Artists and careers
What you need to know
The AFO has had a working group on the career of the orchestral musician for several years. This work is included in its strategic document "Orchestras 2020 " published in 2012, which includes the following proposals:
Concerning initial training:
- Devote more hours to collective practice
- Promote a better knowledge of the labour market
- Integrate complementary disciplines such as public speaking and stage behaviour
- To provide information about the way the orchestra works, including its internal organisation and the institutional aspects of cultural life.
- To highlight the possible spheres of individual involvement within the collective
- Training for interventions in the educational and cultural field, whatever the specificities of the public concerned
Concerning continuing education:
- Establish a continuing education programme, developed in consultation with the musicians, based on the same disciplines as those mentioned for initial training
Concerning retraining:
- To enable musicians to take on a coaching role for young people, within or outside the orchestra, or to become involved in educational activities.
In particular, this working group has made it possible to develop the training catalogue offered by the Association. It has also generated numerous studies, which are regularly updated (age pyramid, working hours, remuneration, integration of young artists, artists' health, continuing education).
Between 2016 and 2018, a partnership withAnescas enabled the orchestras' work to be pooled with that of higher music education establishments, including the two CNSMs in Paris and Lyon.
In 2019, the working group will be extended to include the Musical Forces, with a view to future consultations with the social partners.
AFO studies and key figures
- Equality Studies
➡ Gender equality in AFO member orchestras (2017).
➡ 2021 (forthcoming)
- Age pyramids of orchestral musicians
- Insertion survey
➡2015
➡2022(forthcoming)