Austin Pictures Spotlight: Louise Epstein & John Henry McDonald
Louise Epstein and John Henry McDonald are tremendous, long-time, supporters of the Austin Classical Guitar Society, as is the company John Henry founded: Austin Asset Management Company. The Austin Classical Guitar Society has been on a steady growth trend over the course of the last 15 years but there is no doubt in my mind that a new level of transformation occurred with the arrival of John Henry on the ACGS Board of Directors, and the tremendous energy, vision and support that he and Louise brought with them.
Austin Asset Management Company is a presenting sponsor of Austin Pictures. The Louise Epstein and John Henry McDonald Trust is a supporting sponsor of this Saturday evening as well. Both Company and Trust are also lead sponsors of the ACGS Education Gala “Guitars Under the Stars” set for this coming February 11th at One World Theater with superstar guest Eliot Fisk!
Community-based arts programming thrives only with the generous support of individuals like Louise and John Henry, and we sat down with John Henry recently to learn a bit more about them.
Matthew Hinsley: John Henry, we can’t thank you enough for your generous support of Austin Pictures, and your continued support of ACGS. I’d love it if you would tell us a bit about Louise and yourself.
John Henry McDonald: My wife, my business and I are all long time Austinites. My wife, Louise Epstein wins the prize as she was three months old when she and her folks settled here. I've been in Austin since 1976, and Austin Asset Management Company was founded nearly 25 years ago.
Louise has been at the helm of the city itself as City Councilwoman 1990-1993, and most recently she has served as the Entrepreneur in Residence at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas here in Austin. She currently serves as CEO of eCampusTutors.com.
I founded and developed the leadership team at Austin Asset Management Company. The CEO is Eric Hehman, and Greg Van Wyk and Jonathan Davidson round out the shareholders of our firm. They are responsible for providing family office services and money management for nearly 300 families worldwide. This includes daily stewardship of over $425 million of our clients’ money.
Our families, our employees, and our businesses all believe that as we focus on serving the community first, the community we serve will pay us back in kind.
MH: What organizations in town that you and Louise are particularly passionate about?
JHM: Austin Classical Guitar Society, One World Theater, First Tee of Austin, Any Baby Can, Capital Idea, and Austin Community College Foundation are all recipients of funding from either Austin Asset Management Company or the Louise Epstein and John Henry McDonald Trust.
MH: What has led you to philanthropy?
JHM: It's said best in the Austin Asset Management credo: "you can't out give a giver."
MH: Well we cannot thank you enough for shining your bright lights on ACGS and Austin Pictures – and we’re looking forward to seeing you both on Saturday night!
Austin Pictures: 2 new news stories today!
Two video news stories came out today on Austin Pictures!
This video was just released by KUT on the Storyboard section of their website, primarily about the young artists who have been making the paintings! See the full story here!
And this video story is currently playing in Brownsville, TX on local news - it's about the UTB guitar students who have been preparing to come here to participate in the Austin Pictures guitar orchestra!
Austin Pictures Spotlight: Carolyn and Marc Seriff
Carolyn and Marc Seriff have been tremendous supporters of the Austin Classical Guitar Society. They are Presenting Sponsors of Austin Pictures. We first met surrounding our multi-award-winning 2010 presentation of the GFA International Convention we called “Austin Goes Classical”, which they also sponsored.
Events in the arts like that simply do not happen without generous sponsors like Carolyn and Marc, and so I asked Marc a few questions recently to learn a bit more about these wonderful civic-minded arts patrons.
Matthew Hinsley: Tell me about you and Carolyn?
Marc Seriff: Carolyn grew up on an Indiana farm while I was actually born and raised in Austin. We met when we both worked for a company called Telenet - one of the pioneers of commercial data communications. Carolyn remained at Telenet until her retirement, while I went on to do several DC-area startups ending up as the founding CTO of AOL. We were married in 1989 and retired to Texas in 1996. We've got two sons - Dan and Jason - both of whom now live in Austin. Jason is married to Elizabeth and has a beautiful 3 year-old daughter. We spend most of our time at our home in Horseshoe Bay, although we now spend 2 or 3 days a week at our condo in downtown Austin. We spend a lot of time attending the performing arts and I'm a huge Longhorn sports fan - especially basketball.
