Recording this episode with Dr. Theresa Delaplain was truly a treat! I hope you enjoy her story and get a lot out of what she has to say about work life balance.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain's Bio: Theresa Delaplain is a dynamic oboist, actively performing as a soloist and chamber musician. She has commissioned, performed and recorded several new works for oboe, and has been a champion of contemporary music. Delaplain is a founding organizer of the SHE Festival of Women in Music, a yearly international festival to promote music written by women. She has performed concerti with the Thai National Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the North Arkansas Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic, and all the University of Arkansas major ensembles.
An advocate of music by female composers, Delaplain has given many concerts presenting newly-commissioned works and historic works written by women, and she was awarded two Southeast Conference grants for this purpose. She was invited to present a paper on the Romantic era female composers of Paris Conservatoire at the Mediterranean Studies Association conference in Valencia, Spain.
Delaplain has been a frequent judge at woodwind events, and has given numerous master classes and clinics. She is the owner of Edmund Nielsen Woodwinds, a shop specializing in accessories and reeds for oboists and bassoonists.
Delaplain’s recent solo album, Souvenirs, has earned glowing reviews, and she is also featured on a recent album of chamber music by Robert Mueller, Dream Gardens. Her album with the Lyrique Quintette has also been favorably received and reviewed. Delaplain has toured widely as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a Lorée Artist and is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas.
Recording this episode with Dr. Theresa Delaplain was truly a treat! I hope you enjoy her story and get a lot out of what she has to say about work life balance.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain's Bio: Theresa Delaplain is a dynamic oboist, actively performing as a soloist and chamber musician. She has commissioned, performed and recorded several new works for oboe, and has been a champion of contemporary music. Delaplain is a founding organizer of the SHE Festival of Women in Music, a yearly international festival to promote music written by women. She has performed concerti with the Thai National Orchestra, the Fort Smith Symphony, the North Arkansas Symphony, the Arkansas Philharmonic, and all the University of Arkansas major ensembles.
An advocate of music by female composers, Delaplain has given many concerts presenting newly-commissioned works and historic works written by women, and she was awarded two Southeast Conference grants for this purpose. She was invited to present a paper on the Romantic era female composers of Paris Conservatoire at the Mediterranean Studies Association conference in Valencia, Spain.
Delaplain has been a frequent judge at woodwind events, and has given numerous master classes and clinics. She is the owner of Edmund Nielsen Woodwinds, a shop specializing in accessories and reeds for oboists and bassoonists.
Delaplain’s recent solo album, Souvenirs, has earned glowing reviews, and she is also featured on a recent album of chamber music by Robert Mueller, Dream Gardens. Her album with the Lyrique Quintette has also been favorably received and reviewed. Delaplain has toured widely as a soloist and chamber musician. She is a Lorée Artist and is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas.
All right, I am here with Dr Teresa Deloplane and Dr Deloplane, why don't you introduce yourself and what you do and why you do it?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Well, first of all, austin, thanks for having me. I'm Teresa Deloplane. I'm an oboist and a music educator and a business owner, and what I do is teach oboe at the University of Arkansas. I also teach music theory. Part of my job is playing in a faculty woodwind quintet and I also play in some regional orchestras the Fort Smith Symphony and the Arkansas Philharmonic and I own a business, edmund Nielsen Woodwinds, which my husband and I bought in 2015 from the former owner, and this year we are going to be getting an award from the North American Music Merchants Association For being in business for 75 years. I feel like I don't really deserve the award, since I was only there for eight years of it, but I'm going to take the award anyway.
