In 2020, we began a collaborative research study that integrated the fields of sport psychology and conducting. Musicians and athletes must manage pressure, sustain focus, and perform at a high level in stressful environments. Recognizing this parallel, we designed a mentorship model pairing graduate conducting students with sport psychology teaching assistants, who provided individualized guidance through observation, discussion, and strategy development.To test whether research tools used in sport psychology could be applied to conducting, we conducted a study to measure the psychological skills of conductors in rehearsal and performance using the Athletic Coping Skills Inventory (ACSI-28) which measures sport-specific psychological coping skills (Smith et al., 1995) and the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) which measures psychological skills and techniques used by athletes during practice and competition (Hardy et al., 2010). We adapted these tools by reframing the context of the experience to be considered: questions that referred to a practice context for an athlete became a rehearsal context for a conductor, and questions that referred to a competition context became a concert context. No other aspects of the tools were altered.In fall 2024, a survey that combined these tools was distributed to conducting graduate students and professors across the United States via direct email, listserv messages, and social media. Participants (N = 32) included graduate students in American universities who are studying conducting: Master of Music in conducting (n = 23), Master of Music in a non-conducting field (n = 3), Doctor of Musical Arts in conducting (n = 7), Doctor of Musical Arts in a non-conducting field (n = 2), and Doctor of Philosophy in music education (n = 6).The survey responses revealed valuable preliminary findings when compared against baseline norms of athletes responding to the ACSI-28 and TOPS tools. The respondents demonstrated openness to learning about psychological skills and emphasized the relevance of mental strategies in rehearsal and performance. The data indicated that psychological openness when conducting was not dependent on factors such as years of study or level of education. Instead, our findings indicated that conductors at all levels struggled with performing under pressure, reducing mental tension, and quieting self-talk.These preliminary findings may point to intersections of teaching, learning, and wellbeing in music education, suggesting that training in mental skills can better prepare musicians not only for the multifaceted demands of conducting but for any environment in which they are providing musical leadership.