Michael Sundell, Bassoon.
Life coaching.
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?
I made a promise to myself at age 14 that I would become a bassoonist in a major symphony orchestra. I felt at that time that I was different from the rest of my classmates and I only seemed to really connect with other musicians. I thought that if I was going to have any chance of spending my life feeling like I fit in, it was going to have to be as a professional musician. So, I promised myself that no matter what, I would do whatever it took to make that happen. I gave myself until age 30 to advance at an audition and if I hadn't succeeded by then I told myself that I would reconsider my career path. However I won my first audition for the Tulsa Philharmonic at age 28. I sacrificed a lot but I fulfilled my promise to myself. I did this despite major chronic illness from the time I was 17 which I always wonder if it was in some way brought about by the stress and pressure I put on myself.
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?
Other than an 8 month stint working as a bartender to supplement freelance income, I always supported myself through my playing. There were two key moments when I seriously considered changing careers. The first was when my first job, the Tulsa Philharmonic folded and my job vanished overnight. However, by some stroke of what seems like divine intervention, only a few weeks after that happened I received a phone call asking me to play principal bassoon for nine performances of Rite of Spring with the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago. That turned out to be a career making moment for me and led me to move to Chicago to freelance which opened up many doors for me.
The second time I seriously considered a career shift was after having been playing a one-year position in my then dream job-my hometown orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony. But I got runner up for the tenured track position. And that remains to this day the best auditions I ever played in my life. I was so upset that I thought music was no longer for me and I took a bunch of career assessment tests. They told me that I was best suited to be either an orchestra musician or a psychologist/therapist. I moved back to Chicago to freelance, got serious about playing the contrabassoon and after a couple of years I won a position with the Colorado Symphony and then four years later, the Montreal Symphony.
What were you doing at the start of this year (2020), prior to the pandemic?
I was playing my current position in the Montreal Symphony and teaching at the Conservatoire de Musique.
How has the pandemic changed your career path or goals moving forward?
With the pandemic I realized that I had arrived at a point in my life where my goals and values had shifted from when I was younger. Before my dreams were mostly ego based which i think is necessary in order to compete. But now I realized that I also have a strong desire to help people in ways other than performing and teaching music. I started asking former students who were having a tough time coping with the situation in the beginning of the pandemic what they needed help with. Because of my up and down experience having dealt with many challenges throughout my life, I knew that I had a lot of value I could offer. I started providing packages of coaching based on my experience and knowledge and it provided me with so much satisfaction that I decided to enroll in a one-year life coach certification program. The skills I learned from that program have exponentially impacted my life and with that knowledge I was able to help many other people in ways I could not even have imagined only a few months before.
Now, in my coaching business, Musicians in Transitions, I work mostly with classical musicians who feel stuck in some aspect of their personal or career life. I help them manage negative emotions, deal with issues of identity and self worth, get clarity on how to move forward in their life in a way that is meaningful for them, as well as deal with issues of perfectionism, burnout, imposter syndrome, and general work/life balance. I currently have a handful of clients who I work with on a one to one basis and I find that the energy I get from coaching flows into all the other areas of my life.
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To contact Michael about coaching or learn more about Musicians in Transitions, click here or email him at michaelsundell@gmail.com