Christopher Schroeder

Boston-based musician, educator, and arts advocate, Christopher Schroeder uses music and arts education as a catalyst for social change. With nearly two decades of arts leadership and teaching experience, he has successfully established programs and influenced music ecosystems within the Boston community and throughout the United States. Most recently, he was recognized as a finalist for the 2022 Excellence Award in Leadership award for the Massachusetts Non-Profit Network, Boston Future Leader by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, and a quarter-finalist for the 2019 Grammy Music Educator Award.

Schroeder currently serves as the executive director of the Boston Music Project, which he led through transformative growth amidst a global pandemic, penning its first three-year strategic plan, leading an organizational rebrand, expanding the scale of the program from one site serving 150 youth to 14 sites serving 1,000 youth, and establishing fiscal health – quadrupling its operating budget. Now, BMP is a $2 million organization with 70-plus part- and full-time teachers and admins, supporting over 2,000 youth across 30-plus schools and community centers.

As an experienced conductor and trumpeter, Schroeder connects and inspires musicians of all ages to achieve their highest level of musicianship, while instilling character traits that transcend rehearsal and performance spaces. As a nationally-recognized speaker and consultant, he works together with arts leaders and educators on organizational strategy, program development/ implementation, interdisciplinary curriculum design, and community engagement.

Prior to this work, he was an arts coordinator with Boston Public Schools, the director of community engagement and resident artist for Conservatory Lab Charter School since the inception of its El Sistema music program in 2010; music director of the Cape Youth Orchestra with the Cape Symphony & Conservatory; program manager and faculty for Longy School of Music of Bard College’s El Sistema Side-by-Side Program; and national teaching faculty with the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA National Youth Orchestra.