Classical soloists’ life histories and the music conservatoire

Focus of the article

This study explores the life histories of six virtuoso music soloists with particular reference to their perspectives on conservatoire training. Biographical research typically takes a broad sweep, to take on board factors outside the interviewee’s workplace, professional role or institution that impact on it, and here this includes themes of teachers, how the ‘realities’ of the role might be conveyed to conservatoire students, the significance and functions of Higher Education (HE), the implications of their lives for institutional curricula and so on. Our intention is not to reify the voices of these virtuosi but to offer the lived experiences to inform practices within the sector, thus contributing to a dynamic discourse of change in higher music education (Bennett & Rowley, 2019).

The conservatoire in the literature

Perkins (2013b) has noted that conservatoires are largely unresearched, while Jørgensen (2010) claims the wider higher music education research field has come of age yet institutions are generally unresponsive to research findings. Conservatoire practices have been described as opaque, unreflective and with heritages that no longer serve the majority of students (Bennett, 2007; Burwell et al., 2019; Carey & Grant, 2015; Gaunt, 2011; Ivaldi, 2016; Persson, 1996). Hierarchies and the fabric of institutions have been characterized as reifying teacher voice, with student performance prized above broader learning (Burwell et al., 2019; Ford, 2010; Perkins, 2013b) and as strongly protective of what they regard as their ‘core’ role against dilution (Duffy, 2016). The sector has also been criticized for narrow definitions of success (Perkins, 2013a) and the absence of ‘a critical and creative engagement with music’ (Ford, 2010, p. 3; see also Leech-Wilkinson, 2018). While there are currently successful networks and pilot projects that seek transformation (Duffy, 2016; Palmer, 2013; Perkins, 2013a), Rumiantsev et al. (2020) describe how conservatoire leaders are torn between the competing pulls of craftsmanship and employability and conclude that a ‘strong sense of urgency’ (p. 39) is required in implementing curricular and pedagogical change.

It is clear that performance teachers dominate students’ experiences through one-to-one lessons but offer multiple conceptions of quality (Carey et al., 2013; Carey & Grant, 2015; Gaunt, 2011; Kingsbury, 2001). Gaunt (2011) observes that students see these teachers as the most significant component in determining the value of their studies, yet studio interactions are not well understood, with lessons being a ‘secret garden’ (Burwell, 2005; Burwell et al., 2019; Carey & Grant, 2015). This secrecy, along with many staff lacking pedagogical training (Presland, 2005; Purser, 2005) and exhibiting a strong sense of professional autonomy (Rumiantsev et al., 2020) and a stated lack of community and sharing (Carey et al., 2013; Gaunt, 2008), breeds inconsistency. Some claim this leads to a focus on content transfer rather than on transformative, creative approaches (Carey et al., 2013; Leech-Wilkinson, 2018; Minors et al., 2017). Burwell (2020) however argues that the benefits of authoritative discourse in the studio lesson have not yet been fully understood.

There is a large body of literature on the development of elite soloists, from the early work of Lauren Sosniak through to recent volumes such as McPherson’s (2016) edited volume on Musical Prodigies and Izabela Wagner’s (2015) remarkable account of the lives of talented young virtuosi as they compete for a secure place in agents’ books. However, there is no research into the lived experiences of those who already regularly have their images on the posters of the major concert halls of the world or of how conservatoires contribute to their success, making this an important study for the sector.

