Creativity,agency,and stability: Perceptions of Canadian musicians working across the cultural domains

Abstract

This research study aims to illuminate Canadian musicians’ portfolio careers across the cultural domains. Previous research has highlighted the career paths of music graduates directly after graduation, and other research has highlighted the experiences of well-known performers or pedagogues. However, little is known about music graduates who persist and establish careers in music. We interviewed twelve musicians working in a variety of Canadian cultural domains to understand their work and career paths. Their stories elucidate how artists balance income stability, artistic agency, creativity, and professional challenges to create impressive and fulfilling portfolios that enable them to use their music-based knowledge and skills in various ways. Findings from this study provide a more nuanced understanding of the scope and nature of music-related work in Canada and how artists integrate artistic and creative abilities with community needs and economic stability. These findings offer insights for emerging musicians and music graduates and have implications for educating and supporting artists who wish (or indeed need) to work across cultural domains.

Introduction and review of literature

Career trajectories in music

Contemporary careers in the arts are complex and often follow a non-linear trajectory. Work in the arts has been described as a “protean” (Hall, 2004): self-determined careers are driven by personal values rather than organizational rewards and serve the whole person. For musicians, the protean career is often entrepreneurial, where they hold a portfolio of roles (e.g. D. Bennett & Bridgstock, 2015; Boyle, 2020; Bridgstock, 2005; Cawsey, 1995; Hesmondhalgh, 2019; Mills, 2004). Research in portfolio careers for musicians has highlighted a lack of career preview and understanding of the possibilities inherent in the creative and cultural industries (D. Bennett, 2016; D. Bennett & Bridgstock, 2015; Comunian et al., 2011), which may also include an understanding of music-related roles that exist beyond performance or teaching. Many young people interested in pursuing work in music have little understanding of the nature of the sector, including both the scope and nature of work available to those working in it, or the strategies related to developing portfolio-based careers (Creech, 2008; Brook & Fostaty-Young, 2019; Renihan et al., 2021). Furthermore, young musicians often do not embrace or understand entrepreneurship within the field (Haynes & Marshall, 2018).

While much of the scholarship on portfolio careers for musicians is prescriptive and theoretical, it seems particularly important to include research that centers the voices and experience of artist-musicians themselves. Recent qualitative research has highlighted the experiences of performers and teachers of various career stages. Connell (2020) used narrative inquiry to examine the career trajectories of professional singers in Australia, highlighting the life cycle of a five-stage career: pre-career, breaking in, peak stage, denouement, and moving on, which leads to a reorientation of their careers. Connell also illuminates how singers’ extreme busyness, singular professional identity, and unreciprocated loyalty to the arts profession distracted them from re-evaluating their career trajectories. Forbes and Bartlett (2020) posited an expanded notion of performance based on interview data from facilitators of community group singing ensembles. Facilitators identified the empowering process of shared singing as a type of meaningful performance for and with their participants. Similarly, Renihan et al. (2021) found that singers challenged a singular professional identity by holding various roles within a portfolio career, but highlighted how singers’ post-secondary education often discouraged a pluralistic view of performance.

It seems significant to recognize that much of the research on the possibilities and necessity of portfolio careers has focused on other national contexts—namely, those of England and Australia (e.g. Bartleet et al., 2012; Boyle, 2020; Cunningham & Higgs, 2010; Devlin & Martin, 2016; Latukefu & Ginsborg, 2019). But what D. E. Bennett (2008) describes as “the hierarchy of music careers” (p. 13) and the lack of understanding around the nature of portfolio careers in music deeply informs Canadian musicians’ self-concepts and thus career trajectories, despite the fact that these types of careers remain the norm in Canada. Studies of Canada’s music graduates are beginning to emerge in response to a growing awareness in Canada of the fact that post-secondary music education has traditionally ignored the realities of the portfolio career. For example, in a mixed method study examining graduates of Canadian university music programs, Brook & Fostaty-Young (2019) found that respondents pursued post-secondary music because they were interested in working in the field but had little understanding of possible lines of work beyond performing or teaching.

