Eli Parrish

Composer, conductor, and clarinetist…that is Eli Parrish. Having earned a Bachelor of Arts in music composition, Eli spent much of his undergraduate academic career performing, creating, and leading. But he also spent time as an operations manager for the Atlanta Chamber Music Festival, where he gained invaluable experience in managing orchestral logistics.

Eli’s passion lies with the arts and his career goal is to develop sustainable models for arts organizations. This includes modernizing and financially stabilizing orchestral ensembles, ensuring the arts are publicly supported and that musicians are compensated with livable wages, and eventually opening his own publishing house dedicated to promoting works by younger and historically underrepresented composers.

That’s why he decided to pursue a Master in Management—to gain necessary business skills, and “strengthen my ability to lead diverse teams, manage complex projects, and foster inclusive environments.”

Eli has developed close faculty relationships while in the program, enabling him to learn the key skills he needs to succeed, and helping him establish real-world client relationships. Specifically, Associate Professor in the Practice of Accounting Usha Rackliffe helped Eli secure a relationship with a music festival company that enabled him to get hands-on experience.

“One of the best aspects of this program has been the immersive project where I was paired up with a music festival company in Atlanta, and I was given the opportunity to help them solve one of their main issues,” he says. “I got to work with a diverse team where we were hands-on working with the company in order to solve this problem, as if I was a consultant in the music industry. This project has given me a lot of skills and experiences in artistic management that I will be able to take with me into my career as a musician.”