Life histories in social research

Data were collected in this study through life-history interviews (Baker, 2005a, 2005b, 2006, 2014; Baker & Green, 2017, 2018; Clausen, 1998; Faraday & Plummer, 2003; Sikes et al., 1996; Sparkes, 1994). Life-history research emerged between the two World Wars (e.g., Thomas & Znaniecki, 1927). As a sociological method, it was initially used to understand the disenfranchised, deviant, marginalized or overlooked in society (e.g., see Lewis, 1961; Shaw, 1930). Biographical strategies have also raised awareness of marginalized teachers ‘. . . by articulating the teacher’s voice and ensuring that this voice is heard loudly within the world of teacher development . . . ’ (Sparkes, 1994, p. 13). Educators’ occupational phases have been another application of the method (Baker, 2005a, 2005b, 2006; Huberman, 1993; Morgan, 1998; Sikes, 1985). Life histories can produce research findings ‘. . . from the perspective of an insider looking around, and not that of an outsider looking in’ (Muchmore, 2000, p. 1). The open nature of interviews, co-construction and collaboration these entail equalize the researcher–respondent power dynamic present in other forms of research. A biographical turn in sociology has also meant that individuals are seen as having agency whereby ‘biographies make society and are not merely made by it’ (Rustin, 2000, p. 46).

The soloists in our study

For the purposes of our research, we define classical music ‘soloists’ as those who

We do not define ‘soloist’ as someone with prodigiousness, that is, with early recognition of musical ‘specialness’ in childhood, as this study evidenced this not always to be the case. Our interviewees comprised three singers, one male (Edvard), two females (Rebecca and Amahle); two cellists, one male (Pierre), one female (Esther); and a female pianist (Fiona) (pseudonyms are used throughout). Three had attended HE in North America, the rest in European countries; two had studied at university, one for an undergraduate degree other than music although both were involved in the conservatoire system for instrumental lessons during or before HE studies. One regularly teaches in the conservatoire system, the other five give masterclasses. They were all living in various European countries, except one who resided in a large US city, all with worldwide travel for their work.

The life-history interviews

Life-history interviews were conducted with the six notable soloists. The audio-recorded sessions occurred from May 2018 to January 2019 inclusive, lasting between 45 min and 2 hr 14 min. Skype was mainly used due to the participants living or being engaged in work internationally, with one discussion at the interviewee’s London flat. Semi-structured biographical interviewing was adopted since we wanted latitude for participants to raise themes of personal importance rather than these coming only from scant literature on what is a relatively inaccessible social group (see, for example, Bloom, 1985; Simonton, 1997; Sosniak, 1985a, 1985b, 1990). It is the nature of life-history interviews to not define specific research questions but rather to let the themes inductively emerge from the data analysis. Discussions ranged over a wide subject area and this article looks just at data themes related to teachers, experiences of higher music education and suggestions for conservatoire training programmes. The researchers’ implicit questions in seeking data on these themes were as follows:

Transcribed interviews were returned to respondents for verification and review, and further email exchanges fed into our database.

Data analysis

Data from the interviews were transcribed verbatim by a Research Officer and stored in an NVivo software database for coding and analysis. Advantages of software use were comprehensiveness (Kelle, 2004), speed (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996) and support for analytic strategies difficult with manual methods (Lee & Fielding, 2004). Software assisted with the storage, coding and retrieval of the qualitative data (Coffey & Atkinson, 1996; Jagielo, 1998; Patton, 2002; Tesch, 1990; Weitzman, 2000).

The strategy employed was ‘analytic induction’ (AI) (see Baker, 2005a, 2005b, 2006, 2014; Baker & Green, 2017, 2018; Bernard et al., 2017; Cressey, 1950, 1953; Manning, 1971, 1982; Robinson, 1951; Zeoli et al., 2013). Following transcription of the first interview, codes marking broad concepts were applied to the textual data before exploring the text associated with them to define subcategories. Follow-up email exchanges were opportunities to evaluate the emergent theory, for ‘respondent validation’ (Delamont, 1992) and for ‘negative or deviant case analysis’ (Emigh, 1997). As Bernard et al. (2017) have remarked, where parts of one’s theory are not supported by respondents, ‘. . . you have two choices: Modify the theory or redefine the phenomenon you’re trying to explain’ (p. 338). Where contradictions occurred in newly collected data and email feedback, our codes were amended before, again, seeking confirmation of their viability from respondents. We quickly reached a point of ‘theoretical saturation’ (Bertaux, 1981; Tagg, 1985) whereby the interviewees were satisfied our depiction was ‘authentic’ of their lives and perspectives (Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Seale, 1999a, 1999b, 2002). Researchers who ‘. . . privilege “experience” as “authentic” . . . ’ will take findings back to respondents to confirm these resonate with them (Silverman, 2001, p. 235).