MH: Why do you feel it's important to give back to our community?
MS: We've been incredibly lucky in our lives and do have some belief that giving back is important. In a few instances, that's the driving force behind our giving but, frankly, in most of the cases, we give because we're passionate about the causes and organizations that we give too. There's an amazing feeling when you're able to help solve a problem or create some new solution or work of art. Neither of us is particularly artistic or creative ourselves so this becomes a way we can be part of the process.
MH: You have been tremendous supporters of ACGS. We first met when you generously sponsored “Austin Goes Classical”. Why are you supporting Austin Pictures?
MS: Multiple answers to this one. The obvious answer is to provide support to some beautiful music. Beyond that, frankly, we're really supporting ACGS, rather than just Austin Pictures and there are three great reasons for that. First, collaboration between non-profit organizations is one of our hot-buttons and, first with last year's conference and now with Austin Pictures, nobody is doing a better job of that in Austin than ACGS. Second, we're both big believers in the importance of the arts as part of the educational experience. It's pretty stunning the success that ACGS has had locally with AISD and internationally with the curriculum project. Finally, we both love Austin and ACGS has, in its field, made Austin an international focal point for classical guitar.
MH: What other arts organizations or causes are you passionate about?
MS: When we first got back to Texas, we were both extremely active in non-profits in the Marble Falls area. Carolyn chaired the board of the Family Crisis Center and we both served as board members of the Boys & Girls Club of the Highland Lakes. For about a decade, we ran a small foundation in Marble Falls that assisted area non-profits and created some new organizations like the Family Services Center, the Highland Lakes Health Partnership and the Legacy Fund.
Now, we're both active in the arts. Carolyn, next month, will join the board of Zach Scott Theatre. I serve on the Long Center board and executive committee and the advisory board for UT's Department of Theater and Dance. We also both believe in creating sustainability for non-profits and, for that reason, I serve on the board of Austin Community Foundation and Carolyn, on the Legacy Fund board, a hill-country branch of ACF.
MH: We cannot thank you both enough, Marc. Community-based project like Austin Pictures simply wouldn’t be possible with folks like you in the community. See you there!
Austin Pictures - The Program
Here's the program for Saturday night!
"Austin Pictures" by Joseph Williams II opens the concert. Watch an interview with Joseph now. It’s in five short movements and, similar to how Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition describes ten paintings through music, Williams’ Austin Pictures describes five Austin scenes: The Hill Country, Floating on Lady Bird Lake, The Dance of the Grackles, Violet Crown with Cicadas & Capital City Construction. The piece will be premiered by about 100 guitarists – some from as far away as Albuquerque, Brownsville, and Oklahoma City, with the Miró String Quartet, conducted by Maestro Peter Bay. See an interview with Maestro Peter Bay now.
"Austin Pictures – The Movie" plays immediately following the Williams. Its only 12 minutes long and it’s a gorgeous and inspiring window into the process of the wonderful and talented 11 distinguished young visual artists we commissioned to each paint their own Austin versions of paintings inspired by Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. See the paintings now. The Alamo Drafthouse has helped us with this, and the extensive preview AV we’ve prepared for the evening – watch an interview now with Alamo founder and CEO Tim League about the project.
"Songs and Dances" by Jorge Morel opens Act 2. It’s a beautiful work in two short movements for guitar and string quartet played by our star guitarist of the evening, Jorge Caballero, and the amazing Miró String Quartet. ACGS commissioned Songs and Dances 3 years ago for Caballero’s Axis Quintet.
"Introduction and Fandango" by Luigi Boccherini will be a rousing finish to what will be a brief second act. A much-loved, well-known fun piece, it will be a terrific way to end the second act, and show off the Miró String Quartet. Watch an interview with the Miró String Quartet now where we discuss the Boccherini and Austin Pictures in general.
"Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgsky is Act 3. In a hard-to-imagine performance, Jorge Caballero will perform the entire work on solo guitar. Jorge’s performance is the inspirational centerpiece for the entire Austin Pictures project, and hearing him play the piece is something we’ve been looking forward to for a long time!
Extras
We held a Facebook Picture Challenge and invited community members to submit their own “Austin Pictures” via Facebook in August and September. Those fabulous pictures, along with some of our feature interviews will make up previews beginning at 7:30PM – and will also run during the two intermissions. KLRU will tape the entire evening for TV release! KMFA will broadcast the concert live on the radio. The eleven paintings will be on display at the concert and will be available by ebay auction (9/26-10/3) with proceeds benefitting the Educational Outreach Program of the Austin Classical Guitar Society.
Austin Pictures top 10!
We’ve had an amazing time putting it together, from selecting the incredible artists, and watching them complete their brilliant paintings, to seeing the many ensemble members learning Joseph Williams’ new Austin-inspired piece. The show is this coming Saturday, and here’s our top-ten favorite things online so far (well…, 9 out of 10 are online, you’ll have to attend in order to see the movie - not to mention the performances!).
#10 The article in the Oklahoman about the kids from OKC coming down.
#9 Our talk with composer Joseph Williams II about his new piece.
#8 A clip of Caballero… doing the amazing thing he does!
#7 Our talk with the Miró String Quartet.
#6 The wonderful community pictures shared via Facebook.
#5 A conversation with the Alamo’s Tim League.
#4 The great Austin Pictures Article at CultureMap.
#2 The fabulous movie about the artists. You have to come to see it!
…and…
#1 The 11 commissioned paintings: see them online here!
Jorge Caballero
I wanted to take a moment to talk about Jorge Caballero. Jorge is, of course, the centerpiece of Austin Pictures next Saturday night (10/1) at ACL Live.
I have a few friends in the world who I rely on to help keep me updated on the most exciting classical guitar developments internationally. It was a number of years ago now that a friend told me about Jorge, and did so with such superlative flourish that I believe I was in touch with Jorge about coming to Austin within a day or two! His concert, in a lovely west Austin home eight months later, remains one of the great highlights of my life – musical or otherwise.
It’s not often that one encounters an individual of such brilliance – in one’s own professional field! – as to result in a total personal paradigm shift. But as I listened to him play a Bach Keyboard Suite that night, my heart pounding frighteningly hard in my chest, that’s precisely what happened. My heart must have been responding to what Allan Kozinn of the New York Times called “a deft, powerful technique and a soft-spoken interpretive persona."
This clip online is a marvelous example of the Caballero dichotomy. Soft, understated presence – tuning the guitar – gives way to technical and musical brilliance of a sort that’s almost unimaginable, as he plays the opening of Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, live. Hold on to your seats!
Jorge’s performance of Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is the inspirational centerpiece for Austin Pictures (tickets here). Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the most famous orchestral works of all time – you’d recognize the tune if you heard it. It describes, in music, gallery-goers walking through an exhibit of ten evocative paintings. Maestro Peter Bay describes it a bit, actually, in our interview online. The evening includes many things from a (wonderful) short film about the eleven paintings we’ve commissioned (see them here), to the premiere of “Austin Pictures” for large ensemble (meet the composer!), and more. But the night ends with Caballero’s performance of the Mussorgsky, and I simply can’t wait to hear the spectacular music he will make with it!
Artwork has arrived! See it now...
For Austin Pictures we commissioned eleven distinguished young artists to paint paintings inspired by Mussorgsky's "Pictures at and Exhibition".
They did a stunning job - one of my proudest moments as an arts presenter.
We've just posted all eleven images at AustinPictures.org for the first time, check 'em out!
Wow.
Artwork has arrived! See it now...
I can hardly believe how beautiful and inventive the 11 pieces are that the high school artists created for Austin Pictures.
I just now posted all 11 in one place - check 'em out here!
