Eric Booth

Actor, Businessman & Author

As an actor, Eric Booth performed in many plays on Broadway, Off-Broadway and around the U.S.  As a businessman, he started a small company, Alert Publishing, that in seven years became the largest of its kind in the U.S. analyzing research on trends in American lifestyles.  As an author, he has had six books published. The Everyday Work of Art was a Book of the Month Club selection, and The Music Teaching Artist’s Bible is a text for artist-educators, and his new book Playing for Their Lives reports on the global growth of El Sistema music education–he visited 25 countries to study this teaching.  He has written dozens of magazine articles, and was the Founding Editor of the quarterly Teaching Artist Journal.

In arts learning, he has been on the faculty of Juilliard (13 years), and has taught at Stanford University, NYU, Tanglewood (5 years), The Kennedy Center (15 years) and Lincoln Center Institute (for 26 years), and he has given classes for every level from kindergarten through graduate school; he has given workshops at over 30 universities and conservatories, and 60 cultural institutions.  He has designed and led over twenty research projects, and seven online courses and workshops. He serves as a consultant for many organizations, city and state education departments, and businesses around the U.S., including seven of the ten largest U.S. orchestras, five national service organizations, and Carnegie Hall.  Formerly the Founding Director of the Teacher Center of the Leonard Bernstein Center (now on the Board of Directors), he is a frequent keynote speaker on the arts and creative education to groups of all kinds.  He is the Senior Advisor to the El Sistema movement in the U.S..  He gave the closing keynote address to UNESCO’s first ever worldwide arts education conference (Lisbon 2006), the opening keynote to UNESCO’s 2014 World Conference.  He founded and led the First and Second International Teaching Artist Conferences (Oslo 2012, Brisbane 2014).  In 2015, he was given the highest award in the U.S. for arts education (Americans for the Arts, Arts Education Leadership Award) and was named one of the fifty most influential leaders in the U.S. arts.  His essays are available: ericbooth.net

"I am delighted to be a part of the Global Teacher Prize process—by honoring our most extraordinary creative educators, we honor the countless superb professionals around the world who create a better future, student by student."