The Experiences of Mid-career and Seasoned Orchestral Musicians in the UK During the First COVID-19 Lockdown

The introduction of social distancing, as part of efforts to try and curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, has brought about drastic disruption to the world of the performing arts. In the UK the majority of professional orchestral musicians are freelance and therefore self-employed. These players, previously engaged in enjoyable, busy, successful, portfolio careers, are currently unable to earn a living carrying out their everyday work of performing music, and their future working lives are surrounded by great uncertainty. The aim of the present study was to examine how established professional musicians are experiencing this period, and to look for similarities and differences between the experiences of musicians in the middle of their performing careers (aged 35–45), with those of older players (aged 53 and over). Single semi-structured interviews were carried out over Zoom with 24 freelance, self-employed orchestral musicians; 12 mid-career musicians aged 35–45, and 12 seasoned musicians aged 53 and over. Thematic analysis identified themes common to both groups: the loss of a much-loved performing career, missing music making and colleagues, and anxiety about the future of the music profession. It also identified differences between the two groups: challenges to their identity as a musician, the extent of their anxiety about finances, the extent of their emotional distress, attitudes toward practicing and engaging in collaborative music making, and confusion over future career plans. Findings are discussed with reference to lifespan models of musicians' career development, the PERMA model of wellbeing, and the concept of resilience.

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Mapping Digital Diasporas @ BBC World Service: Users and Uses of the Persian and Arabic Websites

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication ◽

10.1163/187398610x510047 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 256-278 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Marie Gillespie ◽

Hugh Mackay ◽

Matilda Andersson

Keyword(s):

Communication Networks ◽

Public Diplomacy ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Transnational Communities ◽

Geographically Dispersed ◽

Language Groups ◽

Service Staff ◽

The World ◽

Transnational Communication ◽

The Uk

AbstractThis article presents research on two key BBC World Service websites, BBC Persian Online and BBC Arabic Online. It draws on in-house BBC data, supplemented by our own semi-structured interviews with online editors and other key World Service staff. It examines where users of the two sites are located, their demographic characteristics and their views on and uses of the sites. The data is analyzed in the context of debates about the politics of diasporic media and communication networks and changing collective identities, the UK government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office's (FCO) strategy of 'digital diplomacy' and the World Service's stated public purpose of fostering a 'global conversation.' Our research has shown how the majority of users of both BBC Arabic and Persian Online services reside outside the geographical areas that the BBC World Service targets and may be defined as diasporic. And these two websites are not exceptional. Diasporic groups make increasing use of the BBC's online foreign language news sites but these transnational communication networks are an unintended consequence of the BBC's activities. We highlight how the internet is changing configurations of audiences and users at the BBC World Service as geographically dispersed language groups can log on to the news services from anywhere in the world. We argue that the BBC World Service can no longer be seen as an international broadcaster pursuing the BBC's motto 'nation shall speak peace unto nation.' Rather, as one of the world's largest news providers, it is implicated in the formation of new kinds of transnational communities and communications which has as yet unforeseen consequences for national identifications and for strategies of public diplomacy.

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Workplace and Health: A Survey of Classical Orchestral Musicians in the United Kingdom and Germany

Medical Problems of Performing Artists ◽

10.21091/mppa.2002.2012 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 83-92

Author(s):

Beatrice S Harper

Keyword(s):

