Nicholas King speaks to the group at an After Arts Conversations event. (Image courtesy of After Arts Group)
If you took a poll of the typical audience at a Carnegie Hall concert, you’d find a cross-section of successful New York City professionals — doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and executives in technology, real estate, investing and finance. Appearing on the stage, of course, would be equally accomplished professionals — classical musicians at the height of their careers.
On January 28, 2020, the performers at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall will represent both groups. The musicians on the stage that night spent their childhood years in practice rooms and weekend pre-college conservatory programs. They dedicated their summers during high school to studying string quartets and piano trios, and playing in music festival orchestras. They attended top conservatories or enrolled in dual-degree programs combining music and academics. After graduation, some became touring artists, freelancers, or members of symphony orchestras.
At some point, however, they all decided to move into careers other than music. They found new colleagues, new passions and new challenges — but their desire to play music and be around other musicians never faded.
Nicholas King, founder of the After Arts Group and Financial Advisor at Bernstein Private Wealth Management (Image courtesy of Nicholas King)
Last year, Nicholas King, Vice President and Financial Advisor at Bernstein Private Wealth Management, saw an opportunity in that longing for connection. In February 2019, King, a concert pianist before entering the world of finance, brought together a collection of successful professionals in business, law, finance, healthcare, and technology who share a serious training in the performing arts to be the nucleus of an organization called the After Arts Group.
“I wanted to start a network that showed the world, but especially corporate America, the value of studying the arts and the power of having an arts background,” said King.
Less than a year later, the After Arts Group has 350 members from across the New York City area — professionals who, like King, believe that the arts can have a transformative effect on business and society.
The mind-body connection is overlooked as a critical skill
Michael Coady, a member of the After Arts Group and Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Stamford Hospital, attended Bennington College as a music and mathematics major. By his third year he realized that, while he loved playing the piano and studying chamber music, being a concert pianist would not be his career. After considering several options he decided to apply to medical school. For the pre-med committee at Bennington, however, Coady’s concentration on music in college — even with supplemental pre-med classes — made him ineligible for a needed recommendation from the committee. Undeterred, he turned to his piano teacher, Elizabeth Wright. “Liz Wright wrote about how we approached Rachmaninoff Preludes and Beethoven sonatas,” said Coady. “It was a very powerful and creative recommendation and I was accepted by George Washington Medical School.”
Coady is convinced that the proficiency he developed studying the piano has contributed to his success in medicine. “My ability as a surgeon to focus for hours at a time has a lot to do with my training through music,” said Coady. “In college I would spend five hours in the practice room working on a piece. And that’s very similar to what I’m doing now.”
That expertise also extends to an understanding of how to master complex physical skills, insights not often appreciated with today’s emphasis on book and computer-based learning. “As a heart surgeon you have to tie knots with both hands; you become ambidextrous,” said Coady. “But I think achieving that kind of coordination was easier for me because of my experience with the mind-hand connection, figuring out what’s difficult about a particular step in an operation and getting yourself out of trouble. It’s the same thing with playing a passage in a piece of music. First, you reflect on why it’s challenging. Then you plan it out so that you can practice and perform it effectively.”
The deep structure of music is a metaphor for patterns in the market
Roy Niederhoffer is also a member of the After Arts Group. President of R. G. Niederhoffer Capital Management, Niederhoffer’s passion for music goes beyond a single instrument or genre. He describes himself as the “George Plimpton” of amateur musicians.
“I directed musicals in college and had singer friends that I would accompany on the piano. I played classical violin, bluegrass fiddle, and music in all kinds of different styles,” said Niederhoffer. “I was never going to be a concert pianist or a performing jazz pianist, but I can play with most people on anything.”
During his many years in business, Niederhoffer has observed that performing artists who go on to other careers show a keen intelligence across disciplines, a patient and structured approach to solving problems, and the rare ability to focus in a team setting for extended and uninterrupted periods. But it is Niederhoffer’s love of the language and architecture of music that has had the biggest impact on his business.
“The structure of markets falls out of the fact that there are human behavioral biases that are built-in, because evolution has caused them to be built-in,” said Niederhoffer. “Where are the influences of recency bias and loss aversion in markets? These patterns exist, so let’s find them. It’s just like analyzing a piece of music. Where are the subdominant, dominant and tonic cadences in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?”
Roy Niederhoffer shares his expertise and experience at an After Arts Conversations breakfast. (Image courtesy of After Arts Group)
Music is always close by as Niederhoffer goes about his day at the firm that bears his name. A grand piano with sheet music open on the desk sits in the corner of his office. “When I first met my wife in early 2001 she was a musical theater performer and temping for our firm. She had a chart in front of her and I asked, ‘Do you want to run your sides?’ I was shy and would probably never have talked to her, but because she had the chart and I had a piano it worked out. The piano that was in my office then is now in our living room.”
