There are hundreds of Global Leaders Program alumni across the globe working in the arts, education, and entrepreneurship sectors, and bringing innovation and new ideas to the industry. 2021 has continued to present challenges to the sector due to COVID-19 restrictions, and we asked four Global Leaders Program alumni to share their experiences of the year that was, and thoughts for the year ahead.
Joel Schut (GLP 2014 | USA)
Assistant Director of Orchestral Studies and Instructor of Music Education, University of Colorado-Boulder
How has the pandemic affected your work this year?
While the pandemic has caused limitations on in person orchestral experiences, it has also provided an opportunity for collaboration, investigation, conversation and creativity in many new ways. My work transformed from full orchestra ensembles to small chamber orchestras focusing on a range of repertoire that is not typically programmed in a regular performance cycle. Additionally, performing in smaller groups has allowed increased leadership opportunities for students and rehearsing and performing distanced fostered incredible improvements in visual awareness, part independence, leadership and listening. Additionally, we were able to explore a range of topics in conversation during virtual rehearsals. Education jigsaw student presentations showcasing underrepresented composers and conversations with emerging leaders in arts education were student favorites and helped jump forward in both thought and action.
What has changed during the course of 2021 in terms of your work?
The need for meaningful human interaction and arts engagement has become even more meaningful.
The CU Orchestra community came together after the mass shooting at the Boulder King Soopers Grocery Store to perform Elgar’s Nimrod Variations in honor of the victims and as a balm for the community. Due to pandemic distancing requirements the entire orchestra was unable to fit into one room. With technology and a bit of creativity, we performed tandem performances to include all members and wove them together.
Looking ahead to 2022 – does anything look different to 2021?
One of my goals in 2022 is to have students fully invested in creating new art. The CU Philharmonia Orchestra is undergoing a project in which seven composers are orchestrating a set of piano miniatures by Florence Price. These works will be performed in their original piano setting before juxtaposed with the newly completed orchestra.
How do you predict 2022 may look for the arts in your region?
Bold art. Expanded audiences. Varied formats. Tradition blended with innovation.
Sophie Gledhill (GLP 2018 | UK)
Freelance cellist
Currently on Les Misérables UK & Ireland tour
I think of 2021 in terms of pre- and post- 17th May, the date on which public life in the UK partially reopened following a third national lockdown. Theatres and concert halls were allowed to welcome distanced audiences and, as a result, my freelance performing work began to trickle back in. Before this, life largely consisted of teaching newly acquired cello and piano students on Zoom and working on CelloTrek, the online project I launched in July 2020 to highlight connections between environmental and cultural sustainability around the world and an attempt to quench my rampant wanderlust.
This project grew from the Toki Rapa Nui Global Support Campaign which I ran in summer 2020 in support of the environmentally sustainable music school where I carried out my GLP fieldwork. (The campaign would have been impossible without the invaluable contributions of several fellow GLP alumni; thank you once again!)
I was able to do a few remote recording sessions from my home studio, and there was the very occasional in-person recording or streamed concert, but life in the first few months of 2021 was certainly a very different beast from life before covid.
Even when venues reopened, some restrictions remained in place for several months. A particularly bizarre experience was performing Prokofiev’s Cinderella with Birmingham Royal Ballet, with the entire orchestra being piped through to the auditorium from a rehearsal studio upstairs. Our lights weren’t dimmed and we weren’t able to hear audience reactions, so it mostly felt like several rehearsal run-throughs in a row – but we still had to wear all black and stand up to acknowledge (inaudible) applause at the end of every performance because we were being shown on a tiny screen in the theatre to prove we were there.
I feel incredibly lucky that much of the freelance work I had before covid has returned in some way, and in particular that I joined the Les Misérables UK and Ireland tour which reopened in Glasgow in late November. I have also been so impressed by the drive and ingenuity of many musicians in the face of restrictions and hardship; huge gratitude to soprano Elin Pritchard for founding new company Opera Ensemble and staging a production of Pagliacci (with piano trio in place of full orchestra) in the midst of so much uncertainty back in October 2020. Of course, covid has reared its disruptive head once more and the situation across the UK performing arts industry is looking far from stable. For now I will try to take each day as it comes, be grateful for the music I get to play, and continue to figure out my place as a musician (who dabbles in writing and photography) within the fight for climate justice. Nobody would have wished for this pandemic to happen, but a silver lining for me has been having the time to define my priorities and the space in which to explore them.
Bridget Kinneary (GLP 2017 | USA)
Music Coordinator/Orchestra Director, Berlin Cosmopolitan School
Site Leader / Mit Mach Musik Project
The Pandemic has been an extreme challenge for me, personally as well as professionally. As 2021 comes to a close, I find myself and my colleagues leaning into the new era of digital education and realizing how fun and accessible it can be. Mit Mach Musik is planning a series of video tutorials to be filmed in 2022, as we are quite confident in the useability and relevance of digital materials.
The live events we did put on in 2021 at points where the public health situation allowed were packed full of audience members and left me/my team confident that live music and live experiences will always be an important element of our humanity. At Berlin Cosmopolitan School, we even hosted an inaugural live painting benefit concert/event which served as a collaboration between the visual and performing arts department and raised money for United One World Schools. Sometimes it is truly hard to keep this in mind, but every challenge does provide new outlets for our collective creativity.
Hannah Darroch (GLP 2018 | New Zealand)
Principal Flute, Christchurch Symphony Orchestra
Artist Teacher, University of Canterbury
New Zealand has been relatively sheltered from the pandemic, with a strict lockdown in early 2020 and stringent border controls leading to a comparatively covid-free existence for the island’s “team of five million.” Despite the uncertainties of life in general, I’ve never felt more grateful for the performance and teaching opportunities I’ve had since moving back to NZ in 2020 from my previous home base of Montreal, Canada. In August of 2021 COVID-19 turned up in the community again, and New Zealand went back to limiting gatherings for a number of months, leading to many cancellations in my work. As I write this, over 90% of the country have now been vaccinated, and although we don’t yet know the effect of the new omicron variant, early 2022 is set to be dominated by vaccine mandates in order for people to participate in, create, and/or experience the arts. This is our “new normal” as we set aside our 2021 calendars and embrace the New Year.
Highlights from my work as Principal Flute of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra in 2021 have been projects where collaboration and community-building were key. One very memorable project was a collaboration in a high school with music students, dance and drama students, and the school’s specialist unit for students with high needs, where we created works of art together as a way to build connections between students who wouldn’t usually interact, finding ways for everyone to be involved despite our differences. I know it will have a lasting impact on the musicians just as much as the students it was designed for.
At the university where I teach part-time I started a commissioning series with woodwind and composition students, which turned into a really satisfying collaboration, especially coming out of a lockdown where people had a new-found appreciation of working together towards a common goal.
At the beginning of the lockdown in August I unexpectedly took on another job, working digital communications for the New Zealand Choral Federation. I’ve always found I’m at my most optimistic when I’m kept busy, so I was really fortunate to have extra work at a time when my primary employment was at a standstill for months. I’ve actually kept that job, and in 2022 will keep managing communications and also take on some work in youth development. This has been one of the career twists of 2021 that I’m really grateful for.
In 2022 NZ will begin re-opening the country to the world, figuring out how to manage international travel, and maintaining vaccine mandates with boosters. Despite full concert seasons and tours on the horizon, it very much feels like one-day-at-a-time as we enter the new year.
