Last week Sara Sitzer wrote an article on Newmusicbox on defining success. Many musicians coming out of conservatories today need to assess what success means to them. Last week I was lucky enough to run a round-table at the Schola focusing on the rationale of a career in music. My reason for the subject was that if we could define why we aspire for a professional music life, apart from the usual 'I like it' or 'I can't see myself doing anything else', then even in our darkest hours we could take what we had learned to find the motivation to continue. In many ways Sitzer's article parallels this activity.
