We bring you a special filmed episode from Ronnie Scott's legendary London jazz club where we speak with the fabulous Lizzie Ball. Alongside pianist James Pearson, Lizzie will be curating the much-anticipated classical series Upstairs at Ronnie’s. We chat about the series, and then onto Lizzie's backstory of becoming an improvising violinist, coaching musicians with performance anxiety, and what classical musicians could learn from jazz.

Lizzie Ball:

Lizzie Ball is a violinist, vocalist, producer, and founder of Classical Kicks Productions, dedicated to bringing classical music to new audiences in diverse settings. A Cambridge graduate and Royal College of Music alumna, she has performed internationally for over two decades. In 2018, she received an Honorary Masters from the University of Derby for her innovative contributions to music and was named one of the UK’s most inspirational females in a list of 50 outstanding UK women making an impact, in a feature run by Daily Mail.

Classical Kicks, her flagship project, has staged eclectic collaborations at Ronnie Scott’s and beyond, featuring everything from string quartets to rappers. Lizzie also co-created Corrido: A Ballad for the Brave, an immersive audio-visual production inspired by Frida Kahlo, premiered with the V&A Museum. Other projects include reimagined productions of Verklärte Nacht and shows blending music with visual art and storytelling.

Alongside her productions, Lizzie enjoys a thriving freelance career. She has been featured soloist with Jeff Beck (US arena tour), Brian Wilson, and Grammy-award winning choir New York Polyphony, and worked with Hugh Jackman, Ariana Grande, and Liam Gallagher. She was concertmaster of Nigel Kennedy’s Orchestra of Life for eight years, including BBC Proms appearances. Her recording credits include film scores (Captain Marvel, Terminator Genisys) and major pop albums.

Passionate about outreach, Lizzie has led workshops worldwide and collaborates with the Sheffield Music Hub and PRISMA charity in Mexico. Her latest venture, Set Your Stage, combines her performing career with mentoring, helping young people and professionals develop confidence, creativity, and leadership skills.

Lizzie's website

Follow Lizzie on Instagram

Hosts: Rebecca Toal & Hattie Butterworth

Edited by: Oscar Gormley & Rebecca Toal

Thank you to ABRSM for sponsoring this episode. Go to www.ABRSM.org/sfmt to check out their Musical Theatre syllabus.

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Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Dr. Anna Bull is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Social Justice, Co-director of The 1752 Group and a former professional pianist and cellist. We return to Zoom to speak with her about class and socioeconomic issues in the classical music industry, and pick her brains about what, if anything, can be done. She also tells us about her work on sexual harassment in music conservatoires, and why the master-apprentice model has created a particularly risky environment.

Anna’s monograph Class, control, and classical music was published in 2019 with Oxford University Press and in 2020 was joint winner of the British Sociological Association Philip Abrams Award.

She has recently co-edited a volume calledVoices for Change in the Classical Music Profession: New Ideas for Tackling Inequalities and Exclusions, and Anna was lead author on the report Slow Train Coming: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in UK conservatoires. Her research published in 2022 for the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Music Studies network.

Anna is speaking at the Class Ceiling conference on 9th December 2025. Free and discounted tickets are available.

Read more of Anna's work:

Bull, A., & Prince, K. (2025). Addressing harassment and sexual misconduct experienced by postgraduate researchers. The 1752 Group.https://1752group.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/harassment_pgrs.pdf

Read an interview about the toolkit for addressing harassment and sexual misconduct among postgraduate researchers, and read Anna's comment piece in Nature about the toolkit.

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Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trigger Warning: suicidal ideation from 13:50 to 18:00

Is it ethical that musicians feels 'owned' or controlled by their donors? Today in The Break Down, we are discussing philanthropy in classical music and opera, Hattie's recent experience of depression and the strife of misogyny, sadly still in some of Rebecca's orchestral experiences

Watch this episode on Youtube here.

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Thank you to ABRSM for sponsoring this episode. Explore the drum kit exams and syllabus here

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Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Hattie Butterworth

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to our rebranded 'chatty episodes' - now, with middling irony and an exaggerated sense of self-awareness, called The Break Down.

Hattie brings our Classical Strife newsletter segment to the podcast, we chat about The Met x Saudi Arabia's hot new #collab, we dis/agree on activism, and come to the usual conclusion that mental health is difficult.

Like, subscribe, review (if it's nice), and share with both friends and enemies.

Watch this episode on Youtube here.

