Feature ~ Blog

Life as a Professional Musician

I can’t exactly pinpoint when my career in the arts began. My clearest memory is from grade 12, when I had become completely enamoured with the idea of becoming a performer. My music teacher tried to caution me against a professional musician’s life, but only had wonderful stories of her own. Meanwhile, my guidance councilor scolded me: “without physics and calculus you will never be an engineer or even an optometrist!” This was despite the fact that I was already taking enriched classes in algebra, chemistry, biology, Latin, and my first love – music. I cringed at how dull and unimaginative her proposed careers seemed. And so my true dedication to music began.

I spent those last two years of high school focused on preparing for university auditions, and applied to all the best Canadian programs. I also pursued the possibility of an undergrad degree in arts management, to which I applied and was accepted. But, because I owed it to myself to follow my first love, and also for financial reasons, I decided to study music performance at my hometown university.

By the second year of undergrad I was accepted into the American Federation of Musicians and joined the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra. I hadn’t even graduated and I was already a professional musician making paying gigs! By fourth year I was doing run-out concerts to other cities, getting picked up by CBC Radio and collecting residual broadcast royalties. After graduation, I was picked up by an American orchestra to sub in for a European tour. Everything was on the right track.

After university I took a year off to freelance and prepare for grad school. Like all starving artists, I took a part-time job working as a library assistant. My hard work and numerous auditions landed me a fellowship position at the Eastman School of Music (one of the top five music schools in North America).

At the end of my first year at Eastman I was picked up to perform with a summer festival orchestra in Germany. By second year, a group of colleagues and I had formed a player-managed orchestra, which produced a concert series, run-out concerts and a school residency. We convinced our professors to develop a reading course in orchestra self-management to support our efforts, for which they brought in leading orchestra managers from around the world to instruct us in current best practices. By then, I was also performing at least three concerts a month, continued to work part-time as a music library assistant, had been tapped to go back to Germany, and was being encouraged by colleagues to set up as a freelancer in New York City. My career felt like it was on the right path. But with one snag - my student visa didn’t allow to stay in the USA. NYC was out of the question. Besides, I was missing Canada and wanted to get home.

While in Germany, I interviewed for an Instructor position with Medicine Hat College. I was offered the job, but after three days in Medicine Hat it was clear that the fit was just not there. I hopped a plane back to Toronto, found and apartment, a coach, and a part-time job at a musical instrument store.

I always told myself I would go as far as I could as a performer until there were just too many barriers in my way. I always had a fallback plan in arts management. While I was at Eastman, I started encountering some minor problems with a painful repetitive strain injury. While in Toronto, my strain got worse; my coach and I weren’t getting along; and I was having trouble breaking into the live music market. The combination was enough to tell me that it was time for a hiatus.   

Transitioning into an Arts Management Career

As a result of my mounting challenges, I decided to fall back on Plan B. it wasn’t too difficult a decision, as arts management was something I had always considered pursuing from the beginning. I successfully applied for the MBA program in Arts and Media Management at York University’s Schulich School of Business. The first three months of music withdrawal were excruciating. But it got easier as I went along. Besides, there was no time to think about anything else but school. To compensate, I tailored my class assignments and work placements to keep a foot in the music world. 

After eighteen months of grueling work, I graduated with the MBA under my belt and a diploma in arts and media management. An immediately subsequent spring alumni dinner lead to a few interviews, but nothing fruitful. It wasn’t until convocation that I got my first break. One of my classmates was already working in corporate development for CanStage. He said there was an opening in their marketing department, which was my first love and my best talent. Based on his recommendation, I took the interview and landed the job.

Now, working in theatre wasn’t exactly my first choice. But, looking back, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. If you want to break into arts marketing, theatre is the best way to go. It’s predominantly language-based, it’s visually-oriented, it’s based on the human condition, and it’s full of interesting characters. Basically, as live performing arts go, it’s one of the easier ones to sell. And if you want to break into arts management, arts marketing is also a great way to go. As a marketer, you’re touching on just about every territory of the organization, mucking in with every division, collaborating with the whole team to find that perfect mix that’s going to maximize audiences, make the artists happy, satisfy the sponsors, make the box office buzz and maximize revenues.   