More research is needed to gain a nuanced and detailed description of the protean careers that musicians develop, a problem that is becoming increasingly pressing as the music industries rapidly evolve, largely due to the evolution of the digitization and globalization of music performance and music production (see Bartleet et al., 2012), but also because of the unprecedented levels of student debt that students carry today (see K. P. Munnelly, 2020). By exploring musicians’ lived experiences, we can gain a nuanced understanding of the diverse nature and motivation underpinning protean careers for those working with music across the cultural domains in Canada. The insights gleaned from this study will deepen our understanding of the multifaceted nature of musicians’ professional identities, and the ways that the assemblance and creation of various kinds of portfolio careers can be an act of adaptability, resilience, and even creativity (see K. Munnelly, 2022).

Purpose and research questions

This research study aimed to gain a broad qualitative understanding of the protean careers of professional musicians in Canada. We aimed to elucidate the features of musicians’ various roles and positions, and to understand better the personal and contextual factors that influenced one’s career journey. In order to explore the nature of protean careers of musicians working across Canada’s cultural industries, our research questions guiding this study were as follows:

• RQ1: What is the nature and scope of musicians’ roles across Canada’s cultural industries?

• RQ2: How do contextual factors influence these musicians’ career decisions?

By examining the personal circumstances surrounding individuals’ unique approaches to career development from those who have established roles across the cultural domains, ¹ we can understand their sense of musicianship, their perceptions of opportunities, and the contexts that shaped their career decisions and trajectories. These studies can draw out the particularities and humanness of musicians’ work, which allows students, artists, and educators to nuance and recast notions of artists as either “stars” or “starving artists.” These insights will facilitate a deeper understanding of how individuals’ career paths are shaped by their contexts and, indeed, by their values.

Methodology

Phenomenological inquiry

We used a descriptive empirical phenomenological inquiry methodology (Farrell, 2020; Moustakas, 1994; Patton, 2002, 2015), which Patton (2002) asserts is the study of “. . .meaning, structure, and essence of the lived experience for this person or this group of people” (p. 132). A descriptive phenomenological methodology allowed us to gain an in-depth understanding from a variety of individuals, through “comprehensive descriptions that provide[d] the basis for reflective structural analysis” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 13). A phenomenological approach involves describing the experience based on participants’ responses. It allowed the researchers to reflect upon, analyze, and synthesize the participants’ accounts, which resulted in a description of the “essences or structures of the experience” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 13). By describing a variety of musicians’ experiences and work we were able to develop a broader understanding of various protean careers, understand the nature of the lived experiences of the musicians, illuminate some of the tensions inherent in following a passion and making a living in music, and recast the way we perceive and educate professional musicians in Canada.

Recruitment, data collection, and analysis

After receiving ethical clearance from the authors’ institution, we used a purposeful sampling process, which involved inviting musicians who worked across various music-related roles in the Canadian cultural domains, including live performance, digital media, heritage and libraries, education, music therapy, and arts education, to speak with us. We began by consulting publicly available information about each participant to better understand their background and work. One author conducted semi-structured 60-minute interviews with twelve musicians.

All interview data were transcribed, and we conducted a macro and micro analysis of the interviews, guided by phenomenological analysis procedures (Moustakas, 1994). All the authors read through the interviews. One author wrote textural-structural descriptions (Moustakas, 1994) of each participant’s experience. The other authors reviewed and edited the summaries to ensure they captured each individual’s career scope and essence. The researchers had conversations about the essential meanings and themes of the interviews to understand better the supports and constraints that contributed to career paths and career outcomes, and how individuals’ contexts shaped their decisions. The first three steps were recursive; we returned to the data to examine and code the significant statements that captured the essence of the individual experiences, and we revisited ways to combine or delineate themes and units. Thus, we were able to create “textural-structure descriptions of the meanings and essences.” (Moustakas, 1994, p. 122) We found that each of our interviewees had a unique professional profile, and we aimed to balance the distinctiveness in their narrative while also looking for cohesion across interviewees. This allowed us to illuminate the individualized nature of a career within the broad domains of the cultural industries. It also allowed us to nuance the features of the work beyond their titles and the income generation, which has been documented in other places (e.g. Conference Board of Canada, 2019).

