Harmony in Mind: Charities call for better mental health support for classical musicians

Charities in the UK are calling for better mental health support for classical musicians.

The Harmony in Mind campaign, launched by the magazine Classical Music, has been launched to help create a unified response to mental illness in the sector.

The campaign asks industry leaders to provide “vital” support to musicians and staff, and to deal proactively with the underlying causes of poor mental health.

According to a 2016 study by Help Musicians UK – the leading UK charity for musicians of all genres - musicians and those working in the industry are three times more likely to have suffered from depression than the general population.

The same study found 71 per cent of respondents experienced anxiety and panic attacks.

The campaign also urges employers to sign up to the Time to Change pledge, which was launched by the charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness to end mental health discrimination in the workplace.

So far, the charities which have signed up to the campaign include the British Association for Performing Arts Medicine, The Royal Society of Musicians and Help Musicians UK.

The editor of Classical Music, Lucy Thraves, says the stigma surrounding mental health in the classical music sector was “still great, with constant anxiety and stress considered normal”.

Jo Laverty, the Musician's Union's organiser for orchestras, adds that the “very nature of an orchestral musician's job is undeniably stressful”.

”The lack of control over the schedule, the inflexibility around time off, working unsociable hours, touring, noise levels, performance anxiety, maintaining artistic standards of excellence at all times, the possibility of injury, the precariousness nature of freelance work, low pay, the list goes on,” she explains.

“Any individual would have to be pretty mentally robust to deal with all of these factors day in day out and this inevitably must take its toll.”

Joe Hastings, head of health and welfare at Help Musicians UK, agrees adding: “We believe that it's vital that musicians can access support when they need it, whether they are employed by an orchestra or working on a freelance basis.”

A number of experts have revealed that several composers, including Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninov suffered severe bouts of depression.

Austrian composer, pianist and conductor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is also believed to have suffered from Cyclothymia, whereby hypomanic mood swings were followed by depressive spells.

“Sometimes these depressive and hypomanic symptoms alternated rapidly within a day, or even an hour. In his depressive phases, he was extremely irritable, melancholic, apathic and dominated by imagination,” a study by Croatian Physicians ́ Music Society states.

For more information and support, you can contact Help Musicians UK on 020 7239 9100 or send an email to help@helpmusicians.org.uk.