ad agio: workshops for musicians to bring ease to your playing
October series of online workshops
ad agio ('at ease') is a workshop series aimed at musicians to help you play and perform in a more relaxed and comfortable way, both physically and mentally. These workshops are for all musicians aged 18+, of all instruments, levels and genres. They are aimed at all players and singers who want to play with more ease, avoid injury, feel more confident and enjoy their playing more. The events are relaxed and supportive with plenty of time to ask questions and try out techniques.
Hosted in Sheffield with presenters from around the world, the upcoming October series consists of five online sessions. Workshops cost £25 per participant, with discounts for booking all the workshops in one series together. Places must be booked in advance using the booking form.
Saturday 3rd October 2020: Performance Anxiety - a new approach with Martin Lawrence, 2-5pm
Martin Lawrence is a horn player in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a musical coach and has just completed a PhD researching performance anxiety. Martin's research has led him to a thought-provoking conclusion: Your performance anxiety is a new and interesting musician trying to get out! Following a popular workshop with us in July, Martin is returning to run another session sharing his approach to putting this conclusion into action.
Sunday 11th October 2020: Becoming Music Strong with Angela McCuiston, 2-5pm
Angela McCuiston is a Certified Personal Trainer and Corrective Exercise Specialist, Senior Fitness Specialist and Cancer Exercise Specialist and owner of Music Strong, a business that specializes in personal fitness training for musicians. In this workshop, Angela will cover basic anatomy as it relates to the musician, incorporating body awareness methods and covering the basics of weight lifting form. We will end with several basic exercises you can use in a warm up or as a workout alone to prevent or overcome injury.
Saturday 17th October: Meditation, mindfulness, self hypnosis and much more, strategies to unhook yourself from that pesky inner voice! with Jean-Paul Wright, 2-5pm
Jean-Paul is a flautist who has performed on radio and television and in many of the major concert halls throughout the world. He has tutored and given masterclasses at music events in the UK and also overseas. It was a moment of performance anxiety on a live BBC radio broadcast in 1984 which began what has turned out to be a long journey of understanding. He qualified as a Clinic Hypnotherapist 25 years ago, studied NLP with its co-creator Richard Bandler and has spent many years searching for strategies to help musicians understand the power of their mind over performance. In this workship, Jean-Paul will attempt to demystify the process of mindfulness, self-hypnosis, meditation and will include exercises, examples and tools for everybody to discover which works best for them in their quest to slow down and take more control of their music-making.
Saturday 24th October: What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body® with Kelly Mollnow Wilson, 2-5pm
Kelly Mollnow Wilson teaches musicians to move with ease and comfort, which allows them to deliver musically convincing, effective performances. She teaches Body Mapping for Musicians at Oberlin Conservatory as a Licensed Body Mapping Educator, teaches private flute lessons and performs in Northeast Ohio. As the owner of Precision Performance and Therapy, she uses her skills as a Neurokinetic Therapy practitioner to help musicians with pain and discomfort. In this workshop, participants will learn how to use bones and muscles efficiently, identify common Body Mapping problems that instrumentalists and vocalists have and learn how to solve them, and uncover global relationships between arm/leg use and breathing and discover strategies for self care.
Saturday 31st October 2020: AndBreathe - performance anxiety, exam nerves and creating a more positive approach with Gillian Watt, 2-5pm
Gillian Watt began her music studies at Napier College, Edinburgh, in 1980 before being given the opportunity to continue her studies in the USA, where she gained a MMus in Flute Performance from Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Illinois. Her first professional post was as piccolo player at Disneyland, Anaheim, CA, so it has been all downhill ever since! She has always been passionate about health and wellbeing and after having Sepsis a few years ago, re-trained and now works as AndBreathe. Her mission is to share the tools she has used, so that when others experience tricky times, they will have their very own toolkit. Her tools include EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), Reiki, Mindfulness and 16 Guidelines, using the outdoors and woodlands skills as often as possible. In this workshop, she will be specifically focussing on performance anxiety, exam nerves and creating a more positive approach to life.
Performers
Martin Lawrence, Angela McCuiston, Jean-Paul Wright, Kelly Mollnow Wilson and Gillian Watt