Findings

Diverse portfolios anchored in one area

Twelve interviewees’ careers were protean, and many had established a portfolio, for which they managed multiple contracts and employee roles doing the same type of task (e.g. performing) and engaging in different roles (e.g. performer, teacher, editor, and curator). Two participants were employed in full-time work instead of a portfolio career. They met our inclusion criteria because they held a role in the cultural industries and their career journey was also protean. Despite the diverse combination of roles that made up each portfolio or role, we found that in each case, one role was understood or prioritized as the core component of each portfolio because of the significance for them, which we refer to as the “anchor role.” In this section, we present short summaries about each of the participants organized by the anchor role in their portfolios, as follows: Performer, Administrator/Director, Therapist/Educator, Sound Production/Creation, and Museum/Archival Professional. ² We also list the full scope of their portfolios.

Portfolios anchored in performance

We interviewed three individuals whose portfolios were anchored in live performance: Morgan, Kai, and Emory. Each was trained as a classical singer but has gone on to use their singing skills differently.

Morgan: Performer, translator, post-secondary instructor

Morgan is a singer and completed undergraduate and graduate music programs, as well as several young artist programs. They have continued to work in opera and music theater for over two decades, performing traditional and contemporary repertoire. “[A] big part of why I like to perform, especially opera, is because you get to explore different languages and different styles and styles of music which are influenced by the language and the culture of the composer’s writing.”

Since the Canadian context for singers involves a career based on a series of short-term contracts at different locations across the country or the world (Renihan et al., 2021), Morgan required another income stream that was flexible and mobile and thus pursued training in translation. This work also met Morgan’s interest in the intersection of text and culture. Morgan has been able to transfer many of their skills, such as organization, seeking out mentors, and interpretation, thus leveraging their musical knowledge and training within the translation world to specialize in translating arts-related documents. For Morgan, their work in translation and singing are connected:

What piqued my interest [in translation] was exploring the way. . .language and culture affect perceptions and understanding of the world, which is. . .a big part of why I like to perform, especially opera. [As a translator] and a performer, I am constantly reinterpreting what is on the printed page.

Kai: Performer, creator, and administrator

Kai is a performer who engages in contemporary opera, theater, and dance—both in Canada and abroad—where they create and perform multi-arts shows. Their performance opportunities have emerged mainly through a desire to be a creator/performer who draws on song, story, and dance. Kai pursued undergraduate and graduate degrees in music and opera performance. They describe their education as a “super strict education,” one that required they “not go outside the lines.” The primary focus of their opera graduate program was their technical development as a singer and learning operatic roles. They found that this singular focus did not fully address their artistic desires or fuel their holistic artistic development. Led by their creative imagination, Kai has developed a career that includes singing and acting. Their technical development in other art forms, such as acting and dancing, was developed as they performed in professional shows, many self-directed and produced. Often, they recall learning indirectly and directly from colleagues. They note:

Some of my education just came from doing. . . .I created a show that I did not have the skills for. So one of my collaborators, or co-creators, did have that skill and taught it to me during the process of the making. . . .and that there is this back and forth in figuring out how to make it happen for my body and the fact that I was singing at the same time.

While they continue to take on some roles, they also focus on developing their shows through an arts company they have co-developed.

