Our hugely successful event Make Music Work took place on 31 March 2015 at Guildhall School of Music & Drama’s brand new venue Milton Court. The event brought together an audience of about 300 performers and composers from different stages of their careers to take part in discussions on how to build successful and sustainable careers in today’s uncertain industry.
Make Music Work took the format of four panel discussions (titled The Jury’s Out, Making Something from Nothing, Getting it Straight and The Idea’s the Thing) interspersed with performances by Westcombe Brass, juice vocal ensemble, violinist Benjamin Baker, Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family and classical accordionist Ksenjia Sidorova.
The day’s started with Elgar Howarth’s Processional Fanfare performed by brass quintet Westcombe Brass, swiftly followed by arrangements of Jimmy McHugh's On the Sunny Side of the Street and Irving Berlin's Putting on the Ritz. Second trumpet Nial Mulvoy amazed the audience (and subsequently many of our Twitter followers) by performing much of the quintet’s set using his iPad – a practice that is becoming more common-place in concert performances.
With the opening fanfare sounded, Professor Barry Ife, the ISM’s President 2014/15 and Principal of Guildhall School of Music & Drama, gave a brief introduction and described the core value behind Make Music Work as an ‘audit of systems in place to ensure young people progress into the profession’ before introducing award-winning trumpeter Alison Balsom to the stage to give the opening address.
Alison set the framework for the day by describing her own career path to success: ranging from her earliest experience of the trumpet (watching Hakan Hardenberger perform) to later taking part in the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists Scheme, catching the ear of EMI Classics (now Warner Classics) and subsequently embarking on her successful career. Throughout her address, she emphasised the importance young musicians ‘finding their own voice’, and how learning as much repertoire is integral to musical development as well as being able to create programmes with a good balance of integrity and popularity. Also, going to as many concerts, she advised, is crucial to keeping a sense of perspective when embarking on a career as a musician.
With Make Music Work officially opened by Professor Ife and Alison Balsom’s address, the stage was set for a spellbinding performance by contemporary vocal ensemble juice vocal ensemble (lowercase intended) comprising members Kerry Andrew, Anna Snow and Sarah Dacey) who performed a self-arrangement of the traditional song Cruel Mother, Paul Robinson’s Triadic Riddles of Water and Sally Whitwell’s Going Somewhere. Their performance was compelling and startling in equal measure.
With Alison Balsom’s words about her own experience with competition and schemes resonating, it seemed fitting that the first panel discussion, titled The Jury's Out, focused on whether the aforementioned competitions or schemes do indeed have career-boosting qualities – or if career success is just down to the hard work of the musician involved.
The panellists comprised a mix of performers, organisers and teachers: Richard Morrison, Chief Music Critic, The Times (who chaired the session); Benjamin Baker, Violinist, YCAT; Emma Bassett, Trombonist, Westcombe Brass; Roderick Lakin, Director of Arts, Royal Overseas League; Mark Messenger, Head of Strings, Royal College of Music; Ronan O’Hora, Head of Keyboard Studies and Head of Advanced Performance Studies, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Anna Snow, juice vocal ensemble.
Mark Messenger, Head of Strings, Royal College of Music took an interesting standpoint, citing that ‘99% of the benefit of taking part in the competition is the preparation’, rather than the career benefit afterwards. He also admitted that he felt that the creative and spontaneity of performance ‘can be lost in the competition’, and that performing could turn into ‘an Olympic sport’.
Roderick Lakin, Director of Arts at the Royal Overseas League felt that competitions overall could be quite ruthless and it had been shown in the past that some competitions had become ‘subjective’ in their judging, or turned to ‘tactical voting’. This prompted the rest of the panel to discuss how much of a performer’s competition performance is based on technique and musicianship – or pure favouritism.
From the performers’ side of the panel, violinist Benjamin Baker felt that the biggest benefit from a competition experience and ‘performing in that arena’ was the sense of personal discovery. Emma Bassett, trombonist in brass quintet Westcombe Brass, who has just taken part in the final of the Royal Overseas League competition, said that the most enjoyable part of preparation was choosing and learning repertoire – and her quintet in particular look for new works to stand out in competitions.
After the first session drew to a close, there was a musical interlude provided by violinist, panellist and third performer of the day Benjamin Baker, who performed the Allemanda from the Sonata No. 4 n E minor, Op 27 by Eugene Ysaye.
Post-performance, the second session of the day - Making Something from Nothing - focused on creative entrepreneurship. The panel comprised the ISM’s Chief Executive Deborah Annetts, who chaired the session; Rebecca Driver, Rebecca Driver Media Relations; Tom Hutchinson, Projects Co-ordinator, Royal Philharmonic Society; Igor Toronyi-Lalic, London Contemporary Music Festival; Clare Wilkinson, Senior Grants Manager at the Garfield Weston Foundation and former fundraising consultant and Michelle Wright, Chief Executive, Cause4.
The need for a portfolio career in the current music industry was a crucial point of discussion, with Michelle Wright citing that ‘the portfolio career is a much bigger thing now’ and that being good at your instrument is no longer enough’. The need for a ‘core message’ or ‘story’ – especially as it is growing tougher to get coverage with diminishing arts space – was also discussed, especially by Clare Wilkinson (Garfield Weston Foundation) and Rebecca Driver. Rebecca in particular said she never ceased to be surprised at how little musicians who came to her knew about telling their own story, and how little understanding they had of good networking skills and making their own initial PR package of website, videos and social media accounts. The only panellist to counteract the need for a ‘good’ story was Igor Toronyi-Lalic, a journalist and founder of London Contemporary Music Festival, who felt that a ‘twist’ in a story had to be natural. He also added that ‘anger, realising that somebody is not doing something as well as you could’ can produce original ideas.