Ethics

The research underwent ethical review procedures at University College London (Ref. REC 1044, Z6364106/2018/02/95) and Trinity Laban gaining approval from both institutions in February 2018. It adhered to ethical standards of the British Educational Research Association (2011, 2018) and British Psychological Society (2009, 2018).

HE as a ‘rite of passage’

The six soloists had all been students in HE, although one did not study music. All three singers additionally attended opera schools. They all considered HE a necessary ‘rite of passage’, although not without obstacles in some cases. Pianist Fiona was able to fast track her university education to pave the way for her career. She explained,

I was only in high school for three years and I did Grade 9 to 12 in three years and, then, they allowed me into Piano Performance at the university after Grade 12. So, I got out of high school when I was 15 [years old], which was really quite young. I did some summer courses too to sort of make up the time. When I was 15, I took a year of Piano Performance at the university with this French teacher I just discovered, as a special student, so I gained a year there and, then, I had credit for the [Canadian university, name removed for purposes of anonymity] for some courses. I did a four-year university course in three years, and I got to finish university at 18 which is usually when most people start at a university. (Fiona, pianist)

For others on a more typical timeline, it was a matter of juggling high-profile performance work with studies in HE, with some significant personal sacrifice too. Esther recollected,

I entered high school in 1996 so e-mail was around so I e-mailed a lot of the assignments and, of course, you know this multiplied exponentially. For university, I was in a very rigorous curriculum there. When I toured Japan for a year, I think I emailed six papers, did plenty of assignments. I used the plane rides to do my academic work. At the end of my senior year, I was playing my first Barber concerto . . . I hadn’t played it much, and it’s quite challenging. It was the week before finals, so of course all of the assignments were due. So, I used to go from this, to this, you know, just typing [laughs] . . . There were four concerts that week. There was Thursday at 8 o’clock. I played the concert then went straight back to my hotel room and busted out a 15-page paper [for] the next morning. I went to bed at 5 o’clock and woke up four hours later. You took a shower, [and] got back on stage to play the 11 o’clock matinee, took a nap, [and] played the concert that night. [Then I] . . . busted out another paper [laughs] . . . So, I didn’t really sleep during those four years. (Esther, cellist)

Esther’s degree was not in music and she clearly did not need to do it to achieve her very successful music career, but, nonetheless, she did so. She reflected,

I had a very strong music background and was surrounded by musicians my whole life. I kind of wanted to be surrounded by other people [laughs]. People who are studying different fields with varying interests so wanted to take classes in many different subjects. When I had to pick a major, I wanted history because I love the Russian literature and music, so I focused on Russia and Eastern Europe. (Esther, cellist)

All of these musicians considered HE a necessary and valuable step therefore. However, at times, they questioned its usefulness to their future careers, and/or they remarked on the manner in which engagement in it entailed sacrifice. This suggests the value of a degree to them and their families as important ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu, 1993) representing social status. Perhaps, this is also suggestive of the ongoing class-related nature of classical music (Bull, 2019). In their choices privileging HE despite already being on trajectories towards a solo career, these artists embody the value argued for a degree as a developer of wider skills and attitudes such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration and independence (The British Academy, 2017, 2020).

Learning and performance

The soloists felt that conservatoires offered many valuable, high-quality performance opportunities, for example, in solo, chamber and orchestral settings, and a useful breadth of performance activities, such as choirs and accompaniment. This was helpful both because of the opportunities to experience the physicality of performance and for the experiences of working with outstanding professionals:

If people are standing in a rehearsal room in the conservatory, singing [an] opera aria, it’s very, very different from singing opera aria when you’re standing on a stage. (Edvard, singer)

If there were important moments, it was very often when I worked with somebody who was very, very good, you know . . . That’s inspiring. When we did a project and . . . a real conductor showed up and worked with us. That really made a difference. (Edvard, singer)

