Rob Guy: conductor and entrepreneur extraordinaire and the power of mentorship

Michelle Lynne: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Lynne, and today I’m thrilled to have my friend on, Rob Guy Conductor. Rob Guy, welcome to the podcast.

Robert Guy: Hey. Hey Michelle. Hey, everyone. It’s great to be here. I’ve listened to so many episodes of your podcast driving around to gigs, and I, and I, and I listened to your podcast and heard you, followed you before we even met in person. So it felt like I already knew you and everything that you…

Michelle Lynne: You know, I think we need to be honest. You told me you were watching my podcast while you were driving around, which I was slightly horrified about. I was like…

Robert Guy: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: We have like 12 views per YouTube video, and you’re, you’re one of the 12. If anyone is listening to this, please go check out our YouTube channel.

Robert Guy: Well, you see, like, when I’m listening, stuck in traffic, maybe, I like to be able to see the people that are talking. It’s…

Michelle Lynne: Of course. Of course.

Robert Guy: Like to watch it. So, yeah. Have it on, listening, and I like to watch you and your guests speak.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: Yeah. So…

Michelle Lynne: Today you’re that guest. No, I was really grateful that you messaged and said that you’d heard every episode. It always means so much when people are listening. So, um, we got to meet in person recently in Vienna. You wanna tell the story? I…

Robert Guy: So. We, we were in contact. I remember the first time that we DM’d was, through, I, I missed your course with Bernhard Karrer online in Vienna that you were doing, and I couldn’t make it. And I read what you were doing. I was like, wow, this looks so good. So many of my students would benefit from this kind of thing. I’m doing similar things, but not so kind of formalized. I couldn’t go. And then you messaged me, and then I was on the way to a choir practice and there was terrible weather, and I remember trying to listen to your voice, and it was going into choir practice, and I couldn’t really hear it ’cause the wind was howling.

Michelle Lynne: So dramatic.

Robert Guy: Yeah, it was very dramatic. It was like, you know, like trees falling down. It was really, really like red weather warning. It was…

Michelle Lynne: Oh, man. Okay.

Robert Guy: Then we, we then, we’re in contact. And then by pure coincidence, and it’s not a surprise now that I know you, that we realized we were gonna be on the coaching course in Vienna with Karras and Friends. And that’s where Michelle and I had the great pleasure to meet, uh, end, end of February, I think February 28th, March 1st, for a really intense coaching course. And then we’ve done an online course, and I think that this is just the preface in chapter one for a long story….

Michelle Lynne: Oh, absolutely. I mean, sometimes you just find people and you know that they’re your people. You just click, and uh, yeah, definitely. I mean, maybe let’s hope that that storm that you had wasn’t foreshadowing or anything, but no, I mean, we chatted. You’re like, “Hey, I’ve been listening to every episode.” You were totally aligned. We think the same. You teach on faculty in Manchester. You have students that you’re coaching. There was just instantly so many things that we wanted to talk about. But first, please, will you introduce yourself to our audience? ‘Cause I realize I skipped over all of that.

Robert Guy: It’s okay. So, everybody calls me Rob. Professionally, maybe on stage, I go as Robert. Uh, it’s mainly because my 97-year-old grandmother, Nana, who taught me piano and introduced me to music, can’t stand it when I go as Rob, so she might even, she might even listen because I’m sure my mama…

Michelle Lynne: Aw.

Robert Guy: Will play it to her….

Michelle Lynne: Hi, Grandma.

Robert Guy: So…

Michelle Lynne: Hi.

Robert Guy: Everyone calls me Rob. I am based in Manchester, based in South Manchester, in the UK, and I am Welsh. I am a conductor, and I work across North Wales and then mainly in the Northwest of England at the moment, with bases in Liverpool, Manchester, North Wales, and then all around the UK and further afield for conducting.

Michelle Lynne: And internationally, I mean, you have Hong Kong coming up.

Robert Guy: Yeah, so I’m a conductor. I’ve created my own orchestra in North Wales, and I’m a teacher. I love working with, with hungry young musicians that need to know all about being fearless and being encouraged to be fearless. And that helps me be fearless.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Robert Guy: So I love that mix of conducting, creating stuff, and teaching. That’s…

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing. Okay. Please say something in, in Welsh for us, just for everybody listening.

