Personal Statement

My personal experience as an MD as well as a musical collaborator has been diverse in many ways.
Firstly, I have worked as a collaborative pianist for opera performers, as a Musical Director for professional and amateur shows and as a high school teacher for Music and English. Secondly, my higher education and my professional development have happened in two different countries, where the preferences in terms of genres of Music Theatre differ significantly. In Germany, where I have mainly developed as a musician, the genre of Musical Theatre is not being treated equally to the predominant genre of Opera. Therefore, it was a lot easier for me to access this world and to work as a one-to-one Collaborative Pianist for Opera Singers. When I turned to the world of Musical Direction for Musical Theatre, I realised that even though both jobs do have a lot in common, they require a significantly different skillset, especially when it comes to collaborating. This portfolio is an attempt to compare and analyse the differences and requirements for a Musical Director in these environments based on personal experiences as well as on research.

Line of Enquiry

The most important aspect of this portfolio is to elaborate the various roles that a Musical Director goes through when working on a show, from the first dealings with the work itself to leading daily performances and guaranteeing musically excellent runs whilst maintaining a positive atmosphere amongst all the participating parties. To ensure an adequate academic analysis, these enquiries will be based on Butterworth’s “Didactic-Democratic Framework” model from 2009. Butterworth describes the various interpersonal roles that creatives in the rehearsal room go through when working on a show or any other form of collaboration. Even though the model is based on the role of a choreographer in interaction with a dancer (Butterworth, 2009, p.90), the overall processes can be applied to a musical context as well when looking at the interaction between Musical Directors and a musical theatre company or even when working with directors or choreographers. This model has given me a lot of impulse in reconsidering my role as a collaborator and realising, how important it is to sharpen my collaborative skills to be a fully skilled Musical Director and will also help with comparing my role as a Musical Director to my other professional experiences.

Documentation

The following examples attempt to depict the different roles I have gone through as an MD whilst working on various projects in the context of Uni productions as well as collaborating and exploring my role with my fellow Musical Direction students during our ICP sessions. The theoretical contemplation of the aspects of our job have as well helped with realizing our role in the most professional way.

Attachment 1: Butterworth’s Didactic-Democratic Framework (2009)

Attachment 2: This is an attempt to connect Butterworth’s Didactic-Democratic Framework to the profession of a Musical Director and was developed during an ICP lecture

Attachment 3: Collective thoughts about the challenges in giving feedback, developed during an ICP lecture by all MAs. Whilst I was familiar with some points from previous experience, the collaborative sharing of thoughts has helped to understand the importance of giving feedback thoughtfully.

Attachment 4: In this video, my fellow MD student Daniel Savage and I are creating new musical elements whilst also giving feedback about the desired dynamics of the created passage to MA Company student Hayley Festeryga during a rehearsal.

Reflection/Anaylsis

As depicted in Attachment 2, my fellow Musical Direction students and I have attempted to apply the roles as described in Butterworth’s model to our area of expertise. Whilst certain aspects are very well applicable, others will require adaptation to make them adequate for a musical environment.

In the first process, Butterworth describes the interaction of a choreographer being an expert, whilst the dancer acts as an instrument (Butterworth, 2009, p. 90). In the context of music, the MD would act as the expert in terms of how close their look at the music is compared to the company’s. As a Musical Director, you usually prepare the music very thoughtfully in its entity, whilst the company will usually prepare their respective singing parts to individual extents and then rely on the expertise of the Musical Director in the rehearsal room to achieve the best possible outcome. This does explicitly not mean that company members don’t hold musical knowledge, however their proficiency e.g. in reading sheet music may vary. Through a thorough preparation, for example by looking at band parts, era-specific stylistic features or individual attributes of a composer, a Musical Director will be able to act as an expert in the rehearsal room. Sometimes, it can even be beneficial to have an initial rehearsal as a group before fostering music in individual practice (Brandler and Peynircioglu, 2015, p. 282). This requires an elaborate skillset as well as the ultimate determination to unfold the music in every detail, but it can give the Musical Director the confidence to be the expert in the room and the company and other creatives the trust in the Musical Director to rely on his expertise and for them to be the instruments in this process and to be led through the music.

The second process, in which the Musical Director becomes the author with the company being the interpreter, doesn’t occur in every rehearsal process and becomes more important in Musical Supervisor or Arranger roles. An adequate example would be, if changes or cuts in the music are being made either before or during the rehearsal process. The Musical Director must make executive decisions in collaboration with the other creatives, especially when a new, original show is being brought to life. Over the last weeks, this situation has happened to me when working on newly written shows for the R&D week at Leeds Conservatoire. In the mid of a rehearsal, the writer approached me about additional vocal harmonies, which I had to create immediately. In this specific case, a two-step process is required: at first, the harmonies had to be written and in a second step, these harmonies had to be taught to the interpreters, who then hold the responsibility to remember and reproduce the harmonies. On the Musical Director’s side, these processes require individual musical and didactical skills whilst on the other hand, he needs to rely on the interpretative expertise of the company to bring his authorial product to life, which demonstrates once more the importance of collaboration.

