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The HEartS professional model: a conceptual model for arts professionals’ work and wellbeing
Get PDFIn recent years there has been a surge of research on arts professionals' livelihoods, with particular focus on experiences of work and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, using the HEartS Professional multi-strategy survey, we collected data in three phases in the United Kingdom (UK): initially during the first national lockdown (Phase 1, April–June 2020; Spiro, Perkins et al., 2021), and then annually for two years; Phase 2 (April–May 2021; Spiro, Shaughnessy et al., 2023), and Phase 3 (May–July 2022). In this article, we focus on Phase 3. Our first goal is to explore which factors are important in the context of mental and social wellbeing (measured using the Mental Health Continuum-Short Form, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, the 15-item Social Connectedness Scale-Revised, and the Three-Item Loneliness Scale). Our second goal is to consider how work and wellbeing are associated with job satisfaction. Physical activity, social activity, financial stability, and health are significantly associated with mental and social wellbeing for the 564 professional artists in the UK who responded to our survey, and there are links between mental wellbeing and job satisfaction. As the creative industries emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and tackle ongoing challenges, a longer-term approach in this area is needed: one that allows a more holistic understanding of the contributors to arts professionals' work and wellbeing. Informed by the data collected in Phases 1 to 3, where we see consistent trends, we propose a conceptual model – the HEartS Professional Model – for understanding the drivers that are associated with arts professionals' wellbeing and job satisfaction. Within this model, the variables can be seen as part of wider domains: broad thematic groups including community (including perceived social connection and living situation), healthy living (including self-rated health and physical activity), finance (including financial hardship and household income), and demographics (including gender and age). The HEartS Professional Model has the potential to inform development of support, policy, and infrastructure in the creative industries that are fit for purpose and respond to creative professionals’ needs. Furthermore, it has the potential to be the basis for the long-term tracking and understanding of work, wellbeing, and job-satisfaction in the arts
New perspectives on the Italian instrumental music renaissance over the long nineteenth century
Get PDFThis commentary presents my submitted publications contextualised in a broader study on the resurgence of Italian instrumental music during the ‘long nineteenth century’. By exploring the socio-political and economic status of the country over the century, my research acknowledges the pivotal role played by the Risorgimento process in shaping the development of a modern Italian musical culture. The research draws upon previously unexamined primary sources, including letters, concert programs, reviews, and a wide range of secondary literature.
The commentary begins with a broad introduction examining the historical background, aiming to demonstrate the intrinsic connection between the development of an instrumental musical culture in Italy and the corresponding intellectual and cultural advancements.
The commentary then consolidates and develops the research presented in the publications to offer an analysis of prominent Italian cities (Rome, Naples, Bologna, Turin, Milan, and Florence) and their distinctive characteristics. I unveil the diverse responses of each centre (and therefore of different areas of the country) to the challenges posed by the prevailing influence of opera and the political and economic circumstances that allowed the resurgence of instrumental music. I highlight the establishment of pioneering concert and quartet societies in these locations, which served as catalysts for the flourishing of Italian instrumental music. Furthermore, I demonstrate how the reform of school education and conservatories played a crucial role in empowering a new generation of Italian musicians to reclaim and excel in this genre. I throw new light upon those notable Italian composers, particularly Giuseppe Martucci, who played a crucial role in establishing a new and distinct ‘non-operatic’ image within Italian music culture, with a consequent impact in shaping the perception and reception of Italian music on an international scale. The outcomes of this research establish a groundwork for future investigation aimed at offering a more comprehensive overview of instrumental music culture across the Italian peninsula
The Spohr Collection vol. 3
No full textMusic by WA Mozart, John Frederick Lampe, Antonio Vivaldi, Walter Clagget, WF Bach, Thomas Chilcot, Pietro Locatelli, Francesco Barsanti and Johann Christoph Pepusch. Flutist Ashley Solomon and Florilegium continue the Spohr Collection project with Volume 3. Ashley plays nine original exquisite 18th century flutes from Peter Spohr’s private collection, which can now be heard around the world for the first time. They are made from various materials including solid ivory, ebony and ivory, and boxwood and ivory. These historical instruments possess a beautiful and unique sound, making them most desirable to play.