This element of performance training is perceived as essential and part of the unique offer of the conservatoire; it is a ‘central and dominant facet of conservatoire life’ (Perkins, 2013b, p. 204), but there are researchers who argue that institutions weight the aesthetics of performance too strongly. Turner (2004), for example, claims that the conservatoire’s dominant ideology and value system is performance rather than learning (also see Carey, 2010; Ford, 2010) while López-Íñiguez and Bennett (2020) evidence that musicians who privilege learning over performance are more likely to thrive in the long term. This connects with the product–process debate suggesting conservatoires as sites of behaviourist principles (Carey et al., 2013) generating competitive environments and unequal opportunities (Perkins, 2013b). This was lamented by our respondents, with one voicing,

Sometimes I hear from young students now who . . . comment on the competitiveness of it and you know the stress of it and I don’t think that’s really a productive thing. (Fiona, pianist)

Fiona’s concerns are backed up by the evidence that conservatoire students have high levels of stress and insufficient mechanisms for coping with them (Araújo et al., 2017; Matei et al., 2018). Nonetheless, performance opportunities were considered a valued central feature of conservatoire training by our respondents.

Institutions as ‘agencies’

Many students come to the conservatoire or music department because they are attracted by the prospect of learning from a specific esteemed professional performer (Burt & Mills, 2006; Hanken, 2016) as exemplified by Fiona:

I went to the Department of Music [at the Canadian university, name removed for purposes of anonymity] for my bachelor in music piano performance because [instrumental teacher’s name removed] was there. I didn’t go for any other reason. [It was] because I wanted to study with him. (Fiona, pianist)

Our interviews were rich in accounts of the soloists as students identifying excellent key teachers and moving to their hosting institutions, often crossing continents to do so. This raises a question about what students consider more important to them: ‘the institution’ or ‘the teacher’? If it is the latter, conservatoires run the risk of acting as an ‘agency’, facilitating access to these esteemed performers rather than with formally trained HE teachers, that is, with institutional worth heavily vested in migrant, hourly paid and often pedagogically untrained staff members (Daniel & Parkes, 2017; Duffy, 2016; Perkins, 2013a; Purser, 2005; Simones, 2017). The ‘draw’ of individual staff profiles for prospective students may occur in relation to any type of HE course. However, conservatoires are relative outliers as places often chosen primarily due to the activities of staff members outside the institution. Instead, most HE students opt for programmes of study because of location, institutional reputation and teaching quality (Briggs, 2007; Roga et al., 2015). So, unless ‘agency’ thinking and institutional hierarchies can somehow shift, the formal training and professional accreditation of staff delivering the core conservatoire experience ‘as educators’ will always be a challenging endeavour for those wishing to enact change (Daniel & Parkes, 2017, 2019; Gaunt & Papageorgi, 2010; Purser, 2005; Simones, 2017). It is important to flag that this notion of ‘agency’ is often in the minds of students prior to enrolment; it is what attracts them to the institution in the first place and it is often also in the minds of the teacher (Rumiantsev et al., 2020). However, while Lehmann et al. (2007) and Persson (1996) evidence that trained conservatoire teachers are the most effective, Arnove (2010) finds that extraordinary teachers need a high level of knowledge and experience in their subject field, making this a challenging problem for the sector. Fiona sums it up, presenting a tolerance for poor teaching and potentially even bullying, if the teacher displays outstanding performance skills:

I think it so much will depend on the two personalities. I know that as a teenager I would not have responded well to being bullied, and I would not have responded well to being made to feel really small and inadequate. But, once somebody who could really do the thing that I wished to do was prepared to show me how, that’s an entirely different matter. (Fiona, pianist)

Clearly, the complex relationship between performance and teaching skills also involves ethical considerations of student well-being and autonomy.

