Musicians’ Professional Resilience as a Multi-layered Resource

Creating a career as a professional musician includes dealing with several uncertainties. Many musicians are facing unstable economic conditions in a highly competitive occupation concerning work opportunities, income and employment. In addition, several external crises have affected the working conditions of professional musicians during recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the associated energy crisis and following inflation have all contributed to creating even more uncertain conditions for the music industry. This article suggests that musicians have coped with the uncertainties of their occupation and recent years’ crises by relying on professional resilience as a multi-layered resource. More specifically, building on DeNora’s music sociology we propose a conceptualisation in which sonic aspects related to the experience of what music affords is a basic element in how professional resilience is developed and maintained. Moreover, the conceptualisation specifies how professional resilience contains intrapersonal, interpersonal (microsocial) and extrapersonal (macrosocial) dimensions. This conceptualisation makes it possible to illuminate not only why musicians remain in their profession but also how they are enabled to do so through the affordances of music. This article builds on empirical material from a large study of professional musicians in Norway during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and findings from a follow-up study with professional musicians and applicants to higher music education conducted during spring 2023.