4.3 John Cimino, President of Associated Solo Artists

Topics discussed in this episode include:

John’s interesting early history holding both science and music in his own heart and leading to the discovery of his singing voice and a career in opera including starting with Pavarotti. Then he went on to blossom in his and his team’s inspirational non-profit work with many universities and fortune 500 companies around the world.John’s discussion of the two emotional experiences of his youth - reading Einstein while listening to Chopin. Then, a discussion of his development of a service mission under the remarkable long-term mentorship of Vartan Gregorian starting when the two met while Vartan was heading the New York Public library. That work led to his meeting the interviewer and later doing a Renaissance Center pilot project at the University at Albany, again under Vartan’s enthusiastic mentoring and funding.A deeper discussion of the non-profit work and the idea of using music and reflective programing to set the heart and mind in motion, i.e.to generate and integrate ideas.  Or as John puts it in the interview, to awaken the “potential that lives in our imagination, in our intuitions and the knowledge which sleeps within us.” Again, it is this inspiration that we also see happening in students who complement their academic learning in college with direct work experiences. John’s team uses this inspiration to create a rebalancing or what is sometimes is called a “positive turbulence” to create a new perspective is highly valuable and it begins by playing with thoughts and ideas.In the last major segment, John talks about the ideas of the new Renaissance Center and what it could do after the pilot program that was supported by the Carnegie Corporation of NY.  He stresses the incorporation of a concert of ideas from Creative Leaps International, and discussed the opportunity to work on a project at UAlbany concerned the mission expanding of high-quality creativity in classroom teaching by faculty.

Resources Discussed in this Episode:

https://www.asoloartists.org/https://creativeleaps.org/https://www.ccl.org/https://www.carnegie.org/

 Music Credits: C’est La Vie by Derek Clegg