Emory: Performer, activist, creator, teacher, and theater director

Emory started their career as an opera singer who sang traditional roles. Through a reckoning with issues of systemic racism and exclusion that pervade the opera and classical music industries, they have developed a career that challenges and redefines classical performance. In this way, their career has shifted to align more closely with their values and identity. Emory notes: “[When I started my professional career] I was young and inexperienced. . .I had to figure out who I was as a person, and that meant figuring out my sexuality and then also my gender expression and looking at my cultural heritage and how I was denying so much of that and trying to whitewash myself on so many levels [in this type of work].” This disconnect between their on- and off-stage identities emerged after they realized that both the manner of performing and the characters that they were enacting did not reflect their identity. Emory collaborates with others on various projects centred on community building and activism. Emory is also committed to amplifying the communities to which they belong, which has led them to open a vocal studio and direct a community choir. “Everything is infusing everything, which is exciting. . .this web I have created subconsciously that is. . .operating in the background to help me be a better, more holistic artist.”

Portfolios grounded in arts administration

Quinn and Charlie have portfolios anchored in arts administration as they run an arts festival and arts organization, respectively. Interestingly, both had original post-secondary education in performance, and neither has certifications in arts administration.

Quinn: Administrator, studio music teacher, performer, and creator

Quinn is a self-employed, classically trained pianist, administrator, and teacher focusing on contemporary music and community engagement. While pursuing their Ph.D., they sought something “fun to do” to expand representation and programming at local Pride celebrations. In the process, they co-founded a queer arts festival, which they have continued to administer. This experience has taught Quinn to be open to the unexpected: “I thought that running a queer arts festival would be a liability to my piano career, but in many ways, that has gotten me national attention.” During their education, Quinn felt much pressure to “keep the blinders on,” that is, to focus solely on piano performance, and wished they had “more opportunities to get a broader multidisciplinary education.” While Quinn finds their work as a performer, teacher, and administrator personally and professionally rewarding, they note their career requires total devotion, even as it is marked by financial precarity: “It takes a lot of stubbornness and a lot of hustles and much willingness just to put yourself out there. And. . .I am still struggling.”

Charlie: Artistic director and theater director

Charlie’s primary role is as an artistic and general director of an opera company specializing in contemporary works, which includes responsibilities involving artistic programming and strategic business planning. They also work as a theater director for the same company, as well as for other organizations. Charlie began their career as a classical vocalist and transitioned to administration through a unique encounter: “It was a unique coincidence,” they note. Charlie cold-called the then-artistic director of the company and got a limited contract as a director. Some time later, Charlie was asked if they wanted to try administration, and following a successful period of mentorship, Charlie was named successor. Charlie attributes their success to their strong background in all aspects of opera (performance, technical, and fundraising) and their entrepreneurial drive. Charlie’s artistic and general director contract allows them to also take on work as a director for other projects, which ultimately allows Charlie to increase the opera company’s network and profile: “Any contacts or influence I create as a [freelance] director I can bring to bear on my work as artistic director [for my own company], and if my [profile] rises at all, it helps the [company’s] brand.”

Portfolios grounded in music therapy and education

We interviewed two individuals, Ashley, and Hunter, who worked as music therapists or music educators. Each of these individuals had obtained the certification and licensure procedures required for these regulated fields as their first degrees.

Ashley: Music therapist and marketing coordinator

Ashley is an Accredited Music Therapist providing individualized, music-based treatment programs to neurodiverse individuals. Ashley also has a small role with a local theater organization as a Marketing Coordinator. Ashley discovered music therapy serendipitously because their undergraduate institution offered a Bachelor of Music Therapy: one of only six institutions in Canada to do so. Not seeing themselves as full-time performer or teacher, Ashley was drawn to music therapy because they “liked the bridge between. . .the sciences and music and the clinical application of music. . .I just enjoyed connecting with people.” While being a music therapist provides creative fulfillment and financial stability, working with patients is emotionally demanding, as is growing their small business, which involves administrative and entrepreneurial work alongside a full clinical caseload. Ashley would like to see the establishment of more music therapy programs to accommodate demand and provide students with work in this “exhilarating field.” At the same time, they note that music therapy is directly affected by fluctuating funding within the healthcare system.

