*4.1. Management and Business Skills*

Many of the respondents focused on general administrative, organisational, and negotiating skills. Participant 1 (P1) stated:

Mostly it's organisational skills—keeping track of deadlines, organising to-do lists (especially between [ensemble members] and I, so that the administrative work is divided evenly), maintaining contacts with venues, organising riders for concerts with electronics, negotiating fees (learning when to say "no, thank you" if a fee is just too low), etc. Filling out tax returns also big—have learned this process in four different countries now. My ensemble [is] also a registered business, which means a different tax process. (P1)

P2 also included the organisation of rehearsals and the writing of contracts as well as a number of marketing and staff management tasks associated with self-presented concerts, where there is an even greater pressure to sell tickets compared to concerts presented by a venue/festival:

Applying for opportunities, proposing ideas, applying for funding, marketing, general promotion, accounting, budgeting, proof reading, designing posters, writing programme notes, liaising with venues/promoters/composers, booking musicians, writing contracts, getting insurance, selling tickets, organising front of house staff, booking venues, planning rehearsals, getting PRS clearance . . . the list is endless! (P2)

P3 mentioned many of the same core skills, which can be well summarised by their self-assessment as being "my own CEO and employee at the same time".

The skills that I consistently tap into are:


Among the skills listed, organising, keeping deadlines, social media marketing, pitching, communication with venues and presenters, and negotiation were the most common. More specialist skills such as writing (grant applications and programme notes), design work (using Photoshop and InDesign), technical preparation, and tax returns across several countries were also listed by some respondents. The majority of respondents mentioned that this work takes up a large amount, if not the majority, of their working time. P4 stated that "there are days you have to give over entirely to admin and accounting and forget practicing".

#### *4.2. Skills in Audio-Visual Technologies*

Close to half of those surveyed had developed technical skills that allowed them to run their own electronics on stage, while a few said they had an assistant or another member of the ensemble to manage electronics. Only two respondents said that they do not work with electronics at all. P3 discussed the range of hardware and software that they use on stage:

Yes. I have self-taught myself to use Logic ProX, ProTools, Ableton Live, midi controllers, loop pedals etc., in addition to learning how to wire all my gear... by watching YouTube. (P3)

P1 also mentioned the importance of communicating with venue staff, which chimes with my own experiences as mentioned above:

Through time, I also learnt how to efficiently and effectively communicate with FOH sound and lighting technicians etc., and streamline my tech rider. (P1)

Although some respondents thought this was a new skill that musicians of the past had less necessity to learn, P5 put this in perspective as a gradual evolution over several decades:

Perhaps there has been a change from previous generations in skills required as "classical pianist". I think laptops, electronics etc. have been used widely in the generation before already, but perhaps not as commonly amongst pianists who were classically trained. (P5)

#### *4.3. Changing Economic Conditions for the Freelancer*

Several respondents discussed the changing economic conditions for freelance musicians. P6 mentioned that the old model of hiring a manager or PR consultant was now much harder to justify:

I think musicians are having to be increasingly resourceful and self-sufficient. I don't think the economic conditions are there any more to be able to routinely hire a team of people (even a manager and a PR), especially early in your career. (P6)

P7 went even further, stating that with the availability of contact information on the internet, the portfolio of contacts that an agent/manager could bring is now less valuable:

Yes, I would attribute the cause to the prominence of the internet. Agents and managers used to be crucial because of the databases they held. Now that all that information is available online, these contacts are less valuable. (P7)

However, several other respondents thought that the freelance performers of the past faced similar issues to today and that the main changes are the speed of communication and the need to manage social media marketing. P4 wrote:

The advent of computer technology across all platforms has changed everything and not entirely for the better as there's always a need to respond to things quickly as we can't make an excuse of "it's in the post" anymore! (P4)

P2 put a positive spin on freelancing despite its difficulties, including the ability to make a significant impact on contemporary music:

I think this more portfolio-based approach can create some amazing opportunities, including to define what music is in our own time, and to create approaches to it that are different from the previous generation, but there is a lot of competition for the traditional opportunities and that path is increasingly difficult to follow. (P2)

Clearly, there is a range of perspectives of the effect of the internet on freelancing, but the consensus is that the greater access and opportunities it provides modern freelancers outweigh the additional workload of online marketing and emails.