Robert Guy: Penblwydd Hapus. Et Happy Birthday, Michelle. For recently.

Michelle Lynne: Aw, thank you.

Robert Guy: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so nice. Okay, great. Yeah.

Robert Guy: Dw i’n byw ym Mangor. I live in Wrexham, or sorry, Dw i’n byw ym Manon. I live in Manchester and dw i’n dod o Wrecsam. I’m from Wrexham. So…

Michelle Lynne: Very cool. So that’s such a cool language. Okay. Give us a little rundown of your symphony orchestra, New Symphonia. You started it with your brother who’s a clarinettist. Is that correct?

Robert Guy: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Will you give us a little story?

Robert Guy: So where I’m from, Wrexham in North Wales, there’s this different now, but particularly like in 2011 when we started, there’s this sense that everything happened in the South, like the classic North-South divide. But North Wales is quite a rural area in, in bits. And, we were playing. My brother and I went through, I mean, we started lessons with my Nana in her like mining house. My grandad was a miner, and it was the council house that you had. It was very humble beginnings and… There was just this love of music in my family. It was just there. No one had done it kind of professionally. And we went through like the North, the Wrexham counties. We started playing and we got good. Then we joined the National Wales, and there was this memory that we were all playing in this concert in Cardiff, and the majority, there’s a lot of us from North Wales, and they were like, “Why are we doing this in Cardiff? We just need to be doing this at home where we’re from to be making an impact.” I was a viola player, and they were like, “Well, John, organize it. John, maybe write something. Rob, you conduct it, I can play.” We just started like that, and we went. There was a, a local hotel. His name was John Allen. He’s a complete legend, and he had his own private hotel, and we just went to him and just said, “We wanna put this orchestra concert on in Wrexham, and we’re gonna have like people our age.” So we were like, you know, 21, 22, graduating from bachelor’s and master’s, and we wanna do this concert in Wrexham, and mean, you went, “Brilliant idea. I’ll give him a hotel.”

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Robert Guy: For the weekend.

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: So…

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: He blocked off, much to the frustration of his business partner, the entire weekend from Friday to Sunday, so that he could have the orchestra stay there. He charged us…

Michelle Lynne: How generous.

Robert Guy: 200 quid for the weekend…

Michelle Lynne: Okay. Okay.

Robert Guy: Everyone stayed there, created this lovely like social strong bonds. We did the concert, the ticket money went back to the players to cover their travel, and it was great. And that’s how we started. A friend was, um, the soloist. And loads of people came. Loads of people came through like, I was, you know, growing up in the area, we’d had like strong connections, and it was just so overwhelmingly positive. People loved doing it in Wrexham, in North Wales. And that was the start. And then years later, two, three years later for doing like two or three concerts a year, we were like, “Oh, this is becoming a thing.” We then got invited to play at a festival, North Wales International Music Festival. And then that snowballed into meeting people, to seeing people. And then amazing lady called Paula Deon, who is an incredible leading business person in North Wales with her company. She took us on through a scheme, through Arts & Business Cymru, Cymru’s Welsh for Wales, and we learn so much about business through her.

Michelle Lynne: Mmm.

Robert Guy: How to do a phone call. We went to her meeting and we rocked up in our clapped-up Ford Fiesta in a car park with incredible cars. And we got out and we were like, “Something tells me we don’t quite belong here.” But we went inside and she just said, “Right, where’s your business plan?” And we were like, “What’s a business plan?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: And she just basically sat down for many years and just helped us map out a business plan, help us how to write emails, you know, this whole kind of, but beggar mentality. But you know, “Oh, please, can we…” And she said, “You need to just know that you’ve got something worth offering.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: And, and not to be beggar mentality and to be much more kind of comfortable and confident in your own skin. All these things that you don’t realize when you’re trying to build something. And at that point, we were just following our love and passion for wanting to put something on in North Wales, and helped us with so many things. Then in the pandemic, we converted to a charity and it’s just grown and blossomed. So now there’s three kind of in the executive team. There’s myself, co-artistic director with my brother, who’s co-artistic director, and we’ve got this awesome colleague called Ruth, who’s co-company manager with my brother, his co-company managers. We’re all like CoCos because we’re all doing like three or four different jobs.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Robert Guy: We got two brilliant administrative project managers, Roma and Kathy, two of them who are ex-students from Manchester Uni where I…

Michelle Lynne: Oh, wow. Okay.

