Musicians in the Making: Pathways to Creative Performance

Musicians are continually 'in the making', tapping into their own creative resources while deriving inspiration from teachers, friends, family members and listeners. Amateur and professional performers alike tend not to follow fixed routes in developing a creative voice: instead, their artistic journeys are personal, often without foreseeable goals. The imperative to assess and reassess one's musical knowledge, understanding and aspirations is nevertheless a central feature of life as a performer.

Musicians in the Making explores the creative development of musicians in both formal and informal learning contexts. It promotes a novel view of creativity, emphasizing its location within creative processes rather than understanding it as an innate quality. It argues that such processes may be learned and refined, and furthermore that collaboration and interaction within group contexts carry significant potential to inform and catalyze creative experiences and outcomes. The book also traces and models the ways in which creative processes evolve over time.

Performers, music teachers and researchers will find the rich body of material assembled here engaging and enlightening. The book's three parts focus in turn on 'Creative learning in context', 'Creative processes' and 'Creative dialogue and reflection'. In addition to sixteen extended chapters written by leading experts in the field, the volume includes ten 'Insights' by internationally prominent performers, performance teachers and others. Practical aids include abstracts and lists of keywords at the start of each chapter, which provide useful overviews and guidance on content.

Topics addressed by individual authors include intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics, performance experience, practice and rehearsal, 'self-regulated performing', improvisation, self-reflection, expression, interactions between performers and audiences, assessment, and the role of academic study in performers' development.

John Rink is Professor of Musical Performance Studies at the University of Cambridge. He works in the fields of Chopin studies, performance studies, music analysis, and digital applications in music. He has published six books with Cambridge University Press; is Editor in Chief of The Complete Chopin - A New Critical Edition; holds three visiting professorships and serves on the advisory boards of numerous scholarly journals and institutes; and directed the £2.1 million AHRC Research Centre for Musical Performance as Creative Practice (CMPCP) from 2009 to 2016.

Professor Helena Gaunt is Vice Principal and Director of Academic Affairs at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, providing strategic leadership in academic development, research, enterprise and internationalisation. She is a National Teaching Fellow (2009) and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Aaron Williamon is Professor of Performance Science at the Royal College of Music (RCM) and Director of the Centre for Performance Science, a partnership of the RCM and Imperial College London. His research focuses on skilled performance and applied scientific initiatives that inform music learning and teaching.