his summer I had my first academic conference experience at the ISME world conference where I presented two papers from the early stages of my PhD work into somatic education for musicians. As a self-funding part time PhD student, attending this conference was only possible thanks to the generous hospitality of friends, and a bit of help from the Manchester Met conference support award. Thank you!
ISME is the largest international organisation for music education and is affiliated to the International Music Council and UNESCO. They hold a world conference normally every 2 years, as well as regular regional conferences in South America, Asia and Africa. The 36th World Conference, hosted by the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, was the first in-person conference since before the COVID-19 pandemic. It was enormous, over 1300 delegates attending presentations within 18 different commissions and special interest groups, ranging from Community Music to Leadership to Music, Media, and Technology, each one of which was like a mini conference in itself. As a first timer the size was a little daunting!
My PhD project is an ethnographic exploration of somatic education in the context of UK music conservatoire training, specifically an approach called the Alexander Technique, which has been offered to music conservatoire students since the 1950s and is now standard across the music conservatoire sector in the UK. Somatic education, or somatics, encompasses a field of education and therapy-based practices that aim to develop an individual’s skill in recognising and interpreting sensory feedback (interoception, exteroception, proprioception, kinaesthesia) to achieve better emotional and physical wellbeing. In the performing arts (dance, music and acting) this skill is also viewed as making an important contribution to performance and the creative process.
Somatic education is an under-researched and poorly understood area in music education. The ISME conference was a great opportunity for me to share my work and help to address this knowledge gap, and to connect with others with this shared interest. I chose to present my work within two areas of the conference: the Musicians’ Health and Wellness Special Interest Group (MHW SIG), where I presented a systematic review of the research into Alexander technique and musicians, and the Education of the Professional Musician Commission (CEPROM), where I shared an auto-ethnographic study of my own experience combining this form of somatic education with my musical practice.
The Musicians’ health and wellness SIG was an active and welcoming community of people, showcasing a diverse range of exciting new research. The conference highlights for me were the social opportunities to connect with other researchers, especially other PhD and early career researchers bringing fresh and interesting perspectives to questions of musicians’ health from an education perspective. I particularly appreciated meeting and conversing with Ioannis Theodoridis, a PhD researcher from the Norwegian Academy of music whose work explores Musicians’ physical struggles, addressing the gap between the misleading ‘healthy’ versus ‘injured’ musician dichotomy1; Vera Due, also from the Norwegian Academy, exploring boundary-work in one-to-one instrumental teaching2; and Kyle Zavitz, post-doctoral researcher from McGill University, who is involved in a project looking at the social organisation of post-secondary music students’ work and health through the lens of Institutional Ethnography3. Each of these three projects I found really relevant to my own research in different ways, and I look forward to following their progression.
I must give a big thanks to Dr Naomi Norton from the University of York (also an RNCM/Manchester Met PhD graduate!) and the other members of the MHW SIG organising committee for putting in so much effort and energy to bring people together. Finding a fellow first-time conference buddy (shout out to Amalia from South Africa!) helped make the conference experience a less lonely affair.