Austin McFarland:
Well, so that means you get to spend some time in Anaheim in January. You get to enjoy some sun when it's cold and snowy here. I'll see you there. Oh great, just stop by the exhibit and say hi, ok. So let's talk a little bit about the sort of Nielsen like why did you and Bob decide to bring that to Arkansas? Because that's not only is it a big move to purchase a business, but you also moved it from Illinois.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yes, it was in Illinois. The business started actually in downtown Chicago with a man named Edmund Nielsen, and when he started he first started just doing repair and then he started adding accessories like reeds and swabs and other kinds of accessories, and eventually he also sold oboes. He was joined in the business by his wife, dorothy, and then eventually by our daughter, barbara, and at the time that we bought the business, barbara was running the business and I was making reeds for the business. When my children started going to college, I was looking for a way to earn some extra money, and so one of the things I did was just start selling reeds to different places, and this was one of the places that I sold reeds to. Typically, I would make a lot of reeds in the summer, when I had more free time.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
So one year I contacted Barbara and said it was like April or May, and I said so, summer's coming up, and how many reeds do you want me to make for the next month? And she said well, hold off, because I'm selling the business and so I'm trying to get the inventory down so the cost of purchasing the business will be less for whoever buys it. And I said, ok, well, let me know. And then she said well, are you interested? I said yes, I'm interested in still making reeds, so let me know when somebody buys it. She said no, I meant, are you interested in buying it? And I just went wow, I just had never thought of doing something like that. So I did actually think about it for a while and talked to some friends of mine, some of who were very enthusiastic, especially double-read friends and then I also talked to some of my family members who had owned businesses, who were not enthusiastic and said, no, no, it'll just be like a weight hanging over you, don't do it.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Anyway. So that summer I was going up to Wisconsin to visit my brother, so I thought I would go through Chicago. So I stopped and had a meeting with Barbara Nielsen just to talk about what would this be like, how much would it cost, what would it entail, and then tried to find some funding. So eventually we did buy the business later that same year and since we live in Fayetteville, it just made sense to move it to Fayetteville. So that was in the fall of 2015. And members of the double-read community have been very appreciative that we bought the business and that we're still continuing to operate it. We sell a lot of reads to schools and they really rely on us for their double-read players.
Austin McFarland:
Yeah, that's interesting we because you know, I know of some businesses in the Clare Annette community that are, you know the owners are getting to that place where they're ready to like sell them off or just retire and it seems like nobody wants to take them on. So that's. It's interesting to hear the perspective of someone that's taken it and stepped into the business world in that in that way. So I'm sure there were some nerves involved in deciding to do it. Has it been as big of a challenge as you expected, or have you found running a business to be a simple in some realms?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
It's been way more of a challenge than I expected, especially the first couple of years, as I was learning how to do things.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
I had no business training, but I did have a lot of help. Barbara Nielsen helped me a lot to just go through all the procedures and how to do everything month to month and even quarterly and yearly. She was always available if I wanted to call or email her to answer questions. And the biggest thing we had to do in that first year was to create a website, and it's a. You know we sell a lot of items. We have 600 items and we had to take new pictures of everything. We had to just completely come up with a new website because the old website was something that her son was a computer programmer and he had created the website for her and he just maintained it on his own server and so that was not going to be sustainable. So we got a local business, Alexis Information Systems, to create the website for us and worked with that business for about a year creating the website before it launched. So that was a huge project that first year.
Austin McFarland:
Yeah, websites. For some reason we think they get simpler, but they just keep getting more and more complicated.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yeah and especially for e-commerce. There are just so many security measures involved.
Austin McFarland:
Niosin does 600 products and I know just from being around the business that a lot of those are, or some of those products are, made by other double read players, whether that's Pasunis, making Reads or Oboist. What does that process look like? Do you encourage students to like seek that out, or is it mostly like professional players that are coming to you going, hey, I make reads, do you want to sell them? How do you find new readmakers?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
I guess Usually the readmakers come to us and they say, hey, can I sell my reads here? And I tell them to send me some reads and then, if it's Obo Reads, I try them out. If it's Pasun Reads, I get someone to try them out or get a recommendation. The timing's actually been pretty good in terms of you know, like sometimes we'll have a readmaker that will say you know, I've got new responsibilities and my other job I can't keep doing this. And then right around the same time, someone will email me saying, hey, I'm so and so and I do such and such, and could you consider having me make reads for you? So this is with all of our professional reads they're all made by professional players and they're just individual people like me, like what I was doing when I first started making reads to sell to businesses, and they just do it on the side.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
There was one time I contacted someone I knew very well when there was a certain readmaker retiring, and asked this person if they would consider it, and they did start making reads for us and I can tell you keeping those reads in stock is one of the most challenging things we do, especially the pro reads, even the student reads we have.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Actually we have a couple of people that are just individual people that make student reads. Most of our student reads are made by a company. It's just hard to keep reads in stock, but especially the pro reads, the people making those reads get busy and then you start getting low on reads and you contact them and they say, okay, I'll get those to you next week. And then they don't come next week and then you contact them oh I'm sorry, I had to play an opera last week. And then another week or two goes by and you contact them oh I'm sorry, blah, blah, blah. So it's hard for them to keep up. No matter how much I try to get ahead of the game, I feel like I'm not very good at staying ahead of the game on keeping the reads in stock.
