The plan
What I am building in South Florida
A practice that joins the concert platform to the teaching studio — recitals and concerto dates, masterclasses and residencies, and a route for young players aiming at American conservatories.
Why it matters
The room I am working in
The audience is shrinking and the teaching pipeline is narrowing at the same time. That is the case for doing this work properly, and it is why the plan puts performance and teaching on the same footing rather than treating education as the afterthought.
4.6%
of American adults went to a live classical performance in 2022 — down from 8.6% five years earlier.
National Endowment for the Arts, Survey of Public Participation in the Arts
3.6 million
American schoolchildren have no music class available to them at all.
NAMM Foundation and the Arts Education Data Project
80%
of America’s roughly 2,000 orchestras run on annual budgets under $300,000.
Stanford Economic Review
21 states
report teacher shortages in the arts, narrowing the pipeline before it starts.
Arts Education Partnership
1.9%
of a school district’s operating budget goes to music — about $251 per student a year.
NAMM Foundation
2.7%
of people who attend live arts events say they always feel lonely, against 5.1% of those who do not.
National Endowment for the Arts, 2024
The work
Four strands, running at once
Performance
Solo recitals, concerto appearances with orchestras, and chamber collaborations across the United States and Europe.
Teaching
Masterclasses, workshops and short residencies hosted by universities, conservatories and festivals.
The studio
A selective private studio, in person and online, for advanced players preparing auditions, competitions and conservatory admission.
The network
Connecting soloists and ensembles with the concert halls, festivals and cultural organisations that are looking for them.
Conducting from the podium — the orchestral half of the work the plan is built on.
Performance and teaching are not two careers. They are the same one, and the field is poorer for pretending otherwise.
Dr. Oleksii Hamov
Concept and programming
I build the programmes, not only play them
Two concerts of my own devising — the pairing, the argument and the running order mine from the first idea to the platform. Programming is its own discipline, and it is the part of this work that transfers directly to building something new here.
Haydn and Shostakovich, Chernivtsi
Haydn’s Violin Concerto in G major set against Shostakovich’s Quintet, with the Haydn played in a historically informed manner. It was the first concert of its kind given in the city, and the first time the student orchestra had worked with period practice.
Beethoven and Schnittke, Chernivtsi
Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Schnittke’s First, joined by Schnittke’s own cadenza — written for the Beethoven — used as the bridge between the two.
Period performance
Bringing authentic Baroque to South Florida
Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann played on period instruments, at Baroque pitch, with the bows and the balance the music was written for — programmes built the way the era intended, not scaled down from a modern orchestra.
South Florida’s audience is changing faster than its early-music programming. People arriving from New York, Boston, London and Amsterdam bring the concert habits of cities with established period-instrument scenes, and they expect to find one here. The groundwork exists, but set against the audience now arriving it is thin. That gap is the opportunity.
My own route into this repertoire runs through performance rather than theory — Bach’s Double Concerto in D minor as featured soloist, a work that lives or dies on stylistic authenticity and on the dialogue between the two violins.
The programmes
Historically informed programmes built around Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Telemann, scaled to the room rather than to the subscription model.
The players
Assembling period-instrument specialists from across the United States and Europe for specific programmes, rather than waiting for a standing ensemble to exist.
The audience
Concerts for listeners who already know this repertoire from other cities, and for the far larger number meeting it properly for the first time.
The route there
01
Programme by programme
Assemble period-instrument specialists for single concerts, so the music happens before the institution does. Each programme pays for itself and proves the audience is there.
02
A returning series
Turn the programmes that work into a series with a fixed home and a subscription audience — the point at which players can plan a season around it rather than a date.
03
A resident ensemble
A standing Baroque orchestra for South Florida, with the players, the instruments and the festival footing to sustain a full season and to draw visiting soloists from Europe.
The sequence
South Florida first, then outward
01
Now
Building the concert calendar in South Florida — recitals, concerto dates and chamber programmes — with masterclasses and short residencies running alongside them at universities and festivals.
02
Next
A formal teaching programme: a curriculum joining European and American pedagogy to the science-based approach to violin technique I developed through my doctoral research, for students preparing competitions and conservatory auditions.
03
Then
National tours, international festivals, and exchange projects with musicians and institutions in Europe and Ukraine — bringing students to the United States and taking American programming abroad.
Beyond South Florida
The work does not stop at the state line
South Florida is the base, not the boundary. The touring, the exchanges and the online studio are what keep a regional practice from becoming a parochial one.
Touring
Concert tours and festival appearances across Europe and beyond — carrying American programming abroad, and bringing what I find there back here.
Exchange
Joint projects with musicians and institutions in Ukraine and across Europe, and a route for international students to come and study in the United States.
Online
Virtual masterclasses and remote study, so a serious student outside Florida is never out of reach.
Who it is for
The people I want to work with
Students and families
Young players aiming at American conservatories, and the families guiding them through auditions and competitions.
Universities and conservatories
Departments looking for a visiting artist for masterclasses, orchestral clinics and seminars.
Orchestras and presenters
Concerto dates, guest leadership of the first violins, and chamber programming built with the presenter.
Festivals and cultural bodies
Programmes that carry a repertoire most audiences have never heard, alongside the standard canon.
Private clients
Private concerts and cultural gatherings, programmed for the room rather than off a shelf.
Patrons and supporters
People who want to underwrite performance and education projects, and see where the money goes.
If any of this is your programme, tell me
Concerto dates, residencies, masterclasses and private study — in South Florida and on tour.