Tom Hutchinson, Projects Co-ordinator at Royal Philharmonic Society agreed with this, saying it was essential for performers to ‘think outside the box’ because it was ‘difficult’ for classical musicians to be considered for funding opportunities, as they rarely were ‘compelling’ enough against competition.
‘Frankly, it's a bit of a jungle out there’, was the introduction to the third session ‘Getting it Straight’. The panel comprised Ivan Hewett, Classical Music Critic, Telegraph as chair, with David Abrahams, Head of Legal, ISM, James Brown, Managing Director, Hazard Chase, Richard Paine, Director of Commercial Rights and Business Affairs, Faber Music; Justin Pearson, Cellist and Governor, Royal Society of Musicians and Gabriel Prokofiev, Composer and founder of Nonclassical record label as the well-informed panellists.
Many good points were made during this session; including the key to artists receiving a satisfactory fee relied on others thoroughly understanding music as a profession, the need for an open relationship between artists and agents; and artists and promoters, and the disparity of pay between different kinds of musicians.
Composer Gabriel Prokofiev offered a view on artists and agents, and questioned whether musicians needed managers – ‘a lot of tools that management companies offer, we can now do ourselves’ - which was met with agreement from the rest of the panel. However, Justin Pearson, a session musician, did admit it could be difficult for artists to find out how much they are worth when negotiating a fee, saying that ‘some make too much music available at a too low price’, and questioned ‘why musicians are not as valuable in this country as they are in others’, citing that UK's musicians are worth much more than they are currently paid. This was met with applause from the entire hall.
With regards to intellectual property, there was again unanimous agreement across the panel (and from PRS for Music’s Naomi Belshaw in the audience) that while there is no easy solution that would entirely solve issues in this area, IP education should be improved from school-age, as it is now too easy for internet users to access material without a second thought to who created it nor the implications of using it for free.
After this panel discussion ended, it was time for cellist Gabriella Swallow and her eclectic Urban Family (Lizzie Ball on violin, Bartek Glowacki on accordion, Pedro Segundo on drums and Dave Maric on piano) to perform. Their rousing programme consisted of Astor Piazzolla’s Tango Esqualo and two of their own arrangements of Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances.
Following this, Ksenija Sidorova came to the stage, and with complete ease converted the entire audience (and again, many on Twitter) to die-hard fans of contemporary accordion music. She performed a programme of accordion-specific pieces: Sergej Voitenko's Revelation and Vladimir Zubitsky's Omaggio (ad Astor Piazzolla).
The final session of the day, titled The Idea's the Thing featured musicians who had carved out their own musical path, and developed a successful career.
The panel comprised BBC Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch as chair; Professor Helena Gaunt, Assistant Principal, Guildhall School of Music & Drama; John Slack, Clarinettist, Berkeley Ensemble; Gabriella Swallow, Cellist; Samantha Ward, Artistic Director, Piano Week Festival; Toby Young, Composer and Ruby Hughes, Soprano, BBC New Generation Artist 2011-2013.
Professor Helena Gaunt started the session with an introduction the Creative Entrepreneurs course at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. She described musicians as not the most entrepreneurial but stressed that this was easily solved as 'being creative - something that ‘musicians do instinctively - is one of the best business skills.
After her introduction came to a close, the main discussion point was if finance came before an idea, or vice versa.
John Slack from Berkeley Ensemble admitted that musicians might not be able to always do the work they want to first in order to make ends meet. This point was only made stronger by both composer Toby Young and cellist Gabriella Swallow, who discussed the need to have as many irons in the fire as possible for sustainable living. It was also agreed across the panel that reality came before an idea – a point introduced by Gabriella Swallow who shared that ‘single motherhood is what pushed her to make her music financially viable.’
In contrast to this, Samantha Ward, who founded and is the Artistic Director of Piano Week Festival, said that her idea for the festival came before finance, and was prepared to make it happen at any cost.
With regards to putting both finance and ideas on an even footing, Toby Young said that while ‘networking’ is a dirty word for some musicians, pursuing collaborative projects was a good idea. Gabriella Swallow and Ruby Hughes added at this point that it was integral to one’s success to have support from fellow musicians. This was particularly prominent in Gabriella Swallow and her Urban Family, a fine example of working with people who share your creative vision.
When this session drew to a close, it was time to introduce the Director of BBC Proms 2015 Edward Blakeman to the audience who gave the closing address, covering carving your career path as an art based on three stages: ‘identify’, ‘consult’ and ‘risk-taking’, and the importance of continually reinventing yourself.
The day ended on a high at the more informal part of the day – a cocktail reception sponsored by Classical Music Magazine-sponsored cocktails reception. Delegates were able to continue the discussion about building their own careers with fresh knowledge taken from the days. The panellists also joined in the discussion – with many delegates taking the opportunity to get one-to-one advice.
Delegate feedback
'With such distinguished panel members, such topical sessions, quality refreshments/lunch, top of the range venue and brilliant musical interludes, it was one of the best events - most probably the best - I have ever attended.'
'Huge congratulations for a day so beautifully put together, beautifully run with a lovely positive, efficient atmosphere, and with excellent direct contributions to the panels.'
'Once the again the ISM for me has been 'Visionary' in pulling the strands together in a conference and helping us to find strategies for challenges.'
To watch videos of the panel discussions that took place at Make Music Work, look back at our Twitter feed and view the image gallery, visit ism.org/makemusicwork.
Join in the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #MakeMusicWork