Robert Guy: You are good. Can you come and work for us?

Michelle Lynne: Okay. That’s literally exactly what I did with my assistants. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Guy: About five of us and we’re building this organization, and there’s Sinfonia, is professional freelance based orchestra. Many of the musicians now, like 15 years later, who are all like in the UK’s top orchestras and further afield. We can be anything from like five musicians up to 60 depending on funder and venue. And this is the thing, there’s no actual, there’s theaters in North Wales, but there’s no like concert hall, theater…

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: And nice spaces that do them, but like there’s no dedicated like concert hall. And that forces us…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Robert Guy: To be nomadic to go around North Wales to take music to people, which is a big thing of what we do. Um, there’s no backstage in some of these spaces…

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Robert Guy: So…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: The backstage is front of house. And actually that’s amazing because you literally talk to people as they leave.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Robert Guy: Really a, I’d say to anyone that’s doing a concert, when you finish a gig, go straight to front of house.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: Speak to people, make yourself available. That’s really interesting, the conversations that happen there. And we’ve got three strands. There’s the orchestra, there’s New Voices, which is community singing program across North Wales where it’s open access, unauditioned, anyone can come and sing. And we work with a brilliant organization called United to Assist Refugees UK. Many people face great challenges, and music is a great way of bringing people together. So. There’s 300 singers on the books, and any project can have up to a hundred, and it’s like silent project by project. And an idea from Mr. Bernhard Karrer was to start that out as pay what you can, and it’s not gone bust yet. So that’s going really well. We’ve done 15 projects. And then we’ve got New, a New Academy, spelled the Welsh way with an ‘I’ at the end, and that’s for all our education work. And a big passion of mine is that you can be from North Wales, you can be from a rural area, and you can follow your dream and be a musician, or you can follow your dream in whatever it is that you want to do. And hopefully music can be a part of your life in that, but that you don’t have to travel a hundred miles to play with an ensemble. You can. You can do it on your doorstep. And one thing I’m really proud of is that we work with all the music services in North Wales to promote ensemble playing. My brother writes the music, he’ll write a piece, and then, you know, we’ll do ensemble education days where you’ll have someone that’s had one lesson on the ukulele, and they’re playing alongside the orchestra. So like people who are like Grade 8 and going off to conservatoires. Um, it’s truly like grassroots reggae, because I just think if you wanna have big professional orchestra, a great choir, you’ve gotta have music making in every community.

Michelle Lynne: Of course.

Robert Guy: That’s what we’re all about.

Michelle Lynne: It’s amazing.

Robert Guy: Try to create work for people in North Wales to have this sense, you know, like I did, I had to move to Manchester to build my career here really. And I’ve stayed here since studying. You don’t have to travel a hundred, 200 miles to Cardiff or to Manchester, Liverpool to hear great things. It can happen on your doorstep. And the talent’s there, it’s just about creating opportunities and pathways. So my mission in life…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, and it’s, it’s amazing to hear you speak about it ’cause you’re so passionate and articulate about it. Um, this resonates a lot with me. I’m from small-town Alberta. I didn’t see an orchestra until I was 18 years old. So absolutely, there’s such a need to bring music to the people. And as you’re saying, there’s no concert hall, so we have to go to them. But that’s perfect actually, because then, uh, you are able to reach more people where they are. I know at Classical:NEXT, last month, they were talking about there was another orchestra, Scotland, and they were very community-based, very local-based, and they’re saying, “Our mission is local and we embrace that. We, we really choose for that.”