CanStage was a great environment for me to cut my teeth. It was like one big family. Everyone was a part of the team. And by virtue of its size and reputation, it attracted some of the best talent. I had the great advantage of working under two very different bosses, each with very different strengths and differing flairs for mentorship. The first (for whom I worked as Marketing Coordinator) was extremely talented with communications. She had an excellent aptitude for writing, a keen eye for good graphic design, a stellar manner with artists and amazing energy. The second (for whom I worked as Marketing Manager) had an excellent analytical grasp, an assertive focus, a real drive to hit targets, a strong capacity for building collaborations and incredible stamina. Under both, I had to throw away some of the cocky MBA ways and “start from scratch”, pulling in what I had learned as required and adapting it to real world situations. Thankfully, by working under these two, I was able to integrate both sides of the marketing equation – the front end advertising & communications and the back end strategy & analysis. And by working with such a dedicated team, I certainly integrated more learning about the intricacies of running an entire arts organization than any book or lecture would have taught me. 

While at CanStage, I continued to keep one foot in the music world by teaching at the Regent Park School of Music, where I also received my first non-profit board experience. After three seasons at CanStage, and two at the school, I felt that I had absorbed all I could, and so I began looking for something new. A mixed portfolio marketing position came available at Harbourfront Centre – music and visual arts, primarily responsible for the prestigious summer festival portfolio. I applied and quickly landed the position.

While I was glad to join a large team of marketers and publicists at Harbourfront, and really pleased to be working under a veteran arts marketer like Bruce Hutchinson, unfortunately the highly bureaucratic environment didn’t mesh with my “do it” entrepreneurial attitude. There were so many barriers to moving things ahead and an endlessly long approval process for each campaign. As well, working with an in-house design studio proved to be a very schizophrenic and nerve-wracking experience. All of a sudden I was account manager to my own client, both of them me. Often, I was assigned some disgruntled, failed artist graphic designer who treated me like the client from hell rather than as a colleague and collaborator. Whenever I tried to bridge the differences, or approached the studio manager to intervene, I was met with a shrug and a “get used to it”. On the plus side, I did get the chance to work with some really interesting visual arts and music programmers, who had really interesting ideas for great projects (which are always easier to market). Unfortunately, some of them were also closet marketers and always had some “bright” idea about how I should be doing my job. While I believe that marketing takes a whole organization, and am naturally open to constructive criticism, I didn’t take kindly to having my expertise challenged and ideas undermined in every meeting.

Harbourfront’s organizational culture quickly became too overwhelming for me. While I was glad to have had the opportunity to introduce innovations into the visual arts and summer festivals marketing campaigns, and was given leeway to re-brand the craft retail operation, I really needed to find my way into something with a better fit. Miraculously, a dream job came open. One of my older colleagues, both from school and performing world, was leaving his Regional Director position at the Canadian Music Centre. Here was my chance to break back into the music field and to meet one of my key career goals - land a directorship by the time I was 30. Given the senior generalist job description, and the importance of the position within the organization, I felt that that my marketing specialist background and youth might count against me. I put all my MBA tools to work and took a gracefully aggressive strategy to securing the job. Although the interview process was long and intense, the result was successful. Before I had even completed my probationary period at Harbourfront, I was on to my dream job at the CMC.

And it really has been a dream job. I have always told myself “if I am not the one to be on stage, then I will use my talents to get those who deserve the recognition up there.” And every day, in every service I provide, in every project I realize, in every annual plan I build, in every dollar I raise, I get to bring that little phrase to life. I get to work on an entrepreneurial scale within the security of a much larger national organization. I have a great boss who is also a seasoned mentor and conscientious career builder. I get to work with extremely talented and highly dedicated team of people. But most importantly, I get to work with the music I love and the people who create it. Moreover, I am encouraged to build my volunteer and professional music portfolio outside the work environment, and am given time to do so. In total, it is a rewarding lifestyle choice, much more than simply a job.

Jason van Eyk has been working in the arts for close to 15 years, more specifically in the last seven years as an MBA-trained arts manager. He serves as the Canadian Music Centre’s Ontario Regional Director.

Stay Tuned for the Second Part of this article "What's Next" that will be posted later on this week….