Former Associate Vice President of Communications for the University of Indianapolis Sara Galer will be returning on April 6 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. to do a talk called “Magic Behind the Music” in the Schwitzer Student Center Trustees Dining Room. Galer recently began a new job with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO).
Galer said she is going to discuss some of the differences in her new position versus what she was doing at UIndy. Her current position with the ISO is Vice President of Marketing Communications, and she said the position is much more focused on marketing compared to her role at the UIndy, in which her focus was more on communications, public relations and media relations content strategy side.
“I do all of that at the ISO, but I also manage their marketing and branding as well …,” Galer said. “I’ll be talking about what it means to work for the lecture-performance arts organization in Indianapolis and what that means to work for marketing as well.”
Firm Director of Top Dog Communication and President for Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) and senior communication major Thomas Gismondi is in charge of various meetings and lectures on campus. These meetings include topics such as public relations and communication. Gismondi said that on the PRSSA side of things, they want to let Galer share a little bit about what she does with everyone. “The Magic Behind the Music” is a behind-the-scenes look at something that people may not think about when it comes to the symphony, instead of just the music, the players and what you see and hear on stage, Gismondi said.
“That’s the marketing side of it, how they get the word out there and how they connect with the community,” Gismondi said. “So this is really just a chance to pull the curtain back a little bit and have Sara [Galer] talk about how the Symphony Orchestra is, of course how they keep that up and going, but what puts the Indianapolis part of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra into effect.”
Galer said she came from broadcast news and that she worked in television news for 17 years before joining UIndy. According to Galer, it was a really big transition to go from journalism to the public relations and communications side.
“A lot of people make that journey, I’d say it’s a fairly common path when people want to change careers out of journalism, and you certainly have a lot of skills that you bring with you so it was a smooth transition, but also a big learning curve and I think I like to always challenge myself and find ways to maybe get out of my comfort zone a little bit in my career,” Galer said. “As you go on, you obviously gain more and more skills and get more comfortable, but I think to really stretch yourself and grow sometimes it’s worthwhile to consider new opportunities, and certainly working for the Symphony, it’s a great organization.
According to Gismondi, Galer went from being the associate vice president of communications at UIndy to being the vice president of marketing and communications for the Symphony Orchestra. The Symphony Orchestra and UIndy both want to make sure they are part of our community, Gismondi said.
“In my mind, that transition totally makes sense because you’re going from, of course, there’s internal and other types of communication, but really these are two really prominent figures in the Indianapolis community,” Gismondi said. “I’m imagining a lot of the skills she got to practice at UIndy, she is implementing really well with the Symphony Orchestra.”
Galer said she found out about the Symphony position from a former colleague at UIndy, and she was really intrigued. She said she has always been interested in theater and music, so she was very excited when she was in the interview process.
“The more people I met at the Symphony, the more interested I became in the position because I saw how passionate and committed everybody is to making the organization the best it can be, and that really excited me to be a part of something like that …,” Galer said. “I’m learning a lot and I think it’s a real privilege to be in a position like this where you have the opportunity to continue to grow at different points in your career.”
Gismondi said he thinks this is accessible for everyone to learn about the marketing side of things and what goes into putting on these types of concerts. He said he thinks this is something that is really interesting for everyone, in terms of not just the work itself, but really the community work that goes into it.
“I know that she was definitely a big part of the communications team and I feel like her presence was still really well felt, even among the student body, so I think it’s just really nice for her to continue to give back to our UIndy community here,” Gismondi said. “Even though it’s the first time I’ve been really personally connected with her, it’s just great to see her back and it drives the point home that UIndy really is like a family.”
Galer said she got so much experience doing all aspects of public relations, media relations, all sorts of communications and content strategy at UIndy. According to Galer, she was able to build all of those skills because the people on the marketing side of the team were well integrated with each other.
“I would say it’s really exciting for me professionally and personally to be involved in the Symphony, and certainly I miss UIndy too because I loved working with faculty and the academic side of things …,” Galer said. “I enjoyed my time at UIndy thoroughly, and I’m just really excited to have this new chapter in my career.”