The benefits of an unusual perspective
When Nicholas King was three years old, his father went looking for a toy store to buy him a Super Nintendo video game console. Instead, he came across a piano dealership having a liquidation sale and returned home with a bright yellow upright. King took to it right away, and when he was eight he appeared on the Rosie O’Donnell Show, playing piano and talking about raising funds for the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles. “That stuck with me, the idea that music and the arts could positively impact communities that I cared about,” remembered King.
After studies at The Royal Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The Juilliard School, and concert tours across North America and Europe, King was ready for a change. “There were certain things I wanted to do away from the practice room and the stage. I wanted to help the arts and I felt that I might be able to do that best in the for-profit sector,” said King. “I always had a yearning for business, so I thought maybe there’s a way to tie them together.”
King began his career in financial services at a private equity firm, but in 2018 he decided to make a shift to advising. He found, in Bernstein Private Wealth Management, a company that valued the unusual perspective he brought to his new career.
“Bernstein has a knack for doing things differently. Generally speaking, global asset management firms don’t seek out Juilliard grads. But Bernstein is different — they build a culture of excellence that isn’t cookie-cutter. They look for people who have exhibited success in a variety of areas,” said King.
When he came up with the idea for the After Arts Group, King went through his network and realized that he knew a lot of people with a music background who had gone into other professions. He researched the board members of almost every performing arts institution in New York City. Then he reached out to those who had studied music, dance or theater and asked if they would be interested in meeting others like themselves. “From there,” said King, “it just took off on its own.”
The After Arts Group is a platform for connecting business and the arts
The After Arts Group presents two kinds of events for its members: After Arts Conversations is a monthly networking breakfast featuring moderated discussions between leaders in business and the arts. An upcoming breakfast will have Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, and Stanley Bergman, CEO of Henry Schein, talking about creativity and innovation within their respective industries. After Arts Revelries are chamber music parties in elegant New York apartments (often courtesy of After Arts Group member Deanna Kory of The Corcoran Group) which feature world-class instruments — violins, violas and cellos (courtesy of After Arts Group member Jonathan Solars, Managing Director of Florian Leonhard Fine Violins New York) played by Juilliard School students, members of the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera orchestra and the After Arts Group.
Cellist Yves Dharamraj performs for members and guests at an After Arts Revelry. (Image courtesy of After Arts Group)
Nicholas King also sees the members of the After Arts Group, with their experience in business and the performing arts, as a valuable resource for arts non-profits who need assistance with board and donor cultivation. He introduces a different organization to the group at every After Arts event. “It’s not a pitch, but it is an opportunity for them to share their mission with a sympathetic and knowledgeable community.”
Henry Donahue, Executive Director of VH1 Save the Music Foundation, shares his organization's mission at an After Arts Revelry. (Image courtesy of After Arts Group)
January’s concert at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall will be the first public performance by members of the After Arts Group. “We’re presenting 23 professionals at the height of their careers who are going to be performing and talking about how an arts background allows them to be uniquely successful in their fields,” said King.
He’s grateful that Bernstein shares his enthusiasm and vision. “When I came to them and said, ‘Hey, I want to rent out Carnegie Hall as a new financial advisor,’ they responded, ‘Well, does it make sense?’ We talked it over and they supported it. I can’t think of another firm that would do that. I don’t know another firm that has.”
After Arts Group members Stephanie Yoshida, Counsel at Landmark Partners, and Jeffery King, Operational Risk Consultant at Wells Fargo, playing music at an After Arts Revelry. (Image courtesy of After Arts Group)
The value of immeasurable things
Translating expertise from one discipline to another is challenging, even for those who have lived and worked in both worlds, but it’s an opportunity to tap into a unique kind of insight.
For King, understanding how to control the heightened emotions of a live performance has served him well in his current position. “You have to learn to manage your stress and responses, a skill that proves to be hugely important in finance. It’s like you’re playing a fugue and you get lost — but you can’t go back to the beginning because it’s a concert. So you find your way.”
“My clients are always looking to maximize their returns and mitigate risk. But they also want to know that what’s important to them is going to be okay,” said King. “Artists can talk about emotion and beauty in a high-stakes framework. They understand the value of immeasurable things. And that pays dividends in any industry.”
The author is a member of the After Arts Group.
--
Published here on Forbes.com
December 10, 2019
