Brent Besner, Clarinet.
Arts Management.
When you were 18, what were your career aspirations and how much (if at all) did those change by the time you finished university/grad school?
Coming from a musical family, I was drawn to performing music at a very young age and started signing and taking private clarinet lessons at the age of 10. I realized at an early age that I wanted to play music and it was around the age of 18 that I started doing competitions, playing in youth orchestras and studying excerpts. I knew then that I wanted to be an orchestral musician. I remember my first year at McGill a teacher addressing the class and stating that only one third of the class would continue in music and thinking to myself that I would do what it takes to be part of that one third. My goal upon graduating was to win a job in a major orchestra. I didn’t win a major job but started subbing pretty regularly with the OSM in 2005. Now I tell myself I reached my goal because I’m playing clarinet for a living and doing so with one of the greatest orchestras in the world.
Over the course of your entire career to this point — but prior to the pandemic — how have you pivoted or changed career paths and why?
I had been wanting to go back to school to study arts management for at least five years before doing so in the fall of 2019. Reasons included being dissatisfied with my job in the CAF, the ups-and-downs of being a freelance musician and also developing a mild case of focal dystonia in my left hand that limits my playing. By going back to school, I wanted to give myself the opportunity to learn new things in the hope of finding another job in case the freelancing dries up or my FD becomes too noticeable. On the FD: I’ve had a medical evaluation with a neurologist who confirmed it but in mentioning to trusted colleagues, no one has noticed it. I also find it difficult to imagine myself freelancing until I’m 65 ! With time, I find it more and more difficult to stay in shape for the sporadic nature of a freelance career. I always tell myself that if the freelancing dries up I’ll move on to something else but I keep on getting called, so that’s good because I still derive great satisfaction from preparing and playing with the OSM (lucky for me, they’re the ones who call the most). In June of this year, I was offered a job as Assistant General Director with a regional orchestra, la Sinfonia de Lanaudière. I got this job because I had played with the orchestra a lot over the years and knew the Conductor/General Director, but also because I wrote a paper on the orchestra for the Management course I took for my program at the HEC. The Conductor/DG was very interested in my studies and hired me in the hopes that I would one-day take over for him as DG of the orchestra. Now I’m trying to learn as much as possible with him and the other employee of the orchestra. Tasks I have include grant writing, communications, production and philanthropy. I’ve produced live-stream concerts, augmented and consolidated our social-media presence, implemented an online donation platform, am overseeing the development of our new website, am restructuring our data-base and helped in moving into a new building, amongst other tasks. I work 3 days a week with them and can do my freelancing as I wish. I am very keen to learn, hard-working, creative and good at finding solutions to problems and have always been very well organized. This new job allows me to be expressive in that sense while offering the stability that is sometimes lacking in freelancing.
What were you doing at the start of this year (2020), prior to the pandemic?
At the beginning of the year I was in school taking a Marketing course at the HEC, I took two courses in grant writing and I was subbing a lot at the OSM and other orchestras and I was working a bit with my band of the CAF.
How has the pandemic changed your career path or goals moving forward?
The pandemic hasn’t changed anything for me really. It actually helped me in getting my job with La Sinfonia. Because of the money that was infused into the councils to help cultural organisations get through the financial hardship brought upon by the pandemic, I got hired because of the grant writing skills I acquired at the beginning of the year. I finished my winter session at the HEC, did a summer session and started working for La Sinfonia this past summer. Now in the fall, I’m taking a Philanthropy class and have lots of gig opportunities with the OSM because of one member being on sabbatical and another staying at home because of health reasons.