The Marcolivia Duo

Disclaimer: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and readability. Filler words were removed, sentence structure was improved, and paragraphs were added while preserving the original meaning and conversational tone. Henry Harrison: Hello, Marc and Olivia. It’s really good to see you, and thank you for coming on the show—Entrepreneurs, Business and Finance. You’re our first musicians on the show. Welcome. Olivia: Hi. Marc: Hi. Thank you very much for having us on your program. Henry Harrison: A little bit about Marc and Olivia: Marc and I became friends when we were about 10—soccer buddies in grade school. I met Olivia before she and Marc were married, when they were dating, and they met my wife Olga before we were married. This has been a long-term friendship, and it’s really neat to have you on. People may not immediately think of musicians as business owners, but you are. You have a studio where you teach students, and you also have a performing career. You’ve studied with teachers tied to some of the most recognized institutions in the world, you have PhDs, you’ve been professors, and you’ve performed internationally—Italy, Japan, Canada, the U.S., England, and other European cities. I know Marc performed at the Kennedy Center, and maybe both of you. Your music comes first, but there is a business component—this is how you make a living. So tell us what it’s like to be a professional musician, what it’s like to teach students, and what your career looks like right now. Olivia: It’s wonderful to work at what you enjoy most, so we’re lucky to be able to do that and set our own schedules. That freedom is a great thing. Another thing we enjoy is working together. If you’re a soloist, you travel alone, you’re in hotel rooms—it can be a lonely business. But because we do everything together, it’s been special. Even teaching—we used to teach at a university and now we teach at home. We have our own business teaching in separate studios in our house. We have students from eight years old to 75-year-olds, and that variety keeps it interesting. Henry Harrison: Marc, just because I know you: you like working together too, right? Marc: I better say yes, Henry. Otherwise our franchise is going to run into some trouble here. Yes, of course I do. Henry Harrison: Talk about teaching at schools and summer festivals. I know you do that regularly—different campuses, festival settings, especially in the summer. Marc: That’s a lot of fun. You’re still making music and teaching, but it’s in a very different setting—often beautiful or exotic places. We’ve been in Italy and many places in Europe doing that. You teach in different formats. At home, it’s one-on-one private lessons. At festivals, you teach masterclasses with lots of students watching, or you teach groups—chamber music, string quartets, things like that. You also rehearse with other faculty and perform concerts, which is fun. And after rehearsals and concerts, there’s a lot of socializing. It takes you out of your daily routine, and we enjoy that. Henry Harrison: One thing I’ve noticed: a lot of people in business—and even musicians—spend huge energy marketing themselves. You’re not a marketing machine. You’re a musician machine. It seems like the opportunities come largely because you keep getting better and staying connected. Olivia: That’s true. Most of our concerts are repeat bookings. But I’ve found it’s important to retain a connection with the conductors and presenters. I write to them probably twice a year—every fall, every spring. And I write to a bunch of other people who haven’t booked us yet, too. Sometimes it’s five years between concerts, but I want to keep the friendship going. At first, we thought marketing would be miserable—having to tell people how great we are. But I don’t do that. I just say, “This is what we do. Maybe it will interest you.” You build a friendship. They’ll talk about life—plumbing problems, a grandchild—then next time you follow up. I enjoy that. Marc: She’s much better at that than I am. I will say, though, early on we did have to get the ball rolling. In the early phase of our career, there was a lot more networking. We went to conferences, tried to get showcased, sometimes got booths to promote CDs. We entered competitions and won prizes. That’s a natural phase in your twenties and early thirties. But once you’re established, it’s more about keeping relationships and forming new ones. We’re not trying to be a constant promotion machine. We enjoy what we’re doing and we enjoy our life. Henry Harrison: When I think about marketing, I think teams, assistants, websites. You’re describing something different: relationships, consistency, and outreach. Marc: We weren’t natural at it. I started making calls, but my disorganization showed up. I’d call someone and they’d say, “You just called me five minutes ago.” That was the end of that relationship. So Olivia took over that part, and she’s much better. We each have our different roles. Henry Harrison: Switching back to music—talk about what you like to perform. Olivia: We’re classical musicians—that’s our primary interest. We do play other styles—some Latin, Eastern European folk, and jazz styles—but it’s still rooted in classical. There’s a lot of crossover now and we experimented with that. But in the end, you want to do what you do best. Marc: Some classical musicians try to play jazz or rock or bluegrass and think they look cool, but they often don’t. I’m petrified of not looking cool up there. Olivia: We do fun things, but also in our concerts we talk between pieces. We keep it light and informal, explain the music, joke around. Classical concerts can be boring if it’s just long pieces back-to-back, so we create variety. Henry Harrison: I really like that. I grew up going to symphonies and opera, but I’m not that knowledgeable. When you explain what the piece is, who wrote it, why you chose it—people connect. And I know you’ve played some of the most difficult concertos, including long ones. That takes a lot. Olivia: We do a lot of