Wow.
Austin Pictures Spotlight: FG Squared
FG Squared is a fantastic and innovative Austin-based Web Design and Interactive Marketing firm in Austin led by one of our favorite people, Steve Golab. I met Steve years ago, but we first had an opportunity to work together when he and FG Squared offered generous assistance building the event website for Austin Goes Classical (the giant 2010 community-wide music festival we presented at the Long Center surrounding our hosting of GFA). With around 2,000 people a night for a full week for our evening presentations at that festival, we sold thousands and thousands of tickets, and the vast majority of the patrons learned about the event, and got connected, through the web site that Steve and his team deigned and built for us!
Since then we’ve been working together quite closely. FG Squared recently redesigned our international curriculum website at GuitarCurriculum.com, and they are also the developers of our next major education project (a substantial online training program for classroom guitar teachers).
Why talk about FG Squared right now? Because they have donated their services to us again, this time to build the event website for Austin Pictures! We love the site, and not only did they build something grander than we imagined, they added complete Facebook integration this time around… meaning our AustinPictures.org site lives not only in it’s own domain, but also – fully functioning – on the Austin Classical Guitar Society’s Facebook Page.
I sat down to talk with FG Squared owner Steve Golab to learn a bit more about this remarkable Austin business.
Matthew Hinsley: What are some core principles or values that define FG Squared?
Steve Golab:
The first is: Follow your passion. In the grand scheme of things, you need to be disciplined and work just a little harder than the average person to become a thought leader in an area that you presently hobby in. However, at some point, you must commit yourself completely to your journey if you are going to achieve total mastery. True commitment means that you will spend extra time, money, and other resources to meet your promises even if when you are not guaranteed to directly benefit as a result.
The second is: Establish a clear sense of purpose. Manage your time obsessively. You can't do everything at once, nor should you. Once you have clarity of purpose, it is easier to prioritize how you spend your time. Focus your time on matters related to your purpose and passion.
The third is: Details. The small things add up. It's important to double-check and consider even mundane items. Spell check? Does your math add up? Are you using the correct format? Has anyone beside yourself looked at this and provided comments?
The fourth is: Be agile. If first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0. By keeping a flexible mindset, it will be easier to adapt and respond to major changes in your industry and endure the ups and downs that you will inevitably encounter.
And finally: Celebrate the Journey. Get some perspective and give back to your community. Live by example and become a mentor to others. Find a mentor and commit yourself to a lifelong learning.
MH: You have been remarkably generous with us, and others, in Austin. Why do you feel it's important to give back to our community?
SG: Community is the structure of belonging that fosters abundance thinking, the realization that we already have everything we need to survive and thrive even through the hard times. I've lived in Austin for over 20 years now, and my wife Shawna and I are will raise our daughter Ava here. The health of our community is important to our family.
MH: You and your team were a big part of our success at Austin Goes Classical, and we’re extremely grateful to have your help again with Austin Pictures. Is there anything in particular about Austin Pictures that led you to wish to sponsor it?
SG: It's going to be a once in a lifetime celebration…. so many creative geniuses at a premiere local venue for an important cause - community outreach and education. Education is at the forefront of local economic development. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be affiliated with ACGS and Austin Pictures.
MH: Is there anything else you'd like to share?
SG: I'd love to hear from your patrons – especially – 1: Visit our Facebook Page, "Like" our page, and leave us a comment. 2. Think about whether you know any small business owners who would benefit from selling their products on Facebook. That is an exciting area that we are particularly learning to specialize in.
Matt talks with Alamo Drafthouse Founder/CEO Tim League
I had a blast sitting down with Tim League of the Alamo Drafthouse to talk about Austin Pictures recently. Tim and the Alamo have simply transformed and, indeed, come to help define, the cultural landscape of Austin. They helped us greatly for GFA last summer when they brought out their Rolling Roadshow and Master Pancake Theater to the Long Center city terrace following the LAGQ show. Here Tim and I talk a bit about what's in store for Austin Pictures!