From Concert Hall to Code Review, Symphony to Software

An orchestra succeeds when musicians listen, adapt, and communicate. A development team is no different. As a professional violinist turned software developer, I have spent years working in two high-stakes, deeply collaborative environments. In fact, for a full year, I held two full-time jobs: one as a section violinist in the Kansas City Symphony, the other as a software developer building applications for a Top3 Consulting Firm. Now, as a full-time developer at Georgetown University, I still find time to play as a substitute with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. While they might sound like wildly different careers (and in some ways, they are!), the skills from one world to the other are transferable. In both the music and tech worlds, success isn’t just about individual skill, it’s about how people work together. Whether playing in an orchestra or working on a new feature development with a development team, I have learned that great teams share these common traits: trust, communication, adaptability, and a shared vision. In this talk, we’ll explore: Listening as Leadership: How the best musicians and developers actively listen and respond, whether in a live performance or a sprint planning meeting. High-Trust Teams: Why an orchestra can perform concerts without a single word and what tech teams can learn from that level of trust. Rehearsal vs. Iteration: The role of preparation, structured feedback, and the importance of stepping away when stuck. Adapting Under Pressure: How performing in a live concert teaches the same resilience needed when shipping high-stakes software. The beauty of interpretation: Just as no two performances of the same piece are identical, no two developers solve a problem in the exact same way. Whether you're an engineer, designer, or team lead, you’ll walk away with a fresh perspective on teamwork, leadership, and collaboration from the lessons I have learned from the concert hall that are deeply relevant to software development.