'Musotopia.' Is it achievable for music graduates?

For the majority of undergraduate classical music performance students, 'musotopia' is a place where performance ambitions are realised in an international performance career. However, given that so few musicians achieve this ambition, should this ideal be redefined? The current paper investigates instrumental musicians' careers by exploring the realities of professional practice, and reports from a larger study which asked, 'what is a musician'

What's a musician, anyway?

Even classical musicians are not just performers but business people, educators, conductors, writers and managers as well

Shifting the cantus firmus: Australian music educators and the ERA

Managing the teaching-research-creative practice nexus is a concern for everyone working in higher music education, particularly those involved with the supervision and mentorship of graduate students and early career academics. This paper takes as its subject the new Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), drawing examples from research frameworks elsewhere to identify some of the pertinent issues facing music educators and their students. The findings from a series of surveys and short interviews suggest that the formal recognition of artistic research remains largely dependent on the articulation of that research into traditional academic language. Furthermore, the increasing focus on research as a form of revenue generation highlights the separation of research and teaching and the lessening of academic autonomy. The paper argues that a balance can be achieved only with a fundamental, systemic shift that recognises the new knowledge and innovative methodological approaches within artistic research and, equally, within the scholarship of teaching

Understanding the changing face of employment

The call to produce vocationally aware, work-ready graduates is increasingly heard within universities. Alongside this, however, is the apparent assumption that the world of work is correctly understood. In the vast majority of cases, this is not the case. Barriers to understanding the changing face of work include national data collection exercises and graduate destination data which measure employment in terms of single, full-time jobs: a model of employment that represents less and less of the general workforce. In broad terms, the focus in the general workforce is shifting from ongoing employment towards ongoing employability. Around the world, the creative workforce engages in protean careers which necessitate the continual development of new opportunities and the attainment of the skills required to meet each new challenge. Protean careerists consider their success in terms of personal career satisfaction rather than a pre-ordained hierarchy. The fluidity of employment and increasing casualisation experienced by the creative workforce exemplifies emerging employment trends in many other occupations. To meet the demands of work within the "new careerist model" of composite, protean careers requiring "do-it-yourself" career management, graduates need a diverse range of skills and knowledge as well as the confidence to market their talents. This paper unravels the realities of the protean career and reveals the world of work awaiting increasing numbers of graduates

Developing teacher identity among music performance students

The mythologised image of the musician as performer often contradicts the reality. This article reports initial results from a study that used learner-generated drawings and journal reflections with music performance majors as a means to examine emerging perceptions of music teaching. Whilst initial drawings illustrated traditional images of the teacher as knowledge giver, these gave way to more fluid and student-centred images in which students appeared to identify with teaching in new ways. The combination of textual and non-textual data provided insights that would not otherwise have been evident, and the broad consideration of 'possible selves' became a useful tool in the explorations of identity and career

Creative Migration: a Western Australian case study of creative artists

It is well known that a pilgrimage overseas can be crucial to the career development of specialist creative artists. All too often, however, the pilgrimage becomes a permanent migration. Significantly, the loss of this creative talent is not limited to the national level. The dominance of cities as the centres of Australia's knowledge-based economy leads also to migration of creative artists from regional centres and from smaller cities such as Perth, lessening the potential for those regions to attract and retain creative and innovative people. Given the globalised nature of the cultural industries and the emergence of new technologies, this study of Western Australian creative artists whether migration loss could be repositioned as cultural gain. Initial results suggest that spatial separation due to geographic isolation is particularly problematic for Western Australian creative artists both within the regions and the metropolitan area. Despite participants' strong personal connections with Western Australia, artistic connections were tenuous and artistic involvement was negligible. Implications include the need to actively engage with creative migrants by fostering their continued involvement in the cultural life of cities and regions

Identity as a catalyst for success

Success as a musician is most commonly assumed to be the attainment of a performance career; however, careers solely in performance are rare, often short-lived, and not desirable to everyone. This paper is drawn from a study which explored the perception of the musician as a performer, and which sought to find out whether practising musicians would support redefining their profession to encompass those working within non-performance roles. It presents the results of two focus groups held with musicians working in performance and non-performance roles. The musicians were asked: ?What is a musician?? The ensuing debate encompassed notions of success, career expectations, performance careers, and the importance of intrinsic career satisfaction. Participants suggested that musicians? careers continually evolve according to available opportunities and both professional and personal needs. The definition of the musician as a performer was found to lack specificity and to suggest an unrealistic perception of the profession of music. The results of this study support the argument that the term musician needs to be redefined; that redefinition has support within the profession; and that music educators have a crucial role to play in encouraging students to consider what kinds of musician they would like to be