Seasoned Musicians Playing Beyond the 5th Decade: A Case Study on Symphony Orchestra Lifestyle and Ageing

When you attend a live classical music concert, have you noticed that the players are both younger and older musicians? The younger members are clearly competent players having received their position in the orchestra after a series of auditions and a trial period, but what about the older players? How do they keep up with the younger musicians? After all, the differences in the musicians’ ages might be as much as 20 to 30 years. Does age-related wear-and-tear take a toll on the performance-related skills of orchestra players?

Seasoned Musicians Playing Beyond the 5th Decade investigates the Symphony Orchestra lifestyle and its relationship with ageing. The book is based on over 50 interviews with professional Symphony Orchestra musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Halle Orchestra in the UK, the Jerusalem Symphony Broadcasting Orchestra and the Israel Sinfoneitta Orchestra in Israel, and the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, as well as finger-tapping exercises, a think-aloud protocol during deliberate practice, and a music performance analysis. It explores the attitudes, perceptions, and experiences of orchestra musicians and the resilience of seasoned musicians to ageing.

The book is divided into four parts. Part I delineates the background and foreground of the orchestra musician. Part II outlines various considerations of ageing in a music performance career. Part III explores the performance abilities of musicians through empirical tasks. Part IV finds meaning in the study of seasoned musicians.

This investigation into the vicissitudes of ageing and the orchestral community suggests there is a more positive and successful process of ageing than previously imagined.

Warren Brodsky, Professor of Music Psychology, Department of Arts, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

Warren Brodsky is Professor of Music Psychology in the Department of Art History and Visual Culture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. After a short-lived career as a professional Pop/Jazz electric bass-guitarist, he completed an Artist Degree (BMus) in Orchestral Percussion, and majored in Early Childhood Musical Development, which lead to a Diploma and Certificate of Teaching (K-6) from the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. Brodsky trained as a Music Therapist at Hahnemann Medical University in Philadelphia (USA), and during his 10-year clinical career he was Registered, Certified, and Board-Certified in the USA, Registered in the UK, and licensed as a Creative and Expressive Therapist in Israel. He completed a PhD in Psychology at Keele University in the UK, and engaged in two Post-Doctorial Fellowships at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Since then, Brodsky has been a full-time tenured research staff member.