Just eight weeks after the birth of her now 21-month-old son, Tico, violinist Elena Urioste was stepping onto the stage of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, to perform as part of Max Richter’s VOICES.
“In hindsight, maybe I wish I’d taken a little bit more time off to just be a mum and figure it out,” she says. “But at the same time, I would have been really sad if I’d not gone to Hamburg and played at one of the coolest halls in the world. The fact that Tico responded so well to the adventure sort of confirms that it was the right choice.”
From her Instagram, Urioste’s life appears to be a highlight reel of world-class performances across the world and joyful moments with her son and husband, pianist Tom Poster. In less than a month’s time, Urioste will appear at the BBC Proms for the second time, with a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Violin Concerto.
I would say now the biggest challenge is really making an effort to be present in a much more intentional way
Elena Urioste
However, behind the scenes, Urioste is tackling the realities of balancing two identities – musician and mother. An hour before our planned interview, Urioste sends over a frantic email asking if we can speak ASAP: Tico is climbing up the walls and needs to get out of the house, so she has to get our interview out of the way and focus on her son. The irony is not lost as she talks about the difficulty of multitasking work and childcare.
“I would say now the biggest challenge is really making an effort to be present in a much more intentional way,” says Urioste. “Both my husband and I are guilty of trying to steal little moments to complete some sort of admin task while simultaneously trying to keep an eye on him and no one’s happy about that.”
Urioste says that finding the right balance remains a daily struggle. “There have been days where I’ve just come home and held him and burst into tears and sobbed ‘I’m so sorry’ because I was away all day and it felt like I was failing him,” she says. “But there are other days where we feel like useless musicians and like we’ve gotten it all wrong in the opposite direction.”
She is not the only musician to experience the demands of juggling her career with caring for a child. A report by PiPA (Parents & Carers in Performing Arts) which surveyed parents and carers in the classical music industry found that 82% found managing work and family commitments as moderately to extremely stressful. As many as 40% said they were thinking of leaving music because of this.
Because it was difficult at the beginning, I wanted to still be maintaining my identity as a successful violinist, because that’s all I knew
Emily Davis
For Emily Davis, violinist, orchestra leader and soloist, the weeks following the birth of her daughter, Rowan, were a challenge. “I had a slightly difficult birth, quite a difficult first month, and I was pretty low,” she says. “Because it was difficult at the beginning, I wanted to still be maintaining my identity as a successful violinist, because that’s all I knew. I was struggling with that side of life, and I just wanted to make sure this didn’t go as well.”
As well as feeling like she was losing her identity as a musician, Davis also wished she hadn’t agreed to jobs just two and a half months after her daughter was born. “I passionately care about both aspects of my life,” she says. “There was a conflict in my mind of wanting to have time being just a mum and also wanting to still feel like myself. I think a lot of musicians will have that because our profession is so innately tied up with our identity as humans.”
Now, with a six-month-old daughter, Davis says it is the guilt which is the biggest challenge. At the time of our interview, she had just got back from a five-day trip to Macedonia. “Leaving her at home, I felt guilty, I felt like I shouldn’t be leaving her, I’m not being a good mother,” she says. “When I got back, she was waking up from some sleep and I came in and she was so happy and smiling and so vocal.”
Since then, Davis says Rowan has been a bit off, acting very clingy. “Then of course I feel guilty again because she doesn’t want me to go again,” she says. “But it was well-paid work and it’s an opportunity for me to go and do something important and come back and be present.”
She is anxious to encourage musicians who want to start a family to know that it is possible. “I always wondered if I should wait until I’m at a certain point in my life and wondering how on earth people managed to do it,” she says. “Don’t expect [having a baby] to be this magical immediate rush of love and happiness, because for some that does happen, for many that doesn’t.”
As well as the emotional turmoil of balancing two all-consuming aspects of her life, there is also the practical difficulty of childcare to overcome. As freelance musicians, Davis says that her and her husband’s work schedules will massively vary week by week, making nursery an impossibility. “If you have two freelancers, it’s always going to be either that you’re paying a lot of money [for childcare], you have grandparents who can always be with you, or one of you isn’t working,” she says.
Davis has experienced a shift in her perspective on being a musician. “I’ve started caring less, accepting more. I’ve always been an ambitious driven person, but I have priorities that are different, things need to be supportive of my life as a mother,” she says. “That’s actually really liberating, and I feel good about that now.”
“Please do not feel bad if you’re struggling at the beginning because it’s hard, it’s so hard. For me it became wonderful, and now I’m completely in love with her and I’m finding that balance with music.”
“You have to take it one day at a time,” says Urioste, racking her brain for advice for musicians in her position. “Parenthood looks so different for every single person and there’s so many ways to do it. But at the end of the day, if your kid is fed and loved, you did it. You won.”
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