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Roger Nierenberg has a lot to offer business people. However, he's not a business executive. He's the long-time music director and conductor of the Stamford Symphony Orchestra.
As the guest speaker at a recent Women in Management (WIM) dinner, Nierenberg described how he had "unwittingly created a powerful business tool."
Actually, it all began when he was a child.
His mother often brought home classical music records (this was long before the advent of CDs or even cassette tapes). One time when he was 10, he put one of the records - a Beethoven symphony - on the phonograph.
"I can't explain what happened, or why," Nierenberg recalled. "I had never experienced anything like it before."
At that point, music "became the center of my life. I wanted to write music like that."
He wasted little time. As soon as he learned to read music, he began to compose it. And, when he was 13, his parents had him play some of his compositions for a real-life composer.
"For 45 minutes, I played through my music," Nierenberg told the businesswomen gathered at the Stamford Yacht Club. "He said I didn't know anything about melody, or about harmony, but he told my parents, 'He seems to have some kind of spark. I'll teach him.'"
Nierenberg learned well. His resume includes 14 years...