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A big thank you to our sponsors for this episode, ABRSM. Check out their new woodwind syllabus here.

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Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Rebecca Toal

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Words hold huge power, and for a long time the word 'anorexia' felt dirty to pianist Ophelia Gordon. First experiencing its wrath while studying at the BRIT School and watching her parents' divorce unravel her life, anorexia would return two years ago when Ophelia separated from her husband. She joins Hattie and Rebecca to uncover the story of her eating disorder, the trauma of divorce and the ways in which learning and recording Nikolai Kapustin's music has saved her life.

Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Hattie Butterworth

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

'If it could have gone wrong it has gone wrong'. The last five years for Jessica Curry, a composer of contemporary classical game music, has been marked by severe illness and personal loss. She joins Hattie and Becca on Things Musicians Don't Talk About to share her journey being diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis and subsequently shielding during the pandemic. She explains the emotional toll of isolation, the importance of community and support, noting the industry's lack of empathy and her efforts to promote inclusivity.

Jessica's latest album, born out of the adversity of this time, Shielding Songs, is an album of her choral music recorded with the London Voices, which is out now on Bandcamp.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We have reached episode 100 and so decided, as a celebration, we'd take a wee look back... we might now regret it! Listen as we react to the first episode we made together, now over four years ago! Becca also tests Hattie on five years of hot takes – who said what and when?

Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Hattie

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

*Trigger warning: discussion of eating disorders, alcoholism, addiction*

From our live event at the Royal Society of Musicians on 22nd May 2025

Lauren McQuistin has been running the Instagram account @brutalrecovery for years now. Her advocacy for honest recovery discourse has resonated with many alcoholics, particularly with her with her trademark eloquence and dry humour. Lauren now shares her experience of eating disorders - anorexia and bulimia in particular - and how this was especially shaped by her time as a classically-trained soprano. We asked her about her journey through her musical training and her addictions, her views on why there is such a high prevalence of EDs in classical music, body image critique in the opera world, eating disorders as addictions, how her recovery looks day-to-day now, and her new book No Lost Causes Club. As Hattie and I say in the talk, we've really struggled to find someone in classical music to speak about this subject, so huge thank you Lauren for being that person.

Check out Lauren on Instagram and go read her new book!

Thank you to forScore for advertising with us and to the Royal Society of Musicians for their ongoing support.

forScore: https://forscore.co

Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor & engineer: Oscar Gormley

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hattie and Becca discuss the need for many creatives to prove themselves to others online, often sharing data about their work. Do we need a structure and numeric guide for practice or can it be intuitive? And how does this link to intuitive eating? They also go on to discuss the complexities of dealing with criticism, where that sensitivity comes from and how Hattie copes with empathy for performers whilst writing reviews

02:51 Workaholics and their quirks

16:20 Intuitive eating vs intuitive practice

23:55 Hattie receives criticism at work

26:15 Confidence, criticism and power structures

35:45 Writing reviews and empathy for performers

35:40 Cultural recommendations

We've got some absolutely stellar interviews lined up for release, with some MORE FILMED CONTENT 🤯 see you soon!

Thank you to forScore for advertising with us and to the Royal Society of Musicians for their ongoing support 🙏

forScore: https://forscore.co

RSM: https://www.rsmgb.org

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Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Rebecca Toal

Music: Katy Ehrlich

#podcast #musicpodcast #musician #mentalhealth

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton has been fighting the corner of the marginalised in classical music now for over 10 years. From a marriage breakdown to a queer awakening and struggles with learning repertoire, Jamie joins Hattie and Becca to discuss her experiences as a queer woman in America and her journey to discovering her ADHD. She also shares powerful insights into body positivity, her approach to music and the importance of using her platform to support marginalised communities

Jamie Barton is at London Classical Pride on 4 July. Tickets here!

Thank you to forScore for advertising with us and to the Royal Society of Musicians for their ongoing support.

forScore: https://forscore.co

Things Musicians Don't Talk About is supported by the Royal Society of Musicians! Follow RSM on Instagram, X and Facebook.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Support TMDTA

Want to support us on a regular basis? Consider joining our Patreon from £1 a month: https://www.patreon.com/tmdta

Feeling generous? Help us raise funds for the podcast: https://www.gofundme.com/f/v9jgf-things-musicians-dont-talk-about

Find TMDTA on all the socials at @tmdtapodcast

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Hosts: Hattie Butterworth & Rebecca Toal

Editor: Emma Werner

Music: Katy Ehrlich

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.