Control and autonomy

Fiona here introduced a connection between high-profile teachers and bullying. Some of the soloists noted that there could be a tendency for teachers or institutions to control repertoire they studied, external performance opportunities and their career moves. Yet student autonomy and personalization have been argued as essential in conservatoires (Gaunt & Papageorgi, 2010). For singers, in particular, there were notions of the ‘voice maturing’ and ‘readiness’ for specific roles, repertoire and other activities to which not all subscribed. Rebecca, for example, noted high value in her early experiences with an opera company alongside the initial tendency of her conservatoire to limit her participation:

Oh, I think that it’s very important [to be permitted to participate in professional productions] and, actually, it would be great if there was more of it . . . I left college early and there was, right at the very beginning, a bit of ‘No, your allegiance is with us so you should stay here’. I said ‘Well, I’m getting work at ENO [English National Opera]’. My teacher thought that I was ready to do it. Actually, then they were very supportive and they let me leave, so I did four years undergraduate and, then, I started the Opera School. I did a year there and started getting work at ENO while I was there, and they allowed me to leave. . . . They were supportive of it, and that was really a wonderful thing because you can go and have a career and if they’re hindering it in any way, it’s terrible. (Rebecca, singer)

Note even here the rather un-agentic notion that it is the institution that ‘lets’ and ‘allows’ Rebecca to leave. Edvard thought that one reason for his career success was saying ‘yes’ to a broad variety of musical opportunities across his life. He further added that, within the early career, the notion of a ‘guru’ teacher was detrimental. He commented,

If the teacher becomes a kind of ‘guru’, I don’t think that’s a good thing [laughs]. . . . I can remember colleagues who were very, very dependent on their coaches or their teachers. They didn’t do anything without having the get go from this ‘guru’ of theirs. I mean, when they’re young and it’s nice to have somebody they can ask, and to have somebody they trust. But you have to develop a sense of what’s right or wrong. [You have to] develop that yourself. Because, if you’re going to live through this, you’re going to do it through many years, and you’re going to . . . do things in a different way depending on how you develop and how the world around you develops. [You need to decide] where you’re going to work, with whom you’re going to work [laughs]. (Edvard, singer)

The notion of a ‘guru’ teacher was elided by one respondent with the word ‘bully’ (see Carter, 2011; MacArthur, 2011, for evidence of this in music learning). Amahle was also sceptical of teachers who controlled students’ career choices for purposes of their ‘legacy’:

I think that it is important to make the choices you want. [These are choices about] what kind of career you want, what kind of job you want, or what kind of artist you want to be. . . . I understand the point of teachers who kind of build themselves little fiefdoms of singers. That’s them wanting to leave legacy. I’ve got respect for wanting to leave legacy but I feel that legacy isn’t created by you [i.e. the teacher] forcing people to go a certain way. A legacy is the choices your students make, the career that they choose to build. (Amahle, singer)

Amahle mentions the personal legacy of the teacher, but Perkins (2013b) notes that the marketing of institutions is also bound up in celebrating their student achievements as soloists.

None of this is to say that the respondents did not value close relationship with teachers or their involvement with them as individuals rather than just as learners, and they spoke warmly about particularly influential figures and those who introduced them to broader artistic concepts. This was, however, almost always infused with language of agency and self-direction.

The conservatoire–industry relationship

Breadth of interests and study

A noteworthy surprise was the wide array of ventures in the soloists’ careers and lives, which spanned many creative musical activities, composing, improvising, entrepreneurship, charity work and social enterprise, teaching, and furthermore engagement in various musical genres. For example, in our interviews, concert pianist Fiona noted her interest in social development through music. She had been an ambassador for an organization working with inner-city children for several years, but also founded and directs a well-known music festival. Pierre (cello) likewise also maintained a conservatoire teaching post and the artistic direction of a festival, membership of a successful improvising ensemble and the commissioning of much new music.

Prior to the investigation, we had the misconception that the soloists would be highly focussed on their instrumental discipline only within the remit of practising and performing classical music. Moreover, we anticipated this would be from an early point in their lives. Accordingly, they would have marginalized, or neglected to some extent, broader learning (musical and non-musical) both within formal and informal learning environments, as described by Wagner (2015). However, our experience was otherwise: these were intelligent, knowledgeable people with very broad interests. Our respondents emphasized the great value of lifelong learning within and beyond music. The reasons they gave included needing breadth as a person to drive performance creativity and also combating social isolation experienced due to extensive travel.