Hunter: Portfolio: Secondary school, community, and post-secondary teacher and consultant, performer

Hunter enjoys a portfolio career centred on education and continues to perform. A certified K-12 teacher, Hunter has worked in the public school system for several years. They have also worked as a curriculum coordinator for a school board, community music educator, and as a professional development consultant. They often work alongside a prominent Canadian composer to develop and share experimental approaches with various teachers, primarily in South America. Hunter also gigs as a rock musician, having discovered rock music while pursuing classical performance during their undergraduate degree. Hunter’s commitment to innovative curricula and frustration with the lack of diversity in music education programs led them to pursue a Ph.D. in Education, which is currently underway. “I have realized that music education can be much more broadly considered than [a classroom]. I [have] realized there are many more avenues to learn and be challenged.” Their understanding of music and education allows them to “create conversations with teachers that made them feel included, excited, and curious” and has given them the ability to craft their novel opportunities and work with various people. While the variety in Hunter’s career is stimulating, juggling these responsibilities requires constant negotiation to ensure Hunter can also support their family.

Work grounded in digital sound production/creation

Dorian, Dakota, and Jamie work entrepreneurially in sound production/creation. Each completed post-secondary programs in digital media.

Dorian: Film editor, photographer, and performer

Dorian is a self-employed film editor, photographer, and rock musician. Early in their career, Dorian was a gigging rock guitarist and enjoyed critical success with their band while also studying film at university. They have chosen to tour less to focus on their film editing career. While most of their income comes from working on small, commercial film projects, Dorian notes that living in a mid-size city means they also must be versatile to make ends meet: “I do whatever people are willing to have me do, so I do everything from design webpages to tech support. . . you have to do everything; there is not enough work to focus on one [area].” In their role as a film editor, Dorian notes that the storytelling element of the film has not changed, but rapid advances in technology resulting in new applications are profoundly changing the nature of work. At the same time, being able to complete more than one aspect of a project is also an advantage: “I did a video last week where I filmed it, then edited it, then edited the sound, and then I mixed the sound. . .It is all happening at once as opposed to in different stages.” In such an environment, Dorian sees their music skills as an asset, one they would like to capitalize on further.

Dakota: Composer, digital creator, performer, and government employee

Dakota works as a composer specializing in writing scores for animated shorts and video games, and they have also completed a solo electronic music album. Dakota pursued music training as a trumpet player focusing on Jazz and Classical music, exploring acoustic and digital composition in their undergraduate program. For Dakota, their jazz performance and improvisation training has given them the knowledge and experience to authentically recreate a range of sounds in the digital space. They also pursued graduate work in the United States in composition, which allowed them to gain more experience writing scores for films and games, for which Dakota has received critical acclaim. Dakota now lives in Canada and continues to pursue different creative projects; however, they have secured a full-time job outside the cultural industry, working for the government’s pension office. This job provides financial security without draining their creative energies. Dakota told us,

I find it very emotional or emotionally exhausting when doing music-related things. I have consciously not been establishing a private teaching studio or doing these other gigs that are not as important or relevant to my interests. I find it would just take a lot of energy. I would always think about it, and it would stress me out. I would be less motivated to do what I wanted to do, so the pension office is the perfect setting for just procedural work. It is a different unartistic atmosphere. It is much of a balancing act as it can be. I do not feel creatively exhausted at the end of it.

Work grounded in archival or museum work

Alex and Marley are full-time employees at a national museum and a national archive. They both describe rich experiences where they can immerse themselves in the artifacts and musical experiences of the past.

Alex: Museum curator

Alex is a full-time curator at a publicly funded Canadian museum. They work primarily in music and expressive culture collections, where they are responsible for managing, collecting, and preserving items related to musical heritage. They conduct research and fieldwork to support acquisitions and exhibitions and build networks with other museums, educational institutions, and the public. They secured their first role in the institution after completing a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology. They noted, “Later in [my Ph.D. program], I began thinking about options, and museum work was certainly of interest, though I did not anticipate it being an easy path to follow. . . .Once I graduated, I did much volunteering that involved potential museum work, then, in the end, the same day that I got my post-doc offer, I had my first interview for this job, so it was fortunate that it turned out the way that it did.” Pursuing museum work resonated with their love of engaging with people and hearing their stories.