Robert Guy: It’s interesting that term community, because. One thing I observe in, you know, sometimes it can be quite easy for big organizations, some that I’ve worked for, for the association to be, “That is the professional stuff, this is the community stuff.” I don’t like it when it’s so different. I think the two need to talk to each other and communicate, but also the assumption that sometimes if it’s in the community, it’s not gonna be as good. You know, I, I firmly believe that working, we pride ourselves at New Voices and New Symphonia. For example, you have a professional orchestra, but then you have your community choir. If the leader sets that barrier up there, they will get there. If you have the skill to help them get there, don’t lower your expectations just because they’re not professional. So we, we try to be a champion of community equals or can be outstanding professionalism. It’s a big belief of mine.

Michelle Lynne: So, I mean, you’re summarizing everything so nicely, but I know that this has been a very, very long, arduous process to set up all these different things, especially going through the pandemic, finding funding. Talk about some of the challenges that you faced and how you’ve managed to overcome them.

Robert Guy: Well, many challenges. I mean, like on a, on a personal level, um, I was born 70% deaf. So it was my Nana that spotted that I was having hearing problems, and I wasn’t discharged from hospital till I was 16. There was no damage. It just was, you know, the tubes in my ears were, were, were shut tight. And it was through music that people realized, “Actually, Rob can’t hear. He’s not just a bit slow to develop. He just can’t hear.”

Michelle Lynne: I didn’t know this.

Robert Guy: Yeah. So that was a challenge. And then. You know, you have this feeling of feeling behind playing the violin where you, you kind of hear it as if it’s through mute, like water, you can feel it here. And that’s why I love playing the piano, ’cause it was, you could feel it in your fingers somehow. Um, so that was a challenge. And like growing up, people saying, “Oh, I don’t think Rob, music’s gonna work for Rob. You know, he’s too far behind.” You know, “He has to learn to listen,” because for so long when I was playing the violin, I kind of heard it and could kind of. I learned patterns and I remember I got destroyed on a Grade 7 violin exam where the person basically was like, “Every single note you played was outta tune.” Um, something doesn’t change, some people might say, but I learned to listen. And when I went to, to start my, I met this amazing teacher on an endangered species day. This was the thing, there was this amazing day at a theater in North Wales, that full circle, I’m now an ambassador for because of this story where. She came and she said, “You’re really musical. You’ve really got something, but your technique’s awful. We’re gonna have to go back to the beginning, but if you get back to, if you get into Manchester, I promise I’ll teach you.” She gave me that, like is what I’m going to do. She gave me that kind…

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: Of inspiration. She gave me a chance, and yeah, I’d be. I became a professional viola player, and I think I proved myself wrong that I could do it and proved a lot of other people wrong. Another barrier that we, another thing was that we were working with organizations, and when we started out, a number of people were like, “What the hell are you doing building an orchestra in…?” My violin teacher was like, “What are you doing? No one’s gonna come. No one’s gonna come to classical music in Wrexham. What are you doing? You’re wasting your time.” And there’s a big organization, and they said, “Rob and John, great idea. You’re wasting your time. There’s no audience for classical music in North Wales.”

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: We were just like…

Michelle Lynne: For people to say that so straight to you.

Robert Guy: Oh, yeah.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so discouraging.

Robert Guy: Yeah, but we, we kind of found that quite funny ’cause we got into the car, and I won’t say the exact words, but we just went, “Well, okay, we will, [inserts swear], we prove them wrong.”

Michelle Lynne: Alright.

Robert Guy: We are, we are the underdogs. We’re gonna just show you’re wrong. You’ve got it wrong. You don’t see it, don’t see it. So we just call it like bullish mentality, but it was just like, “We’ll just prove you’re wrong.” Because when you know deep down, and when you feel, and something really believes something, you just do it. So that was a barrier, um, to the whole concept. And then. It was quite nice, full circle, like 10 years later when your career grows individually for both my brother and I, and this thing has become bigger than just Rob and John Guy, like for the first time, I think if we were to, to stop working for the company, this, this organization will grow. And that was a big thing like five years ago.