During the third process, the roles become increasingly equal. The Musical Director will act as a pilot in the rehearsal room and the company as a collaborator. In detail, this means that the Musical Director will lead the rehearsal, whilst the company need to actively listen to the music being taught and contribute through putting in effort, sing and work with the Musical Director and the other company members. This requires a significant amount of determination on both sides. The Musical Director needs to establish his role as a leader in the rehearsal room but simultaneously holds less power over the success of the outcome. Both parties need to work hand in hand and the company’s importance is undeniable. When considering the role of the Musical Director in this process, a major difference to being a collaborative pianist becomes obvious: as a collaborative pianist, one won’t find themselves in a pilot role. The singer will have very detailed requests for you and lead the rehearsals by expressing them and whilst you may be able to contribute in the sense of Process One and Two as described by Butterworth, the roles in Process Three will be switched compared to when being a Musical Director, which has given me a lot of insight regarding my line of enquiry.

When entering a fourth process scenario, the role of the Musical Director being a facilitator requires a significant set of soft skills when dealing with the company in the role of a creator. Whilst the company, being fond of the music, brings the show to life, problems may occur or notes need to be handed to the cast. A practical example of this can be found in Attachment Four. The Musical Director is in a more set back position but needs to handle these situations with care and awareness of dealing with a group of people with individual accesses and needs. To avoid misunderstandings or a tense rehearsal atmosphere, feedback schemes such as Liz Lerman’s “Critical Response Method” can be useful. Lerman describes, how a question-based interaction between the artist, an appointed facilitator and the responders can help all parties for understanding and accepting their collaborator’s position without being forced to do so whilst also being given the opportunity to hand out feedback knowing that the way they’ll express it will lead to acceptance on the other end (Lerman, no year of release). Learning about this method has brought me to reflect my previous ways of giving feedback and how I will incorporate it into my various professions, for example as a teacher, where you deal with a vulnerable group of people

In the fifth process, the role of a Musical Director is slightly set apart from other creatives. Whilst Directors and Choreographers usually don’t take part in daily shows after opening night, the Musical Director will lead every show and stay with the cast, who functions as a co-owner at this stage, however only as a collaborator. His role is mainly to fulfil a routine and support the company through leadership, musicality and interpersonal connection, a role in which he is similar to a collaborative pianist for a singer in a recital and that almost every musician has experienced in their career.

When one makes themselves aware of these roles and takes them on thoroughly, the result will be as wished, and it can even increase the enjoyment amongst the people in the rehearsal room (Brandler and Peynircioglu, 2015, 2015, p. 2015).

Conclusion

The ICP course at Leeds Conservatoire has showed me that collaboration comes in many ways and requires determination, knowledge and openness towards other approaches. In terms of determination, you need to be willing to collaborate with other people and to be aware of individual differences in terms of how people interpret their role. The knowledge that is needed comes through individual skills in your area of expertise, to make sure that you can fulfill your role. In addition to this, a set of collaborative capabilities is needed, for example for situations where you give feedback or are given feedback by others. If these skills are not sufficiently developed, misunderstandings can erupt, that could even have a negative impact on the outcome of the rehearsal process. To receive this skillset, you need to be open for new approaches towards collaboration, educate yourself on different aspects of collaboration and make sure that you try to implement them into your daily collaborative routine. If these steps are taken by all parties involved, a successful and enjoyable rehearsal process can be guaranteed for everyone and this once more underlines the importance of theatre creatives and performers being fond of this topic through education.

Where to go from here

The past five weeks, where I have been taught about collaboration and applied my newly acquired skills, have made me reconsider my previous actions in a rehearsal room as well as strengthen my ambitions to incorporate the contents of the ICP module into my daily work. As a collaborative pianist I have learned a lot about adapting to other people’s musical visions and reinforcing the process of working on music though my knowledge and passion. As a music teacher I got used to leading rooms and didactically converting this knowledge into a positive outcome for other people. It was my work as a Musical Director and the first weeks of this course however, that have taught me how to combine these two different worlds into a more elaborate skillset, that will guide me through my professional life. For the next chapters of my career I will attempt to be aware of the diverse requirements in both being a collaborative pianist and a Musical Director, that became visible through the academic and practical support at Leeds Conservatoire, whilst also taking into account that as a collaborator in any context, certain aspects of my learning will always be applicable to my work. I will attempt to be aware of the challenges that come with any collaborative situation, however the module and the work with my peers in various situations have also taught me that I can always rely on these newly acquired skills, which will make me a more capable collaborator in the future.

Bibliography

Butterworth, J. (2009) ‘Too many cooks? A framework for dance making and devising’, in Contemporary Choreography. Routledge.

Brandler, B. J. & Z. F. Peynirciouglu (2015) ‘A Comparison of the Efficacy of Individual and Collaborative Music Learning in Rehearsals’, Journal of Research in Music Education, 63(3), pp. 281-297. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/43900299

Lerman, L. (no date) Critical Response Process | A Method for Giving and Getting Feedback’. Available online: https://lizlerman.com/critical-response-process/ [last accessed: 9 November 2025].