United Kingdom ◽

Working Conditions ◽

Classical Music ◽

Health And Safety ◽

Work Related ◽

The United Kingdom ◽

Working Lives ◽

The Status ◽

The Uk ◽

Orchestral Musicians

This article presents the results of a survey that was carried out among UK and German professional classical musicians between November 2000 and April 2001. The UK Musicians’ Union and the German musicians’ union, the Deutsche Orchester Vereinigung (DOV), assisted greatly with the duplication and distribution of the questionnaires. Selected results have been disseminated to the respondents via the UK Musicians’ Union journal, Musician. A full report will appear in Cultural Trends, to be published in 2002 by the Policy Studies Institute, London. The survey covered many aspects of musicians’ perceptions of occupational health and safety, the provision of appropriate information, their general working conditions, and their health. One of the main aims was to bring to the forefront a discussion of musicians’ working conditions and to raise awareness of the range of problems that exist. Key findings identify areas of concern to the respondents, in particular, regarding the environmental conditions of their workplaces. Additionally, findings indicate the use and effectiveness of the measures used by musicians to ameliorate a range of occupational hazards. This article also reports the respondents’ hearing problems, and which medical and alternative practitioners the sample consulted in cases of work-related ill health. The contrasting structure of the profession determined the choice of the United Kingdom and Germany for this study. The UK classical music workforce is predominantly freelance, whereas in Germany there are relatively few freelance musicians, and most orchestral musicians have the status of local government employees. One of the aims of the survey was to elicit information that might indicate whether such different conditions of employment affect the working lives of musicians. This article is organized in two parts. The first part places this survey in context and discusses the particular range of health problems highlighted by the respondents. The second part presents the survey and its findings.

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“A Wild Sort of Note”

10.5406/illinois/9780252038600.003.0003 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

James Revell Carr

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Performing Arts ◽

Social Conditions ◽

Expressive Culture ◽

Multicultural Environment ◽

Music Making ◽

The Social ◽

The World ◽

Work Song

This chapter addresses Hawaiians' roles in the multicultural environment aboard European and American sailing ships during the nineteenth century, focusing particularly on the expressive culture of American whalers. Whaling ships began regularly calling at Hawaiian ports in 1820, and over the next six decades thousands of Hawaiian men shipped out as whalemen, joining one of the most cosmopolitan workforces in the world. The chapter begins by describing the social conditions aboard American ships that enabled a variety of performing arts to flourish and encouraged intercultural bonding. It then explicates the different styles and contexts of shipboard music starting with the work song tradition known as the sea chantey (or shanty). It describes the recreational music-making activities of sailors, distinct from the work song tradition, providing accounts of Hawaiian singing and dancing aboard ships at sea and in various global ports, and the responses of Euro-American sailors to that music and dance.

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Injury and the Orchestral Environment: Part III. The Role of Psychosocial Factors in the Experience of Musicians Undertaking Rehabilitation

Medical Problems of Performing Artists ◽

10.21091/mppa.2014.3028 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 29 (3) ◽

pp. 125-135 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Dale LL Rickert ◽

Margaret S Barrett ◽

Bronwen J Ackermann

Keyword(s):

Psychological Trauma ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Professional Musicians ◽

Future Directions ◽

Injury Rehabilitation ◽

Performance Requirements ◽

Orchestral Musicians ◽

Management Staff

Workplace rehabilitation in the orchestral setting poses a number of challenges that arise in part due to a poor fit between generic injury insurance and medical care and the elite performance requirements of professional musicians. Currently, the orchestral profession lacks information and strategies to best deal with the unique challenges of this complex rehabilitation environment. In order to inform future directions for research and suggest possible changes of practice, the researchers conducted a qualitative case-study aimed at understanding the injury and rehabilitation experiences of professional musicians. In-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken with three chronically injured professional cellists from a single Australian orchestra. After initial data analysis, further interviews were undertaken with a set of five orchestral management staff as a means of data triangulation. All data were analysed using a themes-based analysis-of-narrative approach. The findings indicate that injury concealment played a considerable role in the development of chronic injuries for these musicians, and management staff felt that this concealment may be the norm amongst orchestral musicians. The musicians in this study suffered emotional and psychological trauma as the result of their injuries, and two participants felt socially marginalised. During rehabilitation, the musicians in this study encountered difficulties with medical staff not understanding the elite performance requirements of orchestral work. The article proposes recommendations that may assist in dealing with the complex challenges of injury rehabilitation in the orchestral environment.

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A gradual separation from the world: a qualitative exploration of existential loneliness in old age

10.31235/osf.io/74u89 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Sam Carr ◽

Chao Fang

Keyword(s):

Older People ◽

Large Scale ◽

Later Life ◽

Retirement Communities ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Existential Loneliness ◽

