The Artist's Compass: The Complete Guide to Building a Life and a Living in the Performing Arts

An inspiring, real world guide for artists in the classic bestselling tradition of What Color Is Your Parachute? that shows how to build a successful, stable career in the performing arts, from the President and CEO of the Los Angeles Music Center who has carved her own success through her creative talent and business skill.

While performing artists have many educational opportunities to perfect their craft, they are often on their own when it comes to learning the business skills necessary to launch their careers. At the end of the day, show business is, well, a business. In The Artist’s Compass, Los Angeles Music Center CEO Rachel Moore shares how to make life as a performer more successful, secure, and sustainable by approaching a career in the arts like an entrepreneur.

A former dancer in the American Ballet Theatre’s corps de ballet, Moore knows firsthand what it’s like to struggle and succeed as an artist. Now in an offstage role as CEO, Moore shares the hard-won lessons she’s learned about making one’s own success and encourages every performer to develop creative talent alongside marketable skills. With testimonials from artists like Lang Lang, Sigourney Weaver, and Renee Fleming, plus inspiring anecdotes from Moore’s own journey in the arts, The Artist’s Compass teaches aspiring performers how to think like an entrepreneur to create their own brand and marketing platform to achieve personal and professional success.

In an engaging, realistic, and authoritative voice, Moore combines her artistic and corporate experience to address the finer points of building a career in a challenging industry, teaching young performers how to achieve financial independence so that they might have creative independence.

Rachel Moore is an inspiration as a artist and as a CEO. Her book is not just for performing artists, it s also essential reading for any young person looking for career advice and for anyone regardless of age on starting out on a new career path. --Julia C. Levy, executive director of Roundabout Theatre Company"

[P]recise and realistic but also passionate, and it will give readers the sense of a much-needed guiding hand. Moore is qualified to become a mentor to a whole new generation of artists, and they will benefit greatly from her advice. --Publishers Weekly"

A wonderful resource -- in fact, I wish it had been around when I was dancing. Moore offers so much practical advice for navigating a career in the performing arts, and I love that she also champions academic education. --Amy Brandt, editor, Pointe magazine"

Sound advice and a complete road map to planning an artistic career.--Library Journal

Artists today must be as creative about their business as they are about their practice. Drawing on her experience as both an artist and an administrator, Rachel Moore has provided young artists with a no-nonsense handbook to success in today's entrepreneurial landscape."--Deborah Borda, President and CEO, Los Angeles Philharmonic Association"

Rachel S. Moore, the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Music Center and former CEO of the American Ballet Theatre, is a great example of a woman who used the skills that we gain as dancers to become a leader. --Misty Copeland, principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre and author of Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina"

This is a truthful, pragmatic (and painful) approach to building a life as an artist in today s world. Her style is concise and informative for anyone in the early stages of a career. I wish I had known all of this at 25 since it took me until 50 to figure out most of these things!"--Francesca Zambello, artistic and general director, The Glimmerglass Festival"

Rachel Moore has given artists aspiring and those establishing themselves a valuable gift in her book The Artist s Compass. This is an insightful book filled with critical philosophical considerations about being an artist as well as work/life balance challenges and very basic but critical how-to information likes taxes, contracts, personal finances, and branding oneself. --Dr. James Gandre, President, Manhattan School of Music"

Moore's advice is steeped in her professional experience as an arts administrator and enlivened by her experience as a professional ballet dancer. With a genuine passion and desire to help other artists, she outlines her keys to success for a sustainable career. . . . A hopeful and optimistic treatise that will surely be required reading for performing arts students. --Kirkus Reviews"

Rachel Moore is an inspiration as an artist and as a CEO. Her book is not just for performing artists, it s also essential reading for any young person looking for career advice and for anyone regardless of age on starting out on a new career path. --Julia C. Levy, executive director of Roundabout Theatre Company"