A background in communications

A communications professional with over twenty years of experience in higher education and the arts, Calbi led the communications office at the USC Thornton School of Music for ten years, from 2014 until 2024, before leaving his position to move to Barcelona. While leading the communications at Thornton, he also oversaw the launch of the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, the first arts school at USC in over 40 years.

A brief list of highlights from his work at USC includes:

  • Managed an international marketing campaigns as chief marketing officer for the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival with key partners including the LA Phil and The Strad Magazine

  • Supported the success and completion of a $75 million campaign for USC Thornton with a content strategy of features and institutional messaging

  • Reimagined the USC Thornton Viewbook with a magazine-style organization that was nominated for a design award

  • Launched the Backstage Pass, an online lecture series that grew into an international collaboration that was highlighted at the Association of European Conservatories annual meeting in 2020

 
A photo of violinist Chelsea Sharpe

Photo: Noe Montes/USC Thornton

A new campaign: Spotlights

At USC Thornton, Calbi introduced a new communications strategy that prioritized “Spotlights,” a weekly feature that promoted the achievements of the students, alumni, and faculty while highlighting the idea that successful lives in music include everyone from instrument repair technicians to award-winning artists.

He sought storytelling possibilities with these weekly features that synthesized multiple priorities into singular, coherent messaging. If he had to define the strategy, he would summarize as follows:

Tell a good story. Tell that story across platforms and media, creating a funnel of awareness to draw audiences to your website, and do it consistently, week after week.

An overview of the circular strategy of Spotlights

Each week, Spotlights were released on the school’s website. They were then shared across social media, in newsletters and external collateral, and featured on digital screens in the school’s buildings for an internal audience, sharing our external campaigns with the school community. It was a circular approach aimed at leveraging content across multiple platforms and audiences. Eventually, select features were curated and highlighted in the USC Thornton Viewbook, an annual 24-page print piece designed to support admissions efforts, leveraging the content again for an external audience.

The marketing deck below, a strategic overview of the Spotlight series, highlights key aspects of the campaign I introduced as director of communications at USC Thornton.

Editorial curation of Spotlights

Spotlights prioritized storytelling with an emphasis on process – the behind-the-scenes story – as a way to step back from the stage and learn about the work that went into preparing and supporting a performance. Here is a brief list of Spotlights Calbi researched and assigned to a team of freelance writers. He edited these features and oversaw their design and release.

Rethinking the content of the Viewbook

The reach of the Spotlight series culminated in the USC Thornton Viewbook, an annual 24-page print piece designed to support admissions efforts. The viewbook was re-imagined in 2015 with colleague Allison Engel, and they adopted a magazine-style format with a roundup of stories released in the previous two years. The brief blurbs in the viewbook highlighted key messaging while again linking to the original features on the school’s website.

The relaunch of the Thornton Viewbook also included a visual branding campaign. Rather than performance photos in concert and rehearsal halls, Calbi took students into Downtown Los Angeles for curated photo shoots that featured them in the city. Under the slogan, “Music in the City of Angeles,” this image campaign, along with the curation of Spotlights, emphasized the opportunities and connections made possible by the school’s central location in one of the world’s great hubs of music.

Inclusion of video content

When possible, Spotlights included short video content that accompanied the articles. These were branded in the style of the institutional sizzle videos Calbi produced in partnership with freelance professionals. The Spotlight videos were often organized in thematic series, which included series like, “The Process,” that included students discussing creative work and the communities and opportunities that resulted, or a ten-part documentary on composer Morten Lauridsen, National Medal of Arts recipient and distinguished professor of Composition at USC Thornton. Some links to video content:

The deck highlighting the work of USC Thornton Communications was produced by the communications staff. USC Thornton’s institutional and sizzle videos were produced in partnership with Midnight Hour Productions.