Austin McFarland:
Well, some of that, I think, would your readmakers. Have to get ahead of the game too, and when a musician gets ahead of the game, that usually means more gigs. That's true so how do you this is a great segue how do you balance being a performer, business owner, teacher, mom, wife you know all of the things. How have you, over the course of your career, developed ways to help balance that, and how do you help your students understand that?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Well, that is a big question of life, isn't it? Balancing things as a especially as a professional musician who also does other things. It's tough. I think a lot of it just takes planning and knowing when you have something big coming up, to plan ahead for it. And I try to every day, or even in the evening before the next day, to figure out what are the most important things I have to get done tomorrow, you know, in addition to just the regular things that I do every day, and try to get at least some of those things done on the day that I intended to, and to keep a running list of what due dates are and what things are needed and what, in terms of my own playing, what pieces need to be learned by.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
When it's tough, finding balance is tough, but it's so important and I've seen especially students get burned out because they're enthusiastic and they try to do too much. So I think that's another thing we should all try to do is to not do too much and to recognize our own limits and also to recognize we need free time. You lose creativity, you lose motivation, you lose desire and you lose happiness in your life. So I always try to have free time, as well as everything else I'm doing.
Austin McFarland:
How do you? Because I have several, lots of the people that listen to the podcast. While they, yes, are interested in business, they're also active teachers and it's trying to impart on the next generation, like you know, some of the things that they're struggling and talking about, because even with my high school students, we talked about time management and figuring out how to get it all in, and sometimes a practice session has to look like this so that you can do homework or whatever. So what are some things that you that maybe you talk a lot about with your students, or just with students in general at the University of Arkansas, like skill set wise, that they should be focusing on, just as they to develop those skills now, versus trying to develop them while also setting out in your career.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Well, I think one of the biggest things people can learn from college is time management and efficiency, and it's very hard to get things done if you're not using your time efficiently. So, and that's true also of practice sessions and people I shouldn't say most, but many people when they go to a practice session, they don't have like an itinerary for that session and not setting a goal for that session or for the week, and unless and you know I write everything down and it's just an outline of you're going to work on this and this and this, it always includes scales, and that is one thing that I emphasize, because it's just the basis of technique. But it's also one thing that I struggle with getting students to spend enough time on, which is why I keep emphasizing it, and I feel like one of the things, one of my main jobs as a teacher, is to teach people how to practice efficiently and to figure out.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Okay, I don't need to play 16 measures here. I just need to play these two that I can't play yet, and I can already play the other 14, so I don't need to play them today and to just take little bits that you focus on and work out, rather than trying to play the whole thing or playing things that you don't really need to. I do in my own practice. I just try to be efficient with okay. Today I really need to learn this passage, yeah.
Austin McFarland:
What about skills off the instrument? How can we help our students develop, as, like, better communicators or you know, the skills that are required in running a business? Because so many of those, I think, transfer not only to what we do as artists, but also whether you're teaching or you're working in the industry or you're even just like performing, there is an element as a full-time performer, an element of communication required. So how can we, how do we work on those skills while also doing the musical stuff?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Oh, definitely, I completely agree with you. The communication skill is super important and it's also one of the things that I try to work on with my students, especially those that are that have trouble communicating, and I completely understand.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
You know, when I was their age, I was terrified to talk to anyone of any authority, and so I know some of it is just some feeling like that, like it's scary to talk to a professor, or they just haven't learned how you talk to a professor or how you talk to a collaborative pianist or how you talk to even another student that you want to collaborate with. And I'm always surprised at just kind of a lack of general manners that students have. Like, for example, sometimes I'll give a student a read, like the whole time I was in college. There was one time and that was nine years, nine long years there was one time one professor gave me a read and I was just astounded and I was just like groveling on their feet that oh wow, this is so nice you gave me this read and I'll give a student a read. They don't even say thank you, and I don't think it's because they're not grateful. I think it's because they haven't been trained to say thank you or if they're scared to say anything. And also if I I mean if you give someone something, they should say thank you, no matter what it is.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
So I think I think the communication, a big part of it, is just general good manners and treating people respectfully when you communicate with them, even if you're talking about something like, for example, about two months ago, I gave a student a read and then they didn't say anything. And I said, well, what are you going to say about this read? And then they say, oh, thank you for the read. And so I just try to reinforce that in a way. That's, that's not like well, what's the matter with you? You didn't say thank you.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
I also teach a music theory class and one of the things that I do in the first week is to talk to the class. It's freshman to talk to them about how you send an email and that it's not a text message. And because some I've gotten emails from students where, for example, their their email address is PQR134 and they send me a message saying, hey, I'm sick today, can I make up the test? And I don't even know who they are, because their email address doesn't identify their name or anything and they didn't address me and they didn't sign their name.
