Future Reach

Our ‘Future-Reach’ Award scheme offers young graduates from each participating institution, the opportunity of a year’s free membership of Morgenstern’s. During this year they will have access to our advice and support to help them through their difficult first year out of music college. 

Orchestral Mentoring is the educational element of our scheme. Working with undergraduates, our aim is to contribute to the process of developing strategies for survival and success in our demanding profession. Our mentor days will bring young musicians close to professional orchestral music making, and will give them the unique opportunity to quiz both management and musicians about achieving success in the orchestral profession.

Bell Studios in Acton have kindly offered us their facilities to run our sessions; a very exciting prospect, as Bell are used by a great variety of orchestras. This collaboration will allow us to offer students access to the widest possible range of orchestral music making, both large and small scale.

Mentor days will take place when orchestras are rehearsing at Bell Studios. After an introductory session from Morgensterns, students will be given the opportunity to put questions to both musicians and management from the rehearsing orchestra.

Determination, resilience, strategy... you’ll need them all if you are to achieve success in the orchestral business. This is particularly so during your early years out of college, when you’ll find that there are lots of other musicians fighting to make their orchestral mark. (see our "First Steps to a successful Orchestral Career" article)

It’s worth the struggle, because success can bring the rich rewards of widely varied music making, an active social life and travel.

Our ‘Future-Reach’ mentor scheme is designed to help focus your mind on developing strategies for success. So start off by treating your mentor days as professional engagements and prepare properly for them. Make sure you have all the information you require for the date, such as venue and start time and find out something about the orchestra that you are about to meet...

You could, for example, have a look at a copy of the British Music Year Book and make a note of management names, particularly those of the fixer & general manager. Also, get to know the name of the musician who leads the section that you may one day hope to join. Before meeting orchestra members, it’s always helpful to prepare questions such as; ?how much notice do you take of unsolicited CV’s??, ?How do you choose extra players?? or ?How often do you hold auditions??

After our introduction, you will have the opportunity to network and put questions to a member of the orchestra’s management team, to musicians from the orchestra and to Stephen O’Regan from Bell Studios.

We look forward to meeting you on our mentor day and hope you enjoy and benefit from our new venture.

We see the mentor’s role as that of a facilitator who, with their insight into the demands of the profession, can help mentor day students plan for the future.

Our mentor days will take place on orchestra rehearsal days at Bell Studios and we will be contacting all clients who happen to be participating in the rehearsal in the hope that they might be willing to give up some time and come to talk to our students. You are certain to be asked lots of questions about the profession - any further support and advice you can give would also be greatly appreciated.

 We hope the idea of reaching into the future by offering guidance to the next generation of musicians is an appealing one, and we look forward to seeing you again at Bell Studios.

We see ‘Future-Reach’ mentoring complimenting the exciting range of ‘out-reach’ projects that orchestras provide today. Mentoring is yet another way for orchestras to ‘bond’ with the next generation of musicians.

All the colleges we have contacted see great value in the scheme and are very keen to promote it, as are the ABO and IAMA.

‘Future-Reach’ mentoring is a collaborative scheme that can only succeed if all parties feel that it is worth contributing to. We are therefore asking orchestras for their practical support as well as their interest. For example your support in giving students the freedom to talk to orchestra management and members at rehearsals and also backstage at concerts would be greatly appreciated