Marley: Librarian/archivist and composer

Marley is an archivist for a government agency responsible for collecting, preserving and documenting musical recordings and related materials. As an undergraduate student, Marley was attracted to contemporary music and enjoyed thinking about text:

[As an undergraduate student], I studied piano, composition, and voice. I was always interested in contemporary things, [and] I was also reasonably interested in literature, which helped to be sort of in the vocal and collaborative piano kind of world because of looking up old texts or poetry and the like.

The notion of becoming a librarian emerged by observing the specialized role of a music librarian at their university and through advice from their composition professor.

I knew we had a music library separate from the rest of the main library but still part of the central library system. . .My composition teacher provided this advice: “if you are looking for a. . .fruitful career that you could have as a composer, you might want to think about being a librarian because that way you can be intellectually stimulated. . .but you would still have enough emotional and intellectual energy left to compose.”

Marley took up this advice a few years after graduation after trying their hand at studio teaching and accompanying. After graduating from a Master of Library Science program, Marley secured work with the federal government working in various library positions before securing this specialized role that combines their library and musical skills. “I think I was extremely fortunate to happen into this. . .because these specialized librarian or archivist roles do not come up very often.” Marley continues to compose and make music in their free time.

Portfolios grounded in other industries

Cameron’s and Emerson’s portfolios are anchored in financial planning and journalism, respectively, embedding their musical knowledge within these new roles.

Cameron: Entrepreneurial financial planner and performer

Cameron has forged a successful operatic career, singing in national and international opera productions, but realized that they needed to diversify their work:

Many of us in the passion industries have this idea that we do one thing. However, just singing all the time is not a good balance for me. . . .so I was looking for something else to be able to fit in with it.

They turned to their curiosity about financial planning and pursued online courses, which allowed them to gain these new skills while rehearsing for a production. It also allowed them to balance their work and portfolio development with the work of their partner, also a performer. As they note: “I honestly think that [artists] do not know how to talk about money. . .but that is a huge block because people feel so isolated and so ashamed; [that] they should be doing better, and that there is some secret answer.” In addition to feeling like their additional skills can support other musicians, Cameron also finds their financial work to be quite rewarding as they were able to develop new ideas to promote and playfully share their financial expertise:

It was a place where I could play with fun graphics and write and just really play in the sandbox a little bit, which I think those who have studied creative fields stopped doing at some point. We started looking at getting good technique, and we stopped playing a lot.

At this point in their career, Cameron was unsure how they would balance their new business with their performance work and thought that they might privilege their financial planning work, for the time being, recognizing that there was insufficient time to be excellent in both areas.

Emerson: Journalist (written and published works) and performer

Emerson began their artistic career as a collaborative pianist, having completed graduate work and young artist programs. They then worked as a staff accompanist at a major opera company. They noticed that singers talked to them about the realities of the professional opera world, subjects they perceived taboo. Recognizing the need to illuminate the reality of this field, Emerson started a blog that soon expanded to performance reviews and interviews with performers. Over time, their blog reach grew, and Emerson was approached by an Arts Editor of a major newspaper to become a contributor. While Emerson continues to work as a collaborative pianist, their goal is to root themselves as a writer and publisher. Thus, they may sometimes prioritize writing opportunities over performance contracts. Working full-time as a journalist allows Emerson the flexibility to care for their young child. In the coming years, Emerson hopes to raise their profile as a writer and leverage their blog into a career in arts management: “The main complaint is that agencies do not understand the job. So, to have someone like me who has spent time in the trenches with the singers [would be] interesting.”

Discussion

RQ1: What is the nature and scope of musicians’ roles across Canada’s cultural industries?

