Resilience in Music – viewpoints of artists’ abilities to deal with crises in life

Abstract

In my doctoral thesis Resilienz in der Musik ‒ Erörterungen zu den Fähigkeiten von Künstlern, mit Krisen im Leben umzugehen I have compared three historical artists (Ludwig van Beethoven, Vladimir Horowitz and Glenn Gould) with three contemporary ones (Stefan Hussong, Wolfgang Dimetrik and Ioanna Avraam). The historical artists were approached through literature, whereas the contemporary artists were analyzed through interviews. In my research I have concluded that the most relevant resilience factors for musicians are optimism, self-esteem and personal support provided by trusted persons. The central aim of my concert series was to display different aspects of masterpieces of contemporary accordion literature.