### *4.4. Training of Freelancers*

The majority of the respondents agreed that almost no training in these management skills was provided to them by teachers or by their educational institutions, despite a number of them having completed postgraduate study. P1 recalled:

None of my teachers had the skills or knowledge to prepare me for this kind of "portfolio" career. The expectation was definitely to get a job, probably in an orchestra. But I think having a varied approach and doing a lot of different things is actually one of the more exciting things about being a musician. (P1)

P8 concurred that these skills were developed out of necessity for any musician who is not signed to management at an early age:

I think that unless the artist is signed by a major agency/label/management at a young age, the skills mentioned above are those developed by a musician naturally as we progress with age and build our portfolio. (P8)

For some, such as P2, organised self-study was required to develop the skills to manage several businesses as part of their work:

No formal training but I have always thought of my work as a business and studied, through books, etc., various different aspects of business skills. I find that side of it both a bit annoying—I'd rather be playing music—and sometimes intellectually stimulating. I currently run a few different businesses and am involved in a couple of charities too. These things are an essential part of being a musician and I think being good at them gives a great amount of freedom within a musical career. (P2)

All of these mid-career respondents relied on self-training in the skills required, and as we will see, it remains to be seen whether more formal training options for current student musicians can cover all of these diverse skills and knowledge.

#### **5. Discussion**

Having examined the many skills and strategies required by solo/chamber musicians performing 21st-century music, a number of common challenges can be identified.

## *5.1. Discrimination and the Barriers to Diversity*

One major issue raised by the pressures of modern freelancing is that it creates an environment where discrimination against women, ethnic minorities, trans musicians, and neurodiverse musicians can flourish. As Christina Scharff has found (2020), the procurement of work primarily through networking "tends to disadvantage women, as well as working-class and black and minority ethnic workers" (Scharff 2020, p. 17). Networking also favours the extrovert, and artists who are relatively neurodivergent can be seen as not just eccentric, but difficult. This is complicated by changes in perceptions of eccentric behaviour based on gender and race. A large survey of 1000 participants carried out at the University of British Columbia found that white male scientists are seen as being more trustworthy and credible, with behaviour that is perceived as arrogant or narcissistic among women and scientists from ethnic minorities being perceived as charismatic among white scientists (Zhu et al. 2016). Similar studies of freelancing musicians have shown that women are much more likely to avoid self-promotion than men and that they are

more likely to consider these activities immodest or unartistic (Scharff 2015, p. 97). As previously mentioned, there has been a great deal of research and discussion around the lack of diversity of composers in the industry (Smith and Thwaites 2019; Farrell and Notareschi 2021; Sound and Music 2015; Bleicher 2016), but there are very little data available about contemporary music performers. Nevertheless, the data that exist for composers can provide us with some insights into the industry. In the UK, 6% of newly commissioned orchestral works and 21% of all new commissions are by women (Bleicher 2016, p. 6). When it comes to race, the diversity problem is even more pronounced: only 6% of newly commissioned works across the UK are from ethnic minorities (Roberts 2016). The reasons for this diversity problem are not simply a matter of racism and misogyny, although these *are* issues in the industry. Lauren Redhead has written about the tacit criteria for applications that perpetuate unintended discrimination (Redhead 2019). For example, because fewer women are accepted onto young artist schemes to write for orchestras, fewer women have orchestral examples to use to apply for further opportunities, even if those are blind selected.

Although these surveys provide valuable insights into the contemporary music industry, contemporary music performers are not included in any of these studies and are also not treated as a distinct category within Musicians' Union surveys that cover all genres of music (van der Maas et al. 2012). The result is that contemporary music performers remain under-studied, falling into the gaps between these different industry studies. This means that discrimination among new music performers cannot yet be acknowledged or tracked, although these performers face similar discrimination problems to composers. Several of the survey respondents shared stories of shocking misogyny and racism: one female respondent had a performance cancelled after informing the presenter she was pregnant, while another mentioned that the venue staff would only speak with the male members of the ensemble, repeatedly ignoring her questions. I have also experienced this type of discrimination by venue staff as the only non-white member of an ensemble.