Individuals in this study have established exciting and diverse careers anchored in performance, education, therapy, digital creation, archival or library work, or other fields, and encompassing work that reaches beyond these anchor fields—sometimes markedly. Each anchor field, however, is diverse within itself, capturing a wide variety of work, and thus underlining the incredible complexity of portfolio careers, which researchers such as Bartleet et al. (2012) have emphasized. For example, performance for Morgan largely centred around performing operatic roles in companies around the country. Performing for Kai integrated performance and creation, which could include singing and dancing. Teachers like Hunter taught various students in schools, universities, or the community. Administrators like Charlie and Quinn do work such as organizing and leading theaters or festivals, to share and promote musical works. Others were drawn to the literary and curatorial aspects of music study through their museum and library work. These findings illuminate the breadth of opportunity in each given music-related role, suggesting that each musician has an opportunity to, in fact, creatively develop a highly individualized musical identity based in their individual strengths and interests.

Participants combined roles within their portfolios, such as teaching and performing, working as a librarian, composing, and performing as an arts administrator. Other participants balanced their portfolios with work in other fields. Some of these other fields were meant to be a break from music work (e.g. Dakota, who worked in the civil service so they could reserve their creative energies for their composition work). Others leveraged their understanding of musicians or their music learning processes in other work, such as Cameron, who transferred the process of interpreting an operatic role in their translation work. The various roles helped them find financial stability and ways to use their abilities in novel applications and combinations that, fascinatingly and in every case, were not taught or illuminated in their undergraduate or graduate training. These findings resonate with research on protean careers (Hall, 2004), noting a varied career trajectory where self-determination is at the core.

These findings offer examples other than those musicians typically present, which limits music careers to those in performance or teaching (D. Bennett & Bridgstock, 2015; Brook & Fostaty-Young, 2019). Their career pathways differ from Connell (2020), who outlined a series of stages centred on her stage career. Instead, these musicians have established a variety of roles that they hold simultaneously, and often with great satisfaction. This is significant, given the stigma associated with portfolio work, particularly for musicians (see Stokes, 2021), and the resistance to entrepreneurial roles (see Haynes & Marshall, 2018). Fascinatingly, none of our participants mentioned regret or disappointment in their eventual portfolio careers, though they did express frustration at the sometimes circuitous path they took to arrive where they were, and also frustration at the mismatched nature of their heavily performance-focused education. Participants’ stories highlight the breadth of possibilities as performers, creators, and administrators. Our narratives, taken together, offer a pluralistic notion of musician that expands our notion of creator or performer and how individuals use their musical knowledge. These narratives also reveal the idea that one’s ideas and drive could be fulfilled in out-of-domain work in surprising ways. These findings should not only expand our notion of performance itself (Forbes & Bartlett, 2020) but also how musicians perform, create, listen and apply their understanding of musical experiences.

RQ2 How do contextual factors influence these musicians’ career decisions?

For all participants, balancing agency, financial stability, and creativity resulted in a portfolio that combined musical and non-musical work. Income stability, creative agency, creativity, and challenge were the common motivators for artists with these portfolios, a finding that resonates with previous research (Bartleet et al., 2012; D. E. Bennett, 2008; Hall, 2004). A good income was one motivator in portfolio development, although not all participants achieved it. A desire for a stable income was mitigated by each artist’s creative and artistic interests, the perceived needs of their discipline, and their communities. In some cases, creative endeavours were privileged over financial stability. For some, this resulted in different combinations of roles within a portfolio within a particular domain. For example, Kai took on various roles in their shows, thus cutting administrative costs and allowing for creative freedom. Emory applied their performance skills in various engagements and self-produced shows, demonstrating how one uses their performance abilities in various productions. Educator Hunter worked part-time as a K-12 educator, which allowed them additional time to pursue other types of educational work and to perform. We found that participants pursued work outside of traditional music fields to extricate their creative work from the pressures of earning an income. For example, digital creator Dakota chose an office job requiring no creative or artistic knowledge to be more selective in their accepted creative projects. Librarian/archivist Marley was advised to take up a job as a librarian to not have to put pressure on their work as a composer.

