In what I hope is the last update before I launch the first season of the new podcast, in this episode I will tell you about:
1) Audience survey results (including reading out some responses about performing artists' frustrations and responding to a repeating theme which surprised me)
2) The podcast to come (including some titles of episodes I'm writing)
3) Tie up some loose ends from the last podcast!
Currently the best way to stay up-to-date is the newsletter, which you can sing up for HERE.
Here is a full written presentation of the new podcast:
Classically (Un)Trained – Performing Artists (Re)Inventing Themselves in Times of Hardship and Technological Change
Classically (Un)Trained is a companion for classically-trained performers who are on a journey to (re)invent themselves for the 21st century and (re)discover meaning in what they’ve trained so hard to master.
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Performing arts degrees are likened to pyramid schemes, auditions are called cattle calls, and artists who make a living from performing are the 1%.
If you’re a classically-trained actor, singer, instrumentalist or dancer, you’ve heard these quips before and you’re well aware – thank you very much – that you’ve trained hard to fit into a very elite but, as it turns out, very overcrowded market – and one that is shrinking under your feet.
Most advice for young performers focuses on how to break into the industry, make enough money from gigging, or find the right parallel career. Those things are important, but something’s missing. What about the need to find meaning in what you do, beyond just chasing after your next stage “fix”? What about the fundamental need to be part of a community of people you respect and admire, not just ones you need to outcompete? What about the importance of doing something you know is relevant, meaningful and even, dare we say, essential?
In every episode of the first season of Classically (Un)Trained, we’ll explore artistic solutions to the economic, social, and technological problems facing the 21st century classically-trained performing artist and explore how performers can find meaning in their work not just despite of, but also thanks to, the unique challenges they face today.
About the host:
Ema Katrovas is a classically-trained singer. She spent her formative years singing in regional Czech theatres. After the pandemic, she pivoted to contemporary classical music and cultural journalism, attending the Aix-en-Provence festival’s cultural journalism workshop and completing a two year Artist Diploma residency at the High Conservatory in Lyon, where she created and performed in the one-woman vocal-theatre show Diva Lazarus*. She is currently working on a doctorate at the University of Strasbourg/HEAR with a thesis called* A Poor Opera: In Search of Vocal Theatre. http://www.emakatrovas.com