PILOT: How To Use The Classically (Un)Trained Podcast

Transcript

This is a transcript of an episode of Classically (Un)Trained podcast, published October 28th, 2024:

Hello dear listeners,

I’m your host opera-singer-turned-experimental-performer Ema Katrovas and this is a pre-season episode, a pilot, let’s say, of Classically (Un)Trained – a companion podcast for classically-trained performers who are on a journey to (re)Invent themselves for the 21st Century and (re)discover meaning in their craft.

In this pre-season episode I want to tell you a little about how I conceive of this season – in essence, how to listen to the podcast and how I envision it to be useful.

First off, a little about the format:

Starting next week, I’m going to start publishing a weekly 20-30 minute episode. I have some 11 episodes planned for the season so the show will run for a little over 2 months, with a small break in December. You can actually find the publication schedule, including a title and brief description of each episode, on the website, linked in the show notes.

Now, parallel to launching the podcast I’m also opening a way for listeners to send responses to each episode – this is because, while I have a lot to share from my personal observations as an early-career performer, interviews with other artists, and research I’ve done, I am more than anything trying to start a conversation about what the performing arts mean in our times – both from the practical perspective of having a career in the performing arts as well as the broader perspective of the social function of live performance in a digital age. Actually, scratch that – I’m not trying to START the conversation, because I know it is already well underway. I’m trying to channel the conversation – and possibly connect performers who are experiencing the same performing-arts landscape from different angles and who can give each other new ideas.

Connected to this is my desire to create an online community of out-of-the-box performers in various disciplines and in various countries who can network together and share information with each other about the ever-shifting landscape of live performing – because that’s the key here, it’s ever-shifting, and adaptability is key.

With that, here is my starting point for this exploration:

There is no golden age of yonder where being a performer was either universally accessible or particularly comfortable. But the way in which it’s hard has changed – in great part because of the cascade of social changes following technological changes, a shift with which the education of classically-trained performers has not caught up. And I think this is important not so much because classically-trained performers often don’t know what to do with themselves if things don’t work out in the traditional way right after they finish their training, which it almost never does – I mean that’s the world’s smallest violin, right? – but because I think there is a broader value to the non-commercial arts which often goes ignored, subsumed by the rhetoric of personal success or concerns for the survival of the “high art” industries.

And this actually brings me to the question of whom this podcast is for: I’ve conceived Classically (Un)Trained in second person singular which is to say I’m going to address each episode to YOU – and the “you” I imagine is someone who has a fair amount of academic “classical” training in either music, dance, drama or some combination thereof and is in the first stretch of embarking on a career in the performing arts but is also far enough along for certain traditional paths to start seaming like a dead end. If you don’t quite fit into the above category, though, you might find useful information, here, anyway – for one thing, many of the concerns I’ll be discussing apply to artists in general. I would also love for more experienced performers to listen, because their feedback would be, I’m sure, very valuable.

And to clarify the terms I use: I’m using the word “classical” to imply “academic training” in general – because there is a significant overlap between academic training and certain formats and styles which are deemed “traditional” or “classical”. Think of how classical music, ballet, and and certain bodies of theatrical work, like Shakespeare, tower within academe over most other formats. Though of course the reality is a bit more complicated – there are physical theatre departments, or even mime departments, modern dance is quite standard as a form of academic dance training and jazz and musical theatre are by now common-place at music schools. In any case, I think performers who get academic training – whatever style or format they focus on – have a unique set of concerns once they exit the oasis of their training – though I also think they do share many concerns with non-academically-trained performers and also, crucially, can learn a lot from their non-academically-trained counterparts.

So, that is who I am speaking to – early-career academically-trained performers who want to fundamentally rethink how they will apply their academic training and are looking for big-picture information that might help them craft a new identity as a 21st century artist.

As for where I am in my journey as a classically-trained performer and where this podcast fits into that:

I found my “sea-legs” as a fledgling soloist in regional theatres in the Czech Republic. Before I could get myself off the ground floor of a a performing career, though, the pandemic hit – and this super-charged a transformation into an experimental singing performer of some sort and an artist-researcher. Long story short, I’m currently starting a long-distance doctorate in artistic researcher at the University of Strasburg where I will be collaborating with composers on works of “poor opera” or “vocal theatre” and also doing field research in contemporary music theatre as it exists today.

I started experimenting with online content some 5 years ago, in October 2019, during the last year I was fully focused on a classical-singing career. My motivation was a seeming lack of good, honest information out there about what a performing career actually looks like. It’s not that there wasn’t any honest information – but what was frustrating was that that information was often shared by people who were making money off of giving career advice and while that can be done ethically, I was missing a kind of neutral journalistic perspective that would describe the situation young performers faced, including the larger economic issues at play, without ultimately wanting to sell an educational service. I tried various formats – blog, video, podcast – and I’m probably most proud of interviewing some interesting artists about their non-traditional careers. I’ve been slowly taking old content down – but the archive is still available on the website.

This podcast – Classically (Un)Trained – comes out of those 5 years of experimenting and it’s kind of designed to be a show I can manage to make despite this not being my main “thing” – though to be clear I think I do make a professional-level show despite not technically being a professional podcaster. I do have to focus on my doctorate and on managing to keep myself afloat despite living on two continents while also somehow continuing to keep in shape by performing as much as I can – this is why Classically (Un)Trained will run as a contained season, which I can make and then let run parallel to other stuff I do.

Ultimately, I conceive of this podcast as a conversation starter. My fantasy is that performers who are in a similar situation as I am will listen to Classically (Un)Trained and, after each episode, start a conversation about that week’s topic with other performers. And I hope that some of those listeners will write in with their own ideas or even disagreements, so I can collect them and add to the mosaic of observations that I can disseminate back to you later on.

And as to what I will offer you before collecting your possible responses: I’m going to pack this season with everything I’ve learned over the past 5 years of asking myself broader questions about the performing arts and careers within them. Like I said, to get a better sense of the topics I’ll cover, you can find the season schedule linked in the description.

And, like I said, farther down the line, I would like to start a community of artists, which would be sponsored through patronage. But that’s something I’m going to focus on later – for now, I want to get this season out, and learn from your responses.

If you feel someone you know would be interested in this podcast, please do send it to them and, while I know it’s a bit early to tell if you’re listening to the first episode – if you want to give the podcast a boost, leave a supportive review on Apple Podcasts. I’ve heard those help.

Besides this there are four other ways to interact with Classically (Un)Trained which might be even better than simply listening to the podcast. I’ll list them from least to most commitment:

there’s a monthly newsletter which starts with 7 day Classical (Un)Training Mini-Journey
like I mentioned earlier in this episode, you can help me gather information by writing me an anonymous note about your life and concerns as a a classically-trained performer
you can become a patron by sponsoring an artist
you can join the Classically (Un)Trained online community.

Does any of that sound interesting? Well, you can sign up or learn more about any of the things I just mentioned at classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com.