Others transferred their knowledge of music or the music fields into other roles that stood, at first glance, at a distance from their music training. For example, Marley and Alex used their knowledge of music in their library and museum work, and Charlie started as a performer and now focuses most of their energy on directing or arts administration. Participants noted how this non-performance work offered different creative opportunities. For example, Cameron and Morgan found that these out-of-domain roles in financial planning and translation offered more creativity and challenge than performance. They noted that for them, performance work begins to lack creative agency over time. “I was singing full time, but it was not really what I wanted to be doing all the time.” They went on to say that they enjoyed the challenge of building these secondary businesses. Unlike the singers described in Connell (2020), they found time to reflect on their careers and they were able to use their creativity and entrepreneurial skills where they need to develop novel services and products and think creatively to market and grow their businesses.

Along with a desire for agency, creativity, and financial stability, several individuals highlighted a desire to serve their respective communities and/or to use their artistic skills to amplify voices or narratives that they felt needed to be heard. Some of our participant performers were doing this in various ways, such as pushing the disciplinary boundaries of performance (e.g. performers Emory, Gabriel, and Kai). Quinn, an administrator, performer, and teacher, combined their administrative abilities and performance experience to create a festival that allowed them to support their marginalized community. Charlie had moved away from performance to focus on administration and artistic development. What is common among these individuals is their ability to develop and implement new ideas at various scales and levels of collaboration in the service of a more significant political, social, or personal cause, further illuminating Hall’s (2004) notion that protean careers are driven by personal values, which in these cases are nested within their communities.

It is interesting to note that none of our participants spoke of wanting to “get rich” or “make it big”; rather, they were interested in being financially stable while also being able to contribute meaningfully to the cultural fabric of their communities. Some pursued non-creative work for economic stability, while others pursued non-musical work for its potential for creativity, noting that their musical work was no longer a site of creativity and play as they had initially thought it would be. The research aligns with other studies that have argued for more career preview that includes entrepreneurial skills and personal artistic visions within the desired context (D. Bennett, 2016), highlighting the need to frame careers in more complex terms so that emerging artists can identify their nested space to craft their artistic identity, all while considering their financial realities. Artistic values should also be identified and considered when students are considering portfolio careers, given the research on ways that self-concepts and social environments influence musical development (Hargreaves et al., 2018).

Conclusion

This research profiles Canadian artists’ different roles in their portfolios and the considerations that factor into their professional careers. These findings illuminate individual pathways but are also representative of paths travelled by many. These interviews profile several artists committed to their communities and finding ways to use their musical skills to support their emerging identities. Participants’ abilities to develop their portfolios in meaningful and sustainable ways partly depended on their understanding of the scope and scale of the cultural industries and the ways that one secures work within the field.

Findings from this research can help emerging musicians identify different portfolio options and pathways for themselves. The career experiences of our participants point to the commonality among the decision-making components (balancing agency, financial stability, and creativity), despite the highly unique nature of individual pathways. We hope that by sharing these narratives, we can offer examples that highlight the complexity and diversity of music-related work in Canada. We also hope that illuminating the complexity, uniqueness, and familiarity of these options and pathways will bring a sense of comfort to musicians. Perhaps more importantly, these narratives offer examples of the importance of finding one’s creative identity and the inspiration to use it to explore seemingly divergent pathways to develop the whole self by considering personal, creative, and musical interests. This will become only more important for musicians over the next thirty years, given the increased pressures on musicians to innovate due to globalism and the technological and aesthetic demands of digital performance (see Tolmie, 2020).

These findings can help music educators advise their students to consider the varied ways they can use their musical knowledge, skills, and talents across the cultural industries. The portfolio-based careers of musicians also behoove music educators to encourage emerging musicians to identify the various components of their portfolios and strategies to grow and balance these roles (see Whitney et al., 2021). We hope this research will inform curricular innovation that provides more flexibility and support for developing young artists’ individual and often pluralistic artistic natures (Hargreaves et al., 2018), ensuring that the messages conveyed through our program requirements better reflect the range and combination of opportunities available to musicians across the cultural domains.