I am currently nursing my second baby, who is nearly 12 weeks old. Maternity leave seems to make me even more reflective than usual and my thoughts have been returning to a topic which has bothered me frequently since music college.
There remains this idea, still prevalent in conservatoires and with the general public, that to have ‘made it’ as a musician you have to have that full time orchestral seat, or whatever your instrumental or vocal equivalent may be. Inevitably a very small subset of music students will end up in such a position, if they even want to, but however much I evangelise about the diversity of careers a music degree can prepare you for and the genuine pleasure to be found in a portfolio career, this ingrained, irritating, nagging feeling of having somehow fallen short refuses to go away. I was speaking to an academic recently who has been involved in researching the careers of musicians after music college, and their feelings about those careers, and she said the research highlighted an internalised feeling of failure amongst the majority of their population which is entirely unwarranted given the amazing range of work people end up in, but frustratingly persistent (I really do need to find a link to this research!).
The things which particularly nag away at me are that I do not play with orchestras anyone has ever heard of – the first question I am normally asked when I say I am a flautist is ‘who do you play with?’ and I am always uncomfortable when answering! – and not all my work is paid. I worry people might think I am a fraud. I am completely comfortable defining myself as a musician – while I undertook a variety of non-musical work immediately after finishing my Masters (including as a rock climbing instructor and as a sales assistant for climbing/hiking/camping shop), for some years now all my income has been derived from music, be it playing, teaching, researching, lecturing or anything else which has come along – but ‘flautist’ gives me pause for thought.
Rationally, I should have no qualms at all claiming ‘professional flautist’ as one of my jobs. Since music college I have been involved in 225 concerts, including solo, orchestral, military band and chamber concerts, the majority of which have been paid. This averages 28 concerts a year – more than a concert a fortnight for 8 years. Even without reckoning for part-time PhD study, teaching and lecturing work, getting married, having two complicated pregnancies (and the resulting two children), going on some big climbing expeditions, running a marathon and all the other exciting things I have been getting up to over the past 8 years, this is a pretty decent number of performances!
But what has really brought it home to me over the last few weeks that, yes, I am definitely a flautist was, of all things, ClassicFM. I have recently acquired a new car which, unlike my old one, has a working radio, so I have happily been driving my children around while listening to music – this is a novel thing for me! I know ClassicFM has a focus on the more popular classics but it struck me that, piece after piece, I was hearing things which I have had the opportunity to play with an orchestra. Big orchestral repertoire (Scheherazade, Rite of Spring, Pictures at an Exhibition, Peter and the Wolf to name just a few), numerous symphonies by composers including Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, key opera overtures, plenty of film music, lots of choral music (recently in the orchestra but previously with the choir) – all conjure up places and people and memories from youth orchestras through college to the current patchwork of professional, semi-pro and amateur orchestras I enjoy working with. I would love to be doing more orchestral playing right now – it is the single part of my work I love the most so I will always want more of it – but, really, I’m pretty lucky to have done as much as I have.
I have also reached a point in my recital work where Jemima and I have performed much of the core repertoire for flute and piano, plus an awful lot of obscure repertoire along the way, and are looking forward to repeating some of our favourites again. I worried when I finished at college that I would never have the opportunity to perform so much of the music I had played in the practice room. Now the list of repertoire we have shared with audiences around the country over the past few years runs to several pages, including sonatas by Bach, Prokofiev, Reinecke, Liebermann, Schubert and Franck, most of the pieces from Flute Music by French Composers, big stuff by Jolivet, Mouquet, Roussel, Copland, the Schubert Variations, lots of unusual British/C19/Female/contemporary pieces and a few first performances of new works.
I have played in big venues (our St Martin-in-the-Fields recital a particular highlight) for big audiences and important people (including, twice in 2016, the Queen). My playing has not been confined to the UK. I have travelled to various European cities to undertake professional orchestral auditions (I am rubbish at auditioning unfortunately but the ones in Belgium were always a great excuse for a mini-break and lots of beer afterwards!), and given performances in various places around Europe and as far afield as the Falklands with my military band.
In bad patches, if I have a longer period without an interesting gig or with no orchestral playing in the diary, I do start to question myself – to wonder if I am deluded, or to worry that the amount of time I have to spend practicing to maintain a level may no longer be worth it. I need to remember that, first and foremost, I still love it. I love playing and rehearsing and practicing. I then need to look back at this post, to remind myself how much flute playing I have managed to fit in during the past eight years, never mind the past twenty. How much incredible music I have played, how many amazing places it has taken me, all the wonderful people I have met along the way. And that this is eight years out of a lifetime, with so much more wonderful music yet to experience.
My name is Rachel and I am a flautist.
Rachel Johnson Music - Blog 