There have been some admirable strategies for tackling diversity issues among composers such as the PRS Foundation's Keychange scheme, aiming for 50:50 programming across the UK in the next three years, and the Darmstadt Summer Course's application system introduced in 2018, which has separate application portals with equal limits for male and female/non-binary composers. However, as there are almost no data on performers in the industry, there are no similar strategies for addressing imbalances among contemporary music performers. While blind auditions have had an impact on increasing the number of women and ethnic minorities in American orchestras over recent decades, these processes are not available to freelancers, who rely on face-to-face networking (Goldin and Rouse 2000).

#### *5.2. Funding and the Cost of Modern Performance*

All of these non-musical skills that I have discussed above require years of "training through experience" as well as the time spent preparing for each project. The amount of time (50–70%) that I typically spend on these tasks is mirrored by the survey results among other musicians. Outsourcing of some of these tasks is possible, but this comes with additional costs, and the factoring of all of these costs into funding grant proposals renders these applications unviable and unlikely to be awarded.

Another factor is that many funding schemes for contemporary music are primarily aimed towards commission fees for composers, with a more limited number of funding streams being available for performance costs as part of commissioning projects. Emerging contemporary music performers in particular can struggle to secure funding and performance opportunities, while there are many schemes by major funding bodies and institutions that are specifically aimed at emerging composers. As noted above, new music performers are excluded from surveys and also have minimal inclusion in reviews, academic studies of contemporary music, and contemporary music awards, shrinking their voices in this musical ecosystem. The scarcity of funding means that freelancing new music performers without alternative sources of income (including working as session musicians, orchestral jobs, teaching and academia, work in other fields or spousal/family support) are very rare, and the dearth of working-class performers is even more pronounced in contemporary music than it is in the already middle–upper class-dominated classical music industry (Bull 2019). Even modest changes to funding priorities could have a positive impact on these issues of diversity and precarity. Although all musicians face similar challenges—the Musicians' Union "The Working Musician" report found that 56% of UK musicians earn less than GBP 20,000 per year (van der Maas et al. 2012)—precarity and fee levels among new music solo/chamber performers affect the whole contemporary music community, with a particular knock-on effect on composers. Clearly, the long-term sustainability of contemporary music can only be ensured through a greater prioritisation of funding towards the development of early career new music performers.

#### *5.3. Lack of Formal Training in Non-Musical Skills*

Given the huge importance of the management, marketing, and business skills discussed, it is significant that neither I nor any of the respondents received formal training in these skills during our music education. However, there are signs of change for the current generation of students, with a number of undergraduate modules being introduced that address self-management skills. For example, the Royal Academy of Music offers "Artist Development" seminars, workshops, and individual tutorials for students, the Guildhall School of Music and

Drama has "Professional Development" elective modules that can be taken in each undergraduate year, and professional skills are increasingly integrated into university performance courses. This type of integration has been my own approach as an early career lecturer, including lectures on budgets, marketing, fundraising, and the pitching of programmes within solo performance modules as well as in my tutorial sessions, and I am also planning a module that is specifically focused on professional development that would allow these topics to be covered in greater depth and detail. The question remains as to whether these modules adequately prepare students for a freelancing career given the huge variety and depth of skills discussed above and the relatively low proportion of time students will spend studying them. Indeed, López-Íñiguez and Bennett's (2020) recent research found that most music courses did not adequately prepare students for their careers, with the musicians who self-identified as "learners" having greater long-term success through the sustained career-long self-study of new skills (López-Íñiguez and Bennett 2020).

There is also an opposing perspective that adding these options to already crowded curricula means that students miss out on important core musical skills and knowledge. Furthermore, it could be argued that this type of vocational training erodes the central philosophy of universities, i.e., that education is valuable in and of itself. I would argue that the move towards acknowledging the importance of these non-musical skills is a positive development, but such courses will never fully replace the need for emerging musicians to self-study the particular skills they require for their own individual career pathways.

