Musicians with a Mission reimagines the role of a full-time musician within an orchestra. This initiative invites individual ROCO musicians to bring together their unique passions and artistic talents to create and run their own access/outreach project under the ROCO umbrella with guidance and oversight from our staff. 

ROCO will provide musicians who are selected with tools and resources to develop deep relationships within the community. Together, they will create and launch a project to meet the community’s needs through music and programming. The hypothesis is that this approach will lead to a more profound impact and increased access instead of other types of outreach programming. 

Research from the Advisory Board for the Arts discovered that MWM is a model that does not currently exist within the arts landscape. Most outreach programs are developed by administrative staff and delivered either through that same staff or by teaching artists or emerging, pre-professional artists who are separate from those that the audiences typically see on stage for public programming. ROCO will be the first organization to give members of the ensemble agency to develop and run their own programs in partnership with a specified community.

We are delighted to welcome ROCO Principal Clarinetist Nathan Williams as our first Musicians with a Mission Manager, who will be focusing on developing relationships with the hospice and palliative care communities.

Nathan Williams
Musicians with a Mission Manager
[email protected]
231-392-2162