In this episode of Artistry with Heart, I'm joined by two extraordinary orchestral musicians for a conversation about parallel lives lived across continents: injuries, motherhood, and the pursuit of sustainable artistry.
Gwendolyn Cawdron is Associate Principal Viola in the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. She trained at Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and spent nearly eight years with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London before joining the RLPO in 2016. Learn more at gwendolyncawdron.com.
Rebecca "Bex" Herman is an orchestral cellist who has performed with the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, and English National Opera, among many others. She trained at Eastman and the Royal Academy of Music and co-founded the Castalian String Quartet. In 2017, debilitating stage fright took her off the stage — a detour that led her into a PhD in Performance Science at the Royal College of Music, researching mindfulness and performance anxiety. She returned to performing in 2022 and now splits her time between research and playing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia. Learn more at bexherman.com.
Listen to the full performance of Gwen's performance of Bruch's Romanze here and Bex's full performance of Bloch's Prayer here.
Gwen and Bex are close friends as well as colleagues, and their lives have run in remarkably parallel ways: as professional string players, as mothers to two young kids close in age, as expats living far from home, and as musicians who've each had to navigate injury and physical limitation in their careers.
We talk about all of it: the realities of touring and orchestral life, the vulnerability of stepping away from performing, and what it means to build a sustainable, resilient creative life, the very themes at the heart of Artistry with Heart: Wellness for Musicians, the course I'm teaching with Gwen and Bex this fall. Read on below for more about the course!
Resource of the Month:
This month's musicians' wellness resource is brought to you by Artistry with Heart.
Musicians face uniquely high rates of performance-related injury, chronic pain, anxiety, burnout, and repetitive stress — yet wellness education remains largely absent from traditional music training. Musicians are routinely taught to prioritize performance over sustainability, resulting in shortened careers and barriers to creative expression.
Artistry with Heart: Wellness for Musicians addresses this critical gap with preventative, research-informed, artist-centered education that builds resilience, confidence, and sustainable artistry. This 8-part digital course covers injury prevention, Body Mapping for Musicians, yoga, performance anxiety, and more. This course is essentially everything Stephanie, Gwen, and Bex each wish they'd learned decades earlier, and everything they're currently applying to their own lives as players and wellness practitioners.
AwH is excited to offer two free enrollments to the first two people who reach out at artistrywithheart1@gmail.com to let them know what their personal takeaways from the episode were. Beyond that, anyone who's a Heartist on Patreon receives an automatic 10% discount on the course, our thank-you for being part of this community. Join the community here!
We're here to help keep you thriving, both on and off the stage. We hope you'll join us! Sign up at stephaniebernards.org/musicians-wellness-course-online.
