Where did all the performers go?

By Helensburgh violinist Sarah Moir

I am one of the lucky ones. I know I am, and I remind myself of this all the time. Yes, one family friend has tragically passed away from Covid, but I haven’t lost any of my own family members to Covid. I have not had Covid. I have had the opportunity to be vaccinated. My government financially supported me for the first 11 months of Covid. So yes, definitely. I am one of the lucky ones. I am one of the lucky ones. I am one of the lucky ones.

This is my Covid story.

I decided to become a violinist when I was three years old. I heard someone playing violin in the next room and was instantly captivated, asking Mum if I could play the violin too. So I did, at age three. As the years passed with the dedication of a patient Mother and teacher, I practiced until playing the violin became as easy as walking and talking.

At age 5 I played at the Sydney Opera House for the first time, at 7 I was invited on my first International tour. Joy in music, passion, hard work and daily commitment to practice carried me through to adulthood and to the day that I was travelling the world as a performer playing for royalty, on TV, playing in shows and having a great time. Touring and playing with pop stars like Kylie Minogue, Ronan, Keating and Seal to name a few and playing at events like the Logies and the Aria Awards, I had my pick of gigs. I was so busy I had to knock back gigs with Michael Buble and Bruce Springsteen.

Most recently, I had been performing as a headliner on cruise ships around the world and was working my dream job as show creator and performer at a magical and historical destination in Far North Queensland, Paronella Park . I was performing in schools, at events, and putting on concerts. I was doing the work that I had trained for my whole life and this work was feeding not only my family, but also my soul.

When Covid hit, I was performing on a luxury cruise ship with my daughter, and my work as a performer stopped overnight. We quickly rearranged our flights and headed home amongst the Covid chaos, a little bit frightened but also unaware of the huge and lasting impact that this disease would have on lives and industries around the world.

Returning home was odd. Far North Queensland, which is where we were living at the time for our Paronella Park performances, seemed relatively unaffected. People were still going about their lives somewhat normally. But then the international tourists stopped coming. One by one, businesses closed their doors. Our contract with Paronella Park was cancelled, as numbers were way down. Cruises were cancelled, concerts were cancelled, events were cancelled, festivals were cancelled. Performing was cancelled. I held on, thinking that it was only a matter of time before my work returned.

Thanks to my amazing husband, I was set up as a business and had recorded every cent that I had earned, so was lucky enough to be supported by job keeper.

At first, I was highly motivated to keep practicing, writing music and creating online videos for fans. But as the months ticked by, the realisation dawned that this strange period of time was going to become a more long term reality. I was forced to make plans to move away from Far North Queensland, as the performing work had gone and we knew that once job keeper ended we would not be able to pay the rent.

Nine months after Covid started, we moved back to our hometown of Wollongong to be with our extended family and where we were sure that I could find a job.

I experienced feelings of trauma and grief at the loss of the musical life that I had worked so hard for. I couldn’t bring myself to play my violin and stopped even listening to music. Hearing a classical piece of music could bring me to tears for the whole day. I could not face music anymore, feeling that my dream lay in tatters at my feet. I fell into a deep depression and struggled to look after my family. I started anti-depressants just so that I could cope with daily life.

People were asking me to teach violin but I could not face it, I’m not sure how to describe the reason for this. Maybe other performers might understand.

And then JobKeeper came to an end.

I began my job hunt, and so did every other person on job keeper. We were all applying for these unskilled positions, our expertise had become irrelevant as our industries were decimated. The competition for each unskilled job was huge. Performers, pilots, hospitality workers, retail workers, personal services workers and more, we were all looking for work.

All my life, up until that moment, I had felt like I had something special to offer the world. I knew who I was and what I I did. I was good at something, really good at it. I had worked so hard to get to where I was as a performer, had felt so at home standing solo under the spotlight in front of audiences. Now I was applying for all and any job and in a workforce that didn’t recognise my skills. Sometimes I received rejection emails but most of the time I heard nothing from my job applications. Nothing at all. Not even a “You have been unsuccessful” email. Who wants a professional performer during Covid? Nobody.

This period of my life was very black. I felt completely worthless and useless, no business wanted me. I could not find any value in myself and the daily rollercoaster of job hunting was exhausting and demoralising. Having a husband with a brain injury meant that I was the sole breadwinner for my family, and the stress of job hunting and failure to secure work was devastating.

Finally, a wonderful company saw something in me and took a punt on a performer. I started my new job answering the phone in a call centre. Here I made new friends and started something completely different, which was a welcome distraction. I was finally able to support my family. I will be forever grateful to this business for taking a chance on me, for feeding my family and for helping me to get through such a difficult period of my life.

But of course, as any musician knows, you can’t feel whole without music in your life.

By some miracle, in between Covid lockdowns, Riverina Strings and Recorders Camp went ahead this year. Although my confidence was severely battered, I accepted the offer to teach strings at camp. Having been part of this camp for many years, I wanted to share my skills with the kids from country areas, which I had always found so rewarding.

Opening my violin case for the first time was an intensely emotional experience. Holding my violin in my arms gave me butterflies. When my husband offered to carry my violin case I didn’t want to be parted from it and carried it myself. I felt close to tears the whole time.

Having not played for months on end, I was surprised at how natural it felt. Like a release, like crying for the first time after holding the tears back for years. It made my body tingle and my mind fill with music, chasing out the bad feelings.

Camp was like coming home. I felt my passion for music seeping into the children as we surrounded ourselves in learning and playing, we felt alive! It was then that I realised that I needed this so much. The children needed this so much, we all did.

When I returned home from camp, I contacted the people who had asked me to teach and began individual violin lessons. Yes, the lessons are over zoom at the moment but I know that one day we will get to see each other in person! I’m also planning to setup a local string group to support young musicians on their journey. I’m playing my violin most days and listening to music again constantly. I’m writing music again and can feel some amount of hope for the future as a performer.

I have come to understand in a different way how important music is. It is truly needed. For children, for adults, for professionals, for performers, for audiences. It feeds all of our souls and gives us something that other facets of our life cannot fulfil. Now that I have lived life without music, I realise how important it is to have that magical place of escape.

I am one of the lucky ones. I wonder what has happened to all of the other performers. I wonder what has happened to the performers who were ineligible for JobKeeper. If I was so lucky, with so much support from family, friends and the government and I had such a terrible time, what about the people who were not so lucky? Where did all the performers go?