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: Has stopped with us. So I mean, you know, in the early years it’s like just doing everything. It’s like getting the music in, getting the publicity out. And as you may have figured, you know, I’m not exactly the best on tech. So you develop your own skills, and John was great at the marketing. He did all that. And then you, you have, you wanna go far, you have to bring people in, and people started to help. I mean, like our mom and dad were amazing, like after like New Sinfonia concerts in the early days, they’d have parties afterwards with like 50 people at the house to, to have parties and to get people there. And they would be driving, you know, it’s not the greatest of places connectivity at times. So they’d be driving people to like train stations or to airports or bus stations and picking people up from various places to make it happen.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Robert Guy: And yeah, just like. We weren’t paid from it properly for a long time, like when we first started out, we were getting experience and we were given, making sure the players were out of pocket. And then I would say as we started to get bigger and become much more business minded and equipped, we were then taking like admin on projects that we were doing. And then coming out of the pandemic when we became a charity, it was our Trustee Ruth, who now actually has left and come back as a member of the team as, you have to start paying yourself. You have to just start by taking like 500 quid a month admin and see how it goes and touch wood, five years ago, like we just, we didn’t really know how it was gonna work, but we just started it.

Michelle Lynne: Yep.

Robert Guy: You just kind of find a way to make it happen. So that was John and I being paid, and then that got increased up to be like more competitive rates. I mean, if I’m being honest, they’re still way under what they should be really for. The skill you have and whatever, but there’s now five of us taking a monthly salary.

Michelle Lynne: Wow.

Robert Guy: All full time, like anything from like a half a day up to two and a bit days a week between people. But I think what I realized from that when working with my brother is that he’s very good at just going, “Well, we just have to do this. We’ll find a way.” And I was like, “I need to see, I need to see this is going to work. I need to see this is, I need,” and he’s quite good at like just going push. And swimming, and I like to survey the land, and he was right in that instance. We just had to jump and go.

Michelle Lynne: This is so funny ’cause you could literally just have told the TFA story. I mean, that’s exactly what happened to Deanna and I. We were like, “Finally enough is enough. We’re three years in, we’re gonna pay each other 500 bucks a month.” It’s like nothing, but it’s something. And that was the starting point. And she’s exactly that. She’s you, she needs to survey the land and see and check, and I’m like, “We’re doing this now. Move!” You know? And she, you know, so we, we found a balance, and like, thank goodness she let me jump in the water, and sometimes she has to rescue me. But, you know, she jumps in with me actually.

Robert Guy: Yeah, absolutely. And, and what we found is that. Uh, you know, with only two people, there’s a ceiling on what you can achieve. Like you only know what you know. And I’ve been really proud of how my brother, and we’ve got very, we’re very different people. We’ve got very different skill sets, and that’s great. ‘Cause we’re not the same and we challenge each other. And I’m sure…

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Robert Guy: You know, if he was saying that you, like, you would know the hell on me. But like, fundamentally, like, like I think fundamentally like, you know, it is two brothers. And like, I’m not, I don’t think there’s many people that worked with their brothers for 15 years doing something. And like, I think in the early days that was so important because we had each other’s back. Like we knew even if it wasn’t articulated, like we’re in this for the long run.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, so good.

Robert Guy: And it’s kind of got this like family connection, like strong sense. And I think that really feeds into everything that we do, like people. Tell us they love to come and play with us. It doesn’t feel like work. It feels like different somehow. Uh, and that sense of family is community is what I think shines through all the things that we do. And, and now, ’cause we’re going in, I mean, if you’d have said 15 years ago this would’ve happened, I’d have just said, “No way. No way.” And we feel that we haven’t really got going. And he just. We’ve just kind of, at times it’s felt like you’re going against the wind, against the storm, against the rain. And thing you have to overcome is the rejections to grants and things. And sometimes a grant project or a, a project is, is rejected because it’s not a very good idea. You haven’t thought it through. And sometimes the best ideas get funded. But if you just keep going, you, you find a way. And I think like we could have given up. At the pandemic, but we were, it was never questioned, to be honest. I mean, like, when you’re like, really down, you go, “Is this gonna work?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: But you just, you just keep going and you just, we’ve been very lucky to have great people around us, family, friends, and great musicians who, you know, like when I’m working somewhere else and they go, “Love Newburg. I love coming there to do that. I love this. I love that person. I love that story.” Uh, kind of, yeah. We’re on a roll now, and you know, we’ve had like seven grant rejections recently, but we’ve had three, and the three hits are great, and that will build the next one. So.

