Seasoned Musicians Playing Beyond the 5th Decade: A Case Study on Symphony Orchestra Lifestyle and Ageing

When you attend a live classical music concert, have you noticed that the players are both younger and older musicians?The younger members are clearly competent players having received their position in the orchestra after a series of auditions and a trial period, but what about the older players?How do they keep up with the younger musicians? After all, the differences in the musicians' ages might be as much as 20 to 30 years.Does age-related wear-and-tear take a toll on the performance-related skills of orchestra players?Seasoned Musicians Playing Beyond the 5th Decade investigates the Symphony Orchestra lifestyle and its relationship with ageing.The book is based on over 50 interviews with professional Symphony Orchestra musicians from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Halle Orchestra in the UK, the Jerusalem Symphony Broadcasting Orchestra and the Israel Sinfoneitta Orchestra in Israel, and the Freiburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany, as well as finger-tapping exercises, a