This new recording explores repertoire from Italy, Germany and England written by composers including Vivaldi, Mozart, Clagget and Locatelli. Each work matches historically and geographically with the flute Ashley plays. Soprano Rowan Pierce joins them for two songs by Chilcot and Lampe
Mapping musical mobilities: challenging musical nationalism through mobility and migration
Get PDFOften, music—particularly classical music—has been viewed in some quarters as a product of particular national cultures, with little regard paid to the ways in which mobile phenomena can contribute to its production, whether in the form of mobile people, objects, or concepts. This paper turns to notions of mobility as a means of exploring how musical cultures can be animated. It explores, too, the possibilities of particular forms of “mapping” as a way to retain, but also rethink, the spatial specificity so emphatically signalled in some musical tradition-claiming, while simultaneously avoiding the excessive valorisation of mobility that can characterise many musical careers as endlessly nomadic or socially detached. We begin by discussing the question of music and nationalism in more detail, particularly as it has been conceived of within musicology, ethnomusicology, and nationalism studies. In so doing, we aim to establish a sense of the national framing and fixing through which (classical) music has hitherto been understood in some contexts. This leads naturally onto an attendant discussion of the mobility of music, in which we will outline some of the nascent material on this topic
Learning in the spotlight: cutting-edge technology to help performers reach their full potential
Get PDFWhether in music, business, sport or any other performance field, performing in front of an audience is very different from practising. The pressure performers feel can affect the quality of their performance. Aaron Williamon, Richard Bland and George Waddell have been leading efforts at London’s Royal College of Music to develop its Performance Laboratory into a world class simulation facility. It uses the latest tech to help performers experience factors that can affect a performance and learn how to manage them effectively
Odaline de la Martinez – conductor, composer, entrepreneur, leader
No full textLeadership is a much-discussed concept. A brief internet search gives access to videos, podcasts, books, courses, and companies all vying for attention and claiming to support and inspire would-be leaders. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the particular challenges faced by women as leaders, inspiring books such as Harvard Business Review's On Women and Leadership and Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In. Conducting, meanwhile, is a peculiarly public form of leadership. Apart from politicians, few other leaders are expected to stand on a podium and exercise their leadership skills on a group of adults in full view of the public. Plenty of what a conductor does also takes place behind closed doors, of course: negotiating contracts, preparing scores, and rehearsing, for example. Nonetheless, conductors are uniquely judged on their ability to lead in public and in the moment. Even a politician is only partly judged by his or her speeches. Despite the huge literature on leadership in general, however, there is relatively little written on conducting as a form of leadership. Much of a conductor's training is done aurally and through example and experience, and where conducting texts discuss leadership, it is generally in the context of ‘rehearsal technique’, which is, as will become clear, only a part of the way in which an influential conductor can lead. What, then, can be learned about conducting, and about the challenges for female conductors, by considering conducting as a form of leadership
Review article: Anthology of Early Keyboard Methods: Revised, enlarged and translated by Barbara Sachs and Barry Ife. Peacock Press, 2023.
Get PDFReview of Anthology of Early Keyboard Methods: Revised, enlarged and translated by Barbara Sachs and Barry Ife. Peacock Press, 2023. ISBN 978-1-914934-73-5
The impact of culture-, health-, and nature-based engagement on mitigating the adverse effects of public health restrictions on wellbeing, social connectedness, and loneliness during COVID-19: quantitative evidence from a smaller- and larger-scale UK survey
Get PDFNumerous UK surveys conducted during COVID-19 examined the pandemic’s detrimental effects on health, and the consequences of lockdown and other public health restrictions on mental health. Some surveys considered specific populations and social inequities exacerbated during COVID-19. Fewer surveys examined the ways in which the adverse effects of public health restrictions, such as lockdown, shielding and social distancing, might be alleviated. Drawing upon self-determination theory, the purpose of the current study was to assess whether culture-, health- and nature-based engagement would mitigate the effects of these restrictions on psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness. Quantitative data from a smaller-scale survey (n = 312) and a subset of questions embedded in a larger-scale survey (n = 3647) were analyzed using univariate and multivariate methods. Frequency of engagement, whether participation was online or offline and with or without other people, and the extent to which type of participation was associated with psychological wellbeing, social connectedness and loneliness were examined. Sports and fitness, gardening and reading occurred frequently in both surveys. For the smaller-scale survey, increases in connectedness and frequency of participation and decreases in loneliness were significantly associated with improved wellbeing, whereas the type of participation and age range were not significant predictors. Outcomes from the smaller-scale survey approximated the larger-scale survey for measures of loneliness, type and frequency of participation and proportion of respondents in each age range. As the frequency of participation was a significant predictor of wellbeing, but the type of participation was not significant, the findings implied that any type of participation in a sufficient quantity would be likely to boost wellbeing
Specialist support for performers: counselling psychologist
No full textLearn how a counselling psychologist can help performers optimise their mental health
