midnatsol
- 2006 Closing keynote, first UNESCO worldwide arts education conference, Lisbon, Portugal.
- 2006 Keynote, first international conference on Orchestras and Communities, Glasgow, Scotland.
Essays
“Two Ways to Start (and Continue) Learning an Instrument”
“Five Encounters with El Sistema International, 2013”
“The Eye Begins to See: Reflections Upon a Third Visit to El Sistema”
“The Fundamentals of El Sistema”
“A New Framework for Understanding the Teaching Artist Field”
References
- ↑ "teaching artistry". wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
- ↑ "ERIC BOOTH TO RECEIVE ARTS EDUCATION AWARD ON JUNE 12". Americans for the Arts. June 1, 2015. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ "National Service Award Recipients". National Guild for Community Arts Education. National Guild for Community Arts Education. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
- ↑ "Eric Booth - Artist Facilitator Thinking Partner". EMC Arts. ArtsFWD. Retrieved February 4, 2022.
- ↑ "Artful Learning". Wikipedia. wikipedia. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ "Overview". leonard bernstein.com/artful learning. leonard bernstein office. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ Booth, Eric (2003). "From the Editor: Welcome to the Teaching Artist Journal-the national forum that seeks to clarify, enrich and advance Teaching Artist practice". Teaching Artist Journal. 1: 3–4. doi:10.1080/15411796.2003.9684264. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ "About ITAC". ITAC-Collaborative. ITAC-Collaborative. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
- ↑ "ITAC Impact: Climate". ITAC_International Teaching Artist Collaborative. ITAC Conference. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ "The Ensemble - About Us". The Ensemble. Longy School of Music Bard College. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
- ↑ Leary, Kathleen (2009). Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9781439638248. Retrieved February 11, 2022. Search this book on
- ↑ Occhiogrosso, Frank (1979). "New Jersey Shakespeare Festival". Shakespeare Quarterly. 30 (2): 189–191. doi:10.2307/2869300. JSTOR 2869300.
- ↑ Lardner, James. "A Family Tradition". The Washington Post. washingtonpost.com. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
- ↑ Lardner, James (June 17, 1981). "A Family Tradition". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 29, 2021.
- ↑ "NEC Honorary Doctor of Music Degree". New England Conservatory. New England Conservatory. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
- ↑ "Eric Booth - Lucas Artist Fellow". Montalvo Arts Center. Montalvo Arts Center. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
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