Michelle Lynne: Tell you. Yeah. Amazing. I, um. If I can pull one thing out of this conversation so far, is you keep mentioning these key people who invested in you in some way, whether it’s, you know, teaching you the business side of things or offering the hotel or your parents holding parties. I mean, you’ve had community around you who’ve believed in you, and that is so, so, so fundamental. Um, talk a little bit about your coaching journey. ‘Cause I think that mentorship plays such an important role. Also in coaching. I know Bernhard is a huge mentor for both of us. I’ve learned so much just being around him, and I think it’s so important that we choose the people that we allow to influence us, especially as pioneers in the classical music industry. I think both you and I are on this mission of changing the industry in our different ways. So that’s why it’s so important that we’re surrounded with people with this mindset of openness, looking for possibilities, not coming at you and saying, “There’s no classical music audience in Wales.” They’re like, “Well, actually there is, and we’re gonna make it happen.” And you have, you’ve built. So, yeah. How is that playing into now as you step more into a coaching role with both your Manchester students and, and colleagues?

Robert Guy: Yeah, I mean. I think one thing I observe in my own life, taking a step back, and there’s the coaching term. One thing I observe, uh, one thing I just have sensed and felt for a while is that I’ve almost been growing and coaching for many years, particularly with working in education, and particularly at higher education, where you are working with bachelors and master’s students that you know are coming to you for advice. And, and I realized and thought a while ago, “Well, how can I advise you if I don’t know what it is that you want?” Um, it’s, it’s your life, you know, on a personal level. Um, I loved it when teachers really kind of tried to get inside your brain to figure out, “It’s your career, it’s your life, what you wanna do.” Um, and I tried to do that. I mean, I, I studied as a viola player primarily. And, and as I started to be doing my bachelor’s, this conducting bug inside me was growing, and it was like, “Oh, I don’t think I wanna be a conduct. I don’t think I wanna be a viola player.” And I did it. And that was a dream. And I played to a really high level. I’m really proud of that and I learned so much from chamber music, but actually it’s conducting, and it takes a lot of bravery to pivot.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: And at that point. You know, friends to support you, but also like my, my network is my, my family and friends and professional people to help you because sometimes you need different people in different situations, and I’ve got into coaching through a belief like that, music has given me an opportunity to grow as a person. What I love about music and conducting is every day’s a learning day.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Robert Guy: I, growing up as a kid, like I worked with my brother. So growing up as a kid, I was the shy one. I was quite quiet. I was terribly bullied at school for playing the violin. ‘Cause I went to my local state school. No one played the that and they’re like school in Year 7 and 8. So like when I was 11, 12, 13 was tough. And then I found my thing, music, and then I found people that liked that thing, and that became, that became that. So, a lot of those friends are in New Symphonia. So I think that’s, that’s the support that I’ve had, like your network. And I really think you need it to go far because we all need to like lean on someone at times in life, be it personally or professionally. Um, and my journey into coaching was really then like kind of kicks. Forward down the line by my work at Manchester where I work with, um, I had a bachelor’s class for 24 student conductors, and then six of them were kind of majoring in conducting, working with our ensembles. And you know, they get into their third and final year of their bachelor’s, they start thinking about what’s next and. They just seem to gravitate towards me. I’m not a member of academic staff. I kind of sit on this like halfway house of, I work primarily with students, but I’m a member of staff, and I think…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: I was in the profession. I was doing things. I was try…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: To do my social media. We’ll come back to that. Um, and I was growing something and I was working all, you know, in different places and they see what’s going on for your socials and they would just say, you know, and I enjoy helping people fundamentally. I’m in education ’cause I like helping people and I like, like trying to help people along their way. And I just regard it as like a real exciting privilege to spot the leaders when they themselves maybe don’t quite realize that they’re a leader yet.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: I love that when that happens, like with the conducting auditions…

Michelle Lynne: Empowering people.