The World ◽

Physical Touch ◽

The Uk ◽

Qualitative Exploration

This study sought to qualitatively explore experiences of existential loneliness (EL) in 80 older people living in retirement communities across the UK and Australia. Qualitative semi-structured interviews permitted in-depth exploration of issues such as biographical narrative, close relationships, loss, feelings of loneliness, and retirement living. It was our intention to conduct a large-scale, deep listening exercise that would provide further clues about existential loneliness in older people and the circumstances that give rise to such feelings. Data provided rich insight into older people’s inner lives. Core themes identified loss of close attachments, lack of physical touch and intimacy, deterioration of health and body, and lack of an emotional language through which to express EL as central to older people’s experiences. Furthermore, there was a suggestion that the move to retirement living was for many people inextricably connected to their experience of EL. Our data further support and extend the notion that EL can be thought of as a gradual sense of separation from the world and that ageing intensifies a myriad of social, emotional, and physical circumstances that prompt its emergence. This sense of existential isolation need not be thought of as exclusive to those experiencing extreme frailty or who face death imminently – our data pointed to a clear and gradual emergence of EL throughout later life.

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The Empire Samples Back

10.1093/oso/9780190855475.003.0003 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 61-92

Author(s):

M.I. Franklin

Keyword(s):

Hip Hop ◽

Cultural Practice ◽

The Other ◽

Historical Narratives ◽

Sampling Techniques ◽

Pop Music ◽

Music Making ◽

The World ◽

The One ◽

The Uk

Chapter 3 moves to the other end of the sonic and acoustic spectrum through a close listening to two well-known tracks from the group, Asian Dub Foundation (ADF). This group has been at the forefront of sampling as a decolonizing musico-cultural practice for some decades. Their music making, and how they deploy the full repertoire of sampling techniques, draw on the Club/DJ cultures of the 1990s on the one hand and, on the other, Jamaican Reggae and Dub, musicalities that played a formative role in the emergence of Rap and Hip-Hop (Chapter 6). ADF made their mark as part of the “Asian Underground” generation of British Asian musicians. Their sampling practices straddle classical Indian music, “Bollywood” soundtracks, Rap vocals, Reggae rhythms, and Dub bass lines for tracks that are not only danceable but also explicitly political, in ways that go beyond the lyrics. ADF’s collaborative, and technologically mediated “crossover” compositions decolonize Western pop music idioms as their musicking evokes contemporary and historical narratives of social injustice and racism, in the UK and around the world.

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Socioeconomic adversities experienced by creative freelancers in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic: A qualitative study.

10.31235/osf.io/74sdr ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Tom May ◽

Katey Warran ◽

Alexandra Burton ◽

Daisy Fancourt

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

Psychosocial Support ◽

Economic Security ◽

Mental Wellbeing ◽

Film And Television ◽

Working Lives ◽

The Uk ◽

Income Instability ◽

Socioeconomic Consequences ◽

The Impact

There are concerns that the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19, including unemployment and financial insecurity, are having adverse effects on the mental wellbeing of the population. One group particularly vulnerable to socioeconomic adversity during this period are those employed freelance within the creative and cultural industries. Many workers in the sector were already subject to income instability, erratic work schedules and a lack of economic security before the pandemic, and it is possible that COVID-19 may exacerbate pre-existing economic precarity. Through interviews with 20 freelancers working within the performing arts, visual arts, and film and television industries, this article explores the impact of the pandemic on their working lives. Findings suggest the pandemic is affecting the psychological wellbeing of freelancers through employment loss, financial instability and work dissonance, and illustrates the need for urgent economic and psychosocial support for those employed within this sector.

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Music Worlding in Palau

10.5117/9789463725125 ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Birgit Abels

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

Pacific Islander ◽

Ethnographic Research ◽

Conceptual Frameworks ◽

Significant Extent ◽

Making Sense ◽

Music Making ◽

The World

Music Worlding in Palau: Chanting, Atmospheres, and Meaningfulness is a detailed study of the performing arts in Palau, Micronesia as holistic techniques enabling the experiential corporeality of music’s meaningfulness—that distinctly musical way of making sense of the world with which the felt body immediately resonates but which, to a significant extent, escapes interpretive techniques. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research alongside Pacific Islander and neo-phenomenological conceptual frameworks, Music Worlding distinguishes between meaning(s) and meaningfulness in Palauan music-making. These are not binary phenomena, but deeply intertwined. However, unlike meaning, meaningfulness to a significant extent suspends language and is thus often prematurely considered ineffable. The book proposes a broader understanding of how the performing arts give rise to a sense of meaningfulness whose felt-bodily affectivity is pivotal to music-making and lived realities. Music Worlding thus seeks to draw the reader closer to the holistic complexity of music-making both in Palau and more generally.

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Socioeconomic and Psychosocial Adversities Experienced by Creative Freelancers in the UK During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.672694 ◽

2022 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Tom May ◽

Katey Warran ◽

Alexandra Burton ◽

Daisy Fancourt

Keyword(s):

Performing Arts ◽

Psychosocial Support ◽

Economic Security ◽

Mental Wellbeing ◽

Working Lives ◽

The Uk ◽

Cultural Sector ◽

Income Instability ◽

Socioeconomic Consequences ◽

The Impact

There are concerns that the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19, including unemployment and financial insecurity, are having adverse effects on the mental wellbeing of the population. One group particularly vulnerable to socioeconomic adversity during this period are those employed freelance within the cultural industry. Many workers in the sector were already subject to income instability, erratic work schedules and a lack of economic security before the pandemic, and it is possible that COVID-19 may exacerbate pre-existing economic precarity. Through interviews with 20 freelancers working within the performing arts, visual arts, and film and television industries, this article explores the impact of the pandemic on their working lives. Findings suggest the pandemic is affecting the psychological wellbeing of freelancers through employment loss, financial instability and work dissonance, and illustrates the need for urgent economic and psychosocial support for those employed within the cultural sector.

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Mental health in the pandemic: a repeated cross-sectional mixed-method study protocol to investigate the mental health impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in the UK

BMJ Open ◽

10.1136/bmjopen-2020-046422 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. e046422

Author(s):

Tine Van Bortel ◽

Ann John ◽

Susan Solomon ◽

Chiara Lombardo ◽

David Crepaz-Keay ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Mixed Method ◽

Ethics Committee ◽

Health Impacts ◽

Mixed Method Study ◽

Structured Interviews ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

The World ◽

Population Mental Health ◽

The Uk

IntroductionThe WHO declared a global pandemic on 11 March 2020. Since then, the world has been firmly in the grip of the COVID-19. To date, more than 211 730 035 million confirmed cases and more than 4 430 697 million people have died. While controlling the virus and implementing vaccines are the main priorities, the population mental health impacts of the pandemic are expected to be longer term and are less obvious than the physical health ones. Lockdown restrictions, physical distancing, social isolation, as well as the loss of a loved one, working in a frontline capacity and loss of economic security may have negative effects on and increase the mental health challenges in populations around the world. There is a major demand for long-term research examining the mental health experiences and needs of people in order to design adequate policies and interventions for sustained action to respond to individual and population mental health needs both during and after the pandemic.Methods and analysisThis repeated cross-sectional mixed-method study conducts regular self-administered representative surveys, and targeted focus groups and semi-structured interviews with adults in the UK, as well as validation of gathered evidence through citizens’ juries for contextualisation (for the UK as a whole and for its four devolved nations) to ensure that emerging mental health problems are identified early on and are properly understood, and that appropriate policies and interventions are developed and implemented across the UK and within devolved contexts. STATA and NVIVO will be used to carry out quantitative and qualitative analysis, respectively.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval for this study has been granted by the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee of the University of Cambridge, UK (PRE 2020.050) and by the Health and Life Sciences Research Ethics Committee of De Montfort University, UK (REF 422991). While unlikely, participants completing the self-administered surveys or participating in the virtual focus groups, semi-structured interviews and citizens’ juries might experience distress triggered by questions or conversations. However, appropriate mitigating measures have been adopted and signposting to services and helplines will be available at all times. Furthermore, a dedicated member of staff will also be at hand to debrief following participation in the research and personalised thank-you notes will be sent to everyone taking part in the qualitative research.Study findings will be disseminated in scientific journals, at research conferences, local research symposia and seminars. Evidence-based open access briefings, articles and reports will be available on our study website for everyone to access. Rapid policy briefings targeting issues emerging from the data will also be disseminated to inform policy and practice. These briefings will position the findings within UK public policy and devolved nations policy and socioeconomic contexts in order to develop specific, timely policy recommendations. Additional dissemination will be done through traditional and social media. Our data will be contextualised in view of existing policies, and changes over time as-and-when policies change.

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