Austin McFarland:
And there's probably four people in the class with the with P and R as their first and last initial.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yeah and and even that doesn't necessarily mean that that's that would be part of their name. It's more random than that. So I do think I'm always trying to reinforce communication skills, not just in the way I communicate with them, but in just talking to them explicitly about it. Yeah, alright, thank you. I know when we first bought Nielsen, there were certain employees that they just really didn't like answering the phone and we just have to train them, and myself to. You got to answer the phone and be polite and just see what people want. And most customers are very polite and very nice and they're either calling to place an order, or they're calling because they have questions about something, or they're calling because something went wrong with an order. So those are the three main reasons and they're just not terrible scary things to communicate with someone on the phone.
Austin McFarland:
Even when they're, even when they're upset it's, you can still usually calm somebody down just by keeping your keeping your own cool. So that is, yeah, answering the phone is an important skill set and one that I know. For me, like I don't even like answering the phone, I do it but I don't like it. I would rather get an email or a text, or but I think some of that is generational. Yeah, yeah.
Austin McFarland:
So interesting, all right, what see, if I can word this correctly has there been any? As you've been running Nielsen for the last eight years? Have there been things that you've noticed in running or operating a business operating a business within the realm of the music industry that have influenced that you have been able to use in your studio to help students further their career? What off of the instrument so if they're looking at whether that's teaching or they want to go into arts, admin or anything like that is there. Have there been some ways that you have been able to use Nielsen as a vehicle to help your students as they've developed?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yeah, I would say definitely.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
For example, I had one student that was into photography who we ended up hiring to take all the pictures of our products and that helped that person with their photography interest and later, when they did more of it, I had another student that worked at Nielsen for two or three years and then they went on to work for one of our vendors and are now successfully like that's their career is working for this vendor and, I think, eventually buying that vendor's portion of their business, and it has to do with making reeds and making products that go into re-making machining.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
So that was pretty exciting for that student to do that and I think they realized they were interested in that through working at Nielsen and finding, okay, I'm really interested in music and I've got these degrees in music. I don't wanna be a music performer, I don't wanna be a band director, but I really like doing this, I like doing this retail and I like making these reeds and it was really great that that turned out to be their career. Then there was another student from the U of A who worked at Nielsen for a couple of years and then moved away to work on a degree somewhere else and then contacted me to say hey, can I sell and reeds to you? And so that person now has their own re-making business that they sell to Nielsen and probably to other stores like Nielsen as well as through their own website.
Austin McFarland:
That's really cool that it's been able to be a vehicle for other people's careers, and the student that you mentioned that's now that became one of your vendors, and so that story, I feel like, comes up a lot as I've done these interviews, because I think in music education we don't spend enough time at any level talking about anything other than performing or teaching. And I don't think it's unconscious, obviously, but I think it's because we just they're just things that we come to think well, every town's got a music store or every music store sells instruments, so those things just exist and we don't think about the jobs or the way in which we could use our own skill set to be in one of those jobs and have a fulfilling career while also having these degrees in music, just because we don't talk about it, if that makes any sense. I feel like I talked to myself in a circle there.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yeah, well, I feel like at the University of Arkansas we talk about other skills besides performing and teaching a lot. We now have a music industry certificate and I know in my own studio and also when I do recruiting, did.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
I talk about a variety of careers you could do with a background in music and I've seen it in my own graduates. They have gone on to do everything from being attorneys to being medical doctors, to being instrument vendors, performers, band directors, music therapists so there's so many options. And also music. I have someone some former student who is helping run a ballet company.
Austin McFarland:
Yeah, the arts admin side.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Yeah, and I don't know that that person got an arts admin degree ever, but I ended up doing that.
Austin McFarland:
There's so many, so many skills, so many of the skills that we developed and we've talked about communication, we've talked about planning to learn a piece, like understanding all the intricacies of learning any piece of music or putting a recital together is just project management by a different name. So there's so many skills and I think taking the time to talk about that with students helps them understand, or seems to help them understand how to transfer the skills into other things that they're passionate about.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Right Definitely.
Austin McFarland:
No, that's everything I had. How can people get connected with you if they wanted to talk to you more or learn more about Nielsen?
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Well, if they're interested in learning more about Nielsen, they can contact me at Nielsen, and if they're interested in learning more about the OBO or the university, they can find me through the music department website.
Austin McFarland:
All right, I'll make sure to link those in the show notes. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with me today. I know you've got a super busy schedule. Just played a recital and yeah. Thanks so much.
Dr. Theresa Delaplain:
Thank you so much and thanks for doing the podcast and helping people out and helping people navigate this whole world of music and all the things that go with it. Absolutely Talk to you later.
