Be Your Own Manager: A Career Handbook for Classical Musicians Volume 1

Bernhard Kerres fell in love with classical music starting in early childhood. Living in Vienna, he was brought up with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera. He started his career as an opera singer and sang, among other places, in the studio of the Opera Zurich with José Carreras, Agnes Baltsa and others. Later following his interest in technology, he joined the strategy consulting firm Booz & Co after his MBA at London Business School. From there he was recruited into C-level positions of two large European tech firms. He served on the board of classical music institutions and advised them before he was named CEO and Artistic Director (Intendant) of the Wiener Konzerthaus in 2007, which he led for six years. In 2013, he followed his dream combining his passion for classical music with his fascination for technology, and founded HELLO STAGE, the largest classical music community online.Bernhard was awarded the Austrian Cross for Science and Art and the Chilean Bernardo O'Higgins Order. Bernhard regularly speaks and publishes on innovation, entrepreneurship and leadership.Bettina Mehne descends from a violin maker's family in Berlin. She studied musicology and history of Art alongside working in the offices of the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Berliner Festwochen. Upon graduation, she joined the touring department of Harrison Parrott in London. In 1999, she opened the German office of Van Walsum Management within the Konzertdirektion Schmid before joining Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in 2001 as their Artistic Manager. Having headed the artistic planning at the Wiener Konzerthaus for six seasons, Bettina left at the end of the 2012/13 season together with the then Intendant Bernhard Kerres to cofound with him the new venture HELLO STAGE.