About Eric Booth

Eric Booth is a founding leader of the global field of teaching artistry, a wide and fast-evolving field that combines artistry with pedagogical creativity.  For over forty-five years, Eric has guided teaching artists and arts organizations in what he calls “the ancient, underutilized power” of activating artistry in individuals and communities to simultaneously create beauty, engagement, and progressive social change.

His eight published books include Making Change: Teaching Artists and Their Role in Shaping a Better World (2022); Tending the Perennials: The Art and Spirit of a Personal Religion (2019); The Teaching Artist’s Bible: Becoming a Virtuoso Educator (2009); and The Everyday Work of Art: Awakening the Extraordinary in Your Daily Life (2001), a bestseller which won several awards and was a Book Club of the Month Selection.

His work in building the field of teaching artistry, and developing its connections with creativity and community, has taken many forms.

  • In addition to his books, Eric was founding editor of the Teaching Artist Journal, and his articles have been published in the Harvard Education Review,Symphony Magazine, the Routledge International Handbook on Arts Education, and Educational Leadership.  He is the founding publisher and co-founding editor of The Ensemble, a free e-newsletter connecting the global field of music for social change.

  • Eric taught at Juilliard for twelve years and has also taught at Stanford University, New York University, Tanglewood, and Lincoln Center Education, where in his 41 years there, he co-founded the Teaching Artist Development Labs.  He was the Founding Director of the Leonard Bernstein Center’s Teaching Center and is still on the Board of Artful Learning, its national arts-in-education program.  He also served as Faculty Chair of the Empire State Partnership, and as a member of The College Board’s Arts Advisory Committee.

  • Eric has addressed convenings throughout the world about the generative interconnections between teaching artistry, creativity, and community engagement. These include UNESCO’s first worldwide arts education conference (Lisbon, 2006); UNESCO's World Culture Conference (Seoul, 2014); and the first global conference on orchestras' connections to communities (Glasgow, 2007).

  • Many of the nation’s largest orchestras have sought Eric’s help with building robust, creative community engagement programs. He also consults with national service organizations, prominent arts organizations, and businesses (including tech and medical firms). He is a frequent consultant for El Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S. and around the world. He designed or co-designed all four of the largest gatherings of the performing arts in U.S. history, and with ITAC helps design the Inner Development Goals Global Summits.

  • Eric served as training designer and lead trainer for the launch of MusicianCorps in 2009. He is a currently a Board Trustee of ArtistYear (an AmeriCorps program for young artists) and is also the co-founder/co-leader of the Community Engagement Lab (CEL) in Vermont, a project that weaves bold community engagement into intensive school creativity projects. CEL is working to develop NETAC (New England Teaching Artist Collaborative), a regional network preparing artists to design and lead community projects. [In a previous website, he listed 31 projects where he had been the first to do something in the arts. We’ll spare you on this website!]

The fields of teaching artistry and creative community engagement grow ever more international, and Eric is a key leader of that process. He is a founding advisor and senior faculty member of the Academy for Impact in Music (AIM), which works with teaching artists on four continents. He is also the co-founder of ITAC (International Teaching Artist Collaborative), the first global network of artists who work in community and education settings. In 2021, he launched ITAC IMPACT: Climate, which commissions teaching artist projects around the world to use creative engagement techniques in the service of changing beliefs and behaviors about the climate crisis. He designed EDEN Engagement, a partnership between ITAC and the opera star Joyce DiDonato that linked her global “Eden Tour” with local student workshops creatively addressing the climate crisis in ways that motivated the young people toward taking action.

  • Eric was the first person to receive an honorary doctoral degree (New England Conservatory, 2012) for teaching artistry.  He received a second honorary doctorate (2024) from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, their first for work in education.  He received the 2019 National Service Award in Arts Education from the National Guild of Community Arts Education, and the 2015 Arts Education Leadership Award from Americans for the Arts (the only teaching artist ever to receive this).  Also in 2015, Western Arts Alliance named him one of the "Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders in the USA Nonprofit Arts” field; he was the only teaching artist, and the only freelancer, on the list.

  • In an earlier career as an actor, Eric performed in six Broadway plays and many Off-Broadway and regional theater productions. His Shakespearean roles (23 in total) included Hamlet (three times). In 1981, he performed the yearlong American tour of Alec McCowen’s one-man play “St. Mark’s Gospel.” 

    His acting career was followed by a seven-year stint as a business entrepreneur. The company he founded, Alert Publishing, published newsletters, books, and reports on trends in American lifestyles—it became the largest company of its kind in the U.S. in seven years. During these years, he did frequent newspaper and television interviews and landed a syndicated radio program on the Business Radio Network. He sold the company in 1991 in order to work full time on passion projects in arts learning.

    Eric notes he is certainly the only person ever to appear on network television in these two ways on the same day on the same network: on NBC, he acted in a soap opera in the afternoon, and as a non-fiction trend expert on the evening news.