I feel so grateful that I had the education that I did. . . . [US conservatoire, name withheld] has a relationship with [US Ivy League university, real name withheld] so this is an option for students to take classes there. [Another US conservatoire] also has a programme where you can get a music degree and you can take one class at [US university] per semester. I just decided to do it the other way around because I wanted to get a full degree. . . . I used to make a joke about ‘the dumb, isolated musician’ who doesn’t do anything else in life and doesn’t have a well-rounded . . . I thought, even when I was 13 [or] 14 [years old], I don’t want to be a dumb isolated musician. I want to learn about things; I want to read. Almost every musician I know is super curious and intelligent and wants to learn about the world and where we are. I think it really informs the music making. I don’t think anybody would disagree with that . . . And so it’s really important for music education, for the education of the musician. (Esther, cellist)

Esther coupled her broad interests with her educational choices, a view also expressed by Pierre:

What I observed more and more . . . [as] a teacher and everything, is that the more complete your education will be also your musical education. (Pierre, cellist)

Despite their high-profile performance careers, for these individuals, the portfolio career was clearly a preferred choice for personal and artistic reasons rather than a watering down of some high artistic ‘calling’, a situation also found by López-Íñiguez and Bennett (2020) who stress the ‘intrinsic and process-oriented’ nature of soloist careers (p. 9). Perhaps for conservatoires, this underscores the need for a broad vision of training and ‘the music career’, one that engages students in diverse, creative endeavours and exposure well beyond classical music performance. Burt-Perkins and Mills (2009) argue that ‘breadth – as opposed to only depth – may be key to developing our knowledge of musical expertise’ (p. 831). Papageorgi et al. (2010) likewise have argued that music in HE ‘should encourage a broad conception of what constitutes a musician and stress the benefits of balancing academic and performance work’ (p. 443). Burnard and Haddon (2015) have remarked that entrepreneurial creativities will likely be the driving force for institutional change and industry alignment, and more recently, Bartleet et al. (2019) add the additional dimensions of mobility, digitization, gender parity, and health and well-being as facilitating musical careers.

Conveying the realities of the soloist’s profession

Against a backdrop of marketing that glamourized their lives with notable performances, prizes, recordings and other accolades, the soloists considered there to be a lack of awareness in music students about the realities of their careers, particularly the substantial travel, isolation and sacrifice in their personal lives.

Suggestions for conservatoire curricula

A number of interviewees made further suggestions about conservatoire curricula. Rebecca posited enhancing the awareness of practical knowledge:

One thing that I never learnt about [at conservatoire] was tax and being self-employed and the money side of things. I had no idea that I should be paying tax after a certain amount of earnings, and, then, got fined because I hadn’t been. [I didn’t know about] things like VAT [UK Value Added Tax]. The same thing happened when I went over the threshold. I was fined and had to go back to orchestras and ask for VAT then. [There was] all that sort of stuff that I didn’t even know. I knew nothing about it. That’s something that could be really useful, also maybe, talking about agents and how to deal with agents. There was no talk about that when I was at college. (Rebecca, singer)

A number of soloists remarked on the value of chamber music training, not just for skill and repertoire development:

I speak really for string players and pianists, because this is really the world that I know better . . . I think the best conservatories put a very heavy emphasis on chamber music. With this, you really create strong friendships and musical friendships. I remember my favourite conservatory experience was with the quartet that I formed. (Esther, cellist)

Friendship is one known protective factor, perhaps another focus should be health and well-being. Amahle made this comment about her experiences at a US conservatoire:

If I had to run a conservatory like [US conservatoire, name removed for purposes of anonymity], I think I would definitely stress the mental and emotional aspect of the career, making sure that people are mentally and emotionally fit. (Amahle, singer)

In addition, there were comments about the value of learning to improvise, and while all performed comfortably from memory, this was reported as a self-learnt rather than taught skill, as was the management of performance anxiety.