#### **6. The Future of the Contemporary Music Performer**

In discussing solutions to the challenges raised in this article, one could reasonably argue that changing the entire economic environment would have immeasurable benefits for both musicians and musical culture. Many of these non-musical skills are requirements of the current funding environment and musical marketplace, and a mechanism that could ensure a stable living wage for freelancing musicians would have benefits for performers, composers, and presenters. However, given that this is unlikely to occur in the UK, or, indeed, most other countries, in the short term, we can consider some steps that could not only make the lives of mid-career performers more viable but also encourage and support new young performers to embark on freelancing careers in contemporary music.

These recommendations apply to both solo performers who must manage all of these challenges themselves as well as to chamber musicians, who can distribute the challenges and skills among various players in administrative roles. However, as in my own case, many musicians straddle both of these categories and face many variations of these challenges across the many simultaneous strands of their career.

An easily achievable recommendation is for the regular collection of data on performers of contemporary music to complement the wealth of data collected on composers. Structural inequalities could then not only be identified but could also be addressed with targeted action, such as through the extension of initiatives such as Keychange to performers. Further UK-based opportunities for networking and pitching by performers alongside composers would not only assist emerging performers in becoming established in the scene but would also help to create greater programming diversity among UK presenters.

As previously mentioned, these skills are being introduced into tertiary education at universities and conservatories. Although I do not recommend these become a compulsory component of the tertiary syllabus, the widespread adoption of these courses and their honing to address the specific skills that are relevant for today's freelancers would provide a much-needed base level of knowledge for some of these fields. As with all good tertiary teaching, the aim should not be to provide all of the knowledge students require for freelancing but the tools for them to continue to learn, research, adapt, and develop throughout their careers.

Although I see major structural economic change to be unlikely, some modest changes to the economic environment could have major benefits for the performers of contemporary music. More funding should be available to performers of contemporary music, not just when they are premiering new works, but for training and the development of non-musical skills. Furthermore, particular funding priority should be given to emerging new music performers. Without them, emerging composers find that there are few (and dwindling) performance opportunities for their music.

Several of these recommendations are dependent on a fundamental change in the relationship between composers and performers. Performers currently shoulder a substantial proportion of the unseen and unpaid administrative workload for projects. They also receive less acknowledgement for their creative contributions to the work in mainstream media and academia and, by extension, by audiences. This is not to suggest that composers are not financially struggling as well, and there are many who contribute in major ways to these management tasks by presenting series, directing ensembles, or simply being proactive in the fundraising, technical preparation, marketing, and concert presentation of their music. However, making the sharing of these responsibilities, skills, and management tasks a mainstream expectation rather than a welcome exception would ultimately benefit both performers and composers.

Finally, greater collective organisation between performers could have significant benefits for the community. Sharing information about opportunities and presenters and sharing the skills and knowledge needed to self-manage a career as a performer would assist emerging and established performers alike, with a pooling of expertise and the ability to discuss topics such as fee levels, discrimination,

and funding as well as artistic knowledge about composers and existing repertoire. Such community discussion currently exists within small social communities of performers, but a more organised professional association would facilitate not just the sharing of skills and knowledge but representation through a united voice that could help to influence changes in industry practice, funding, and the acknowledgement of creative value, just as composers' associations have done for a century.

At the time of writing, the global COVID-19 pandemic has vastly reduced the activity of the UK's contemporary music scene. It may be idealistic to expect that positive or even paradigmatic change for the industry might be more achievable after this hiatus. However, if any of these recommendations could be implemented on the other side of this crisis, it could lead to a more sustainable, artistically vibrant, innovative, and diverse contemporary music culture.

**Funding:** This research was made possible with the support of a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship and with the support of Royal Holloway, University of London.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Appendix A. Survey Questions**

The following survey questions were posed to contemporary music solo/chamber performers:


#### **References**


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