Eric Booth

As an actor, Eric Booth performed in many plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway and around the country, playing over 23 Shakespearean roles (Hamlet three times), and winning “Best Actor” awards on both coasts. Throughout 1981, he performed the American tour of Alec McCowen’s one-man play St. Mark’s Gospel. He has performed many times on television, directed five productions and produced two plays in New York.

As a businessman, he started a small company, Alert Publishing, that in seven years became the largest of its kind in the U.S. analyzing research on trends in American lifestyles and publishing newsletters, books and reports. He became a major figure in trend analysis, frequently quoted by the major media with interviews often appearing in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. He appeared as an expert on NBC News, Sunday Today, and several times on CNN. He was given a syndicated radio program on the Business Radio Network, and was a frequent speaker to business groups.

As an author, he has had five books published. The Everyday Work of Art won three awards and was a Book of the Month Club selection. He has written three dozen magazine articles, was the Founding Editor of the Teaching Artist Journal, and his latest book The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible was published by Oxford University Press in 2009.

In arts learning, he has taught at Juilliard (13 years), Stanford University, NYU, Tanglewood and Lincoln Center Institute (for 25 years), and The Kennedy Center (12 years). He was the Faculty Chair of the Empire State Partnership program for three years (the largest arts-in-education project in America), and held one of six chairs on The College Board’s Arts Advisory Committee for seven years. He serves as a consultant for many organizations, cities and states and businesses around the country, including six of the ten largest orchestras in America, and five national service organizations. He consults with arts organizations, businesses, boards of directors, state arts and education agencies, national arts organizations and occasionally to high tech and medical firms on their innovation work. He is widely referred to as one of the nation’s most creative teachers and as the father of the teaching artist profession, and this is one of many topics he consults on. Formerly the Director of the Teacher Center of the Leonard Bernstein Center, he is a frequent keynote speaker on the arts to groups of all kinds. He delivered the closing keynote speech to UNESCO’s first ever worldwide arts education conference (Lisbon 2006), and gave the keynote speech to the first world conference on orchestras connections to communities (Glasgow 2007). He recently completed a six-week speaking tour of Scotland and Australia. He is the Senior Advisor to the Music National Service initiative (lead trainer and training designer for MusicianCorps); and he is also Senior Advisor to El Sistema USA, a national organization training Abreu Fellows and spearheading the development of El Sistema-related sites around the U.S.