concertos with orchestra, and as a duo that’s unusual. There aren’t endless double concertos, but we do them. It’s more complicated because we learn parts separately, rehearse together, then integrate with an orchestra. It’s challenging, but fun. Marc: We also perform solo concertos individually. A conductor once asked us to do two viola concertos—Olivia played Telemann, and I played the Bruch Romance. And a few years ago an orchestra in Japan invited me to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Henry Harrison: One thing I’ve heard consistently for years: you’re busy because you’re learning or relearning major repertoire. It’s not easy even when you’re accomplished. Olivia: It’s like learning from scratch. It takes months to get it into the shape you want. Marc: We’re playing a difficult concerto at the end of October that we hadn’t played in 15 years. We started in March and we’re still working on it. There’s a calendar in our heads all year. One of the hardest things is: you’re not ready until you’re ready. You can’t always predict exactly when that point will be. Sometimes a piece takes months longer than expected, and that can cause stress if other concerts are stacked. So yes, there’s a lot of organization involved. Olivia: And then a conductor calls with a great offer you can’t say no to. You add a concert, and suddenly everything changes—more practice time, more planning. That’s like any business. Henry Harrison: You also do quartets and collaborations, which adds rehearsal complexity. Olivia: Yes. You plan what you can realistically rehearse. Presenters have preferences, so you offer something they’ll want—sometimes by being clever about how you position it. Henry Harrison: Let’s talk about teaching—your students and why you enjoy it. Olivia: I love the range of ages. Teaching eight-year-olds is fun, and teaching someone who starts violin at retirement is also fun. Their hands and brains work differently. It’s like solving puzzles every day. Teenagers bring their own emotional challenges, and because it’s one-on-one, you become a mentor too. It’s fascinating dealing with individual people. Marc: Every student learns differently. Some respond to verbal explanation, others are intuitive. Some kids can handle lots of exercises, others will quit if you give them too many etudes. You have to sneak technique into “cool” repertoire. You also have to be flexible. I try to build very solid foundations, but sometimes you have to bide your time and come back to a concept when the student is ready. Olivia: My goal now is that students keep playing their whole lives. Many will have stressful jobs—music should be something that stays with them. During the pandemic, former students reached out for online lessons. I have students I taught as kids who are now around 28 and are playing again. That’s wonderful. Marc: Teaching at a university is different. There are many duties beyond teaching—committees, administration, recruiting, and other considerations. In our private studio, it’s pure. If students like what we do, they stay. If not, they leave. If it’s not a good fit, we can recommend they find another teacher. That freedom creates a very clean arrangement. Henry Harrison: Starting your own studio takes guts. You don’t have a guaranteed paycheck. But it came together quickly because you were known, and word of mouth traveled. Olivia: Timing helped, and Marc’s roots in this area helped too. We already knew a lot of orchestra teachers and music networks, and word of mouth built from there. Marc: We had a strategy going in. We’d already built relationships recruiting for the university, so when we opened the studio, we knew people. Still, you never know until students actually sign up. Henry Harrison: Marc, you started early—Yamaha Music School, piano, and then violin. Marc: I got a toy xylophone for Christmas when I was four and loved it. I could play tunes I heard. So my parents enrolled me in Yamaha for little kids. And when I was six, a friend of my dad’s—who was in the San Francisco Symphony—played a house concert at our home. From that performance, I was hooked. I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I’ll admit: as a kid, wanting to be a musician and wanting to practice weren’t always aligned. I had to learn that if I truly wanted it, I had to do the work. Henry Harrison: Olivia, you came to the U.S. on a Fulbright. How did that happen? Olivia: Music was in my family—my mother is a musician. I remember hearing Itzhak Perlman when I was about four and loving it, so maybe that influenced me. I went to the Royal Academy of Music’s Saturday program from age seven, then the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. I saw an advert for Fulbright and applied without fully understanding how competitive it was. You write a major essay and do an interview. It’s a leadership scholarship, even for music. As a British Fulbrighter, you have to study in the U.S., so I ended up at the University of Maryland—that’s where Marc and I met. Henry Harrison: Pretty incredible. Classical music is competitive. Many people want to make a living doing it, and you’ve built a unique path. Marc: That’s why you need to be young and have the energy to start it all. Henry Harrison: For people who want to follow you: you have performances on YouTube and updates on Facebook under “MarcOlivia” (we’ll include that under the episode). Any final thoughts? Marc: One thing about being a duo: it’s an unusual ensemble. Presenters usually think soloist or chamber group like a string quartet. A violin duo or violin/viola duo doesn’t fit neatly. We had to approach presenters and conductors and show them that—even if they didn’t know they needed a duo—they did. Olivia: Exactly. “You don’t really want Beethoven. You want Holst for two violins,” even if you’ve never heard it before. Henry Harrison: That’s fantastic. Thanks so much for coming on. After we wrap, we’ll add a performance clip from YouTube so listeners can stay and hear you play. Marc: Thank you for having us. It was great fun. Olivia: Thank you.