Robert Guy: To say, “If you considered about being a lead, you know, going for conduction?” And they went, “Oh, I, I, I’m not confident enough for that.” And I’m like, “Perfect, you should give this a go.”

Michelle Lynne: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Robert Guy: So I realized I’ve been coaching…

Michelle Lynne: So, coming back to.

Robert Guy: Quite a lot through that. And then what I’ve realized through the course that we’ve done through Bernhard, where. Much more about asking questions, asking the right questions that unlocks within themselves what they want to do. I really enjoy doing that, and I’ve tried to apply that to my teaching. Now, sometimes a student needs to know…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: Other times they just need that to trust the environment is safe for them to be vulnerable.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Robert Guy: To go and. That’s kind of what happens in a conducting lesson as a conductor. You know, you can have an individual lesson score study and all that kind of thing and work with some musicians, but like the real magic happens when you’re stood up in front of everybody. And fundamentally, that’s the tricky thing as a teacher conducting to create an environment where you can challenge someone in front of everybody to get better. And you need to have like a mutual respect between teacher and conductor that you are there to help. And that’s kind of coaching, I think, help listening. Listening, which is a job as a conductor, and then asking the right question. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: That’s really beautiful. What, what else has stuck with you from the course? I know there was so much that we covered. You said it was intense earlier. Did you, did you find it intense? And what was intense about it for you?

Robert Guy: Uh, so like you, you, you think. So it’s this whole concept of not trying to control the speed of the conversation, letting, giving, giving things time to open. You know, sometimes, you know, I can be in such a rush to just go in and get the answer and, you know, everyone thinks of their own speed. And with, particularly within a coaching context, it’s, it’s allowing that conversation to open naturally, but doesn’t feel rushed, doesn’t feel hurried, and to like truly listen, not just hear, but to truly listen deep inside and to like observe like body language and. And other things that are coming to play. That’s kind of the job of a conductor. It’s um, it’s, it’s listening. It’s responding. It’s suggesting sometimes, yeah. Like, “Oh, God, this is about to fall apart.”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Guy: It’s, and another thing as well is that it’s this difference between, I think sometimes as a teacher, need to be a coach, but then you need to go, “Okay, I’m gonna just take a step into this here, and this is me being like a teacher consultant.” And you know, sometimes people need answers. You know, you just keep on asking questions. Sometimes people need to be a bit more focused. So I, I enjoy out when you’re like, “Okay, I’m coaching, asking questions.” And sometimes, particularly in orchestral context, like they just need to know, “Where’s the downbeat, Rob? What’s the tempo?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: A student needs to know, “I think you need to do this.”

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Robert Guy: So I enjoy that kind of merging of coaching with like teaching…

Michelle Lynne: Exactly. I mean, for me it was about the consulting versus coach. Coach asking good questions, and I, I like what you’re saying, like holding space for people to unravel thoughts, unravel situations. A lot of situations are complex and require, you know. Considering it from different angles in order to know what the right way forward is. But I realize a lot of the work I do in TFA, for example, like the social media stuff, it is consulting. It’s like, “Okay, this is what’s gonna work. This is how you should present it.” You know, we, we’re dealing with a platform or we’re dealing with videos or, uh, “Here’s how to, you know, storytelling.” There’s a lot of things that are just, “This is how you do it.” Um, so for me it was really learning that balance of when do I do consulting versus coaching, and what situation is appropriate for both.

Robert Guy: I think for me, I hear everything that you said there, and I think I probably gave quite a waffly answer to the first bit. I think taking, just having had a chance to listen there. I think the main thing that I found that like really kind of. Do you know when you’re feeling like a bit nervous backstage, that slight butterflies in your tummy built and it’s that kind of excitement. When I started to feel that was when we were discussing saying what you think, radical candor. And I trying to get better at is saying you think, be it as a conductor. Sometimes we forget to say the obvious. “Wow, that sounded amazing. I love that.” Only sometimes we can be so focused on getting things better. We forgot to say, “Incredible oboe solