Shortly after I started playing the harp, I found myself getting into the habit of putting together concert programmes. I would happily look at all the music I was learning at the time, or all the books and scores in my growing collection and imagine how they would all fit together into the perfect order.

OK- maybe I just needed to get out more. But over time I found that this little exercise of constructing programmes just kept on going AND actually started to become useful. Studying music at uni meant there were lots of opportunities to collate music into concert order. Fast forward to the end of my studies though, and suddenly those opportunities weren’t around quite so much.

Because the unfortunate reality of life as a musician is that most of the time you play what you are asked to play. The chance to curate your own performance just doesn’t happen.

Unless you make it happen.

And that can be quite a scary thing!

So over the next few weeks I am going to be blogging about what it takes to actually put on your own concert. There’ll be a few reminiscences thrown in, and lots of gratuitous references to the concerts that I’ve got coming up (tickets now on sale!). Come along on the ride and maybe be inspired to put on a concert all your own, or support an independent musician who is taking the big step.

So tune in next week for a quick look at the pluses and minuses of staring in your own show

Have you ever dreamed of putting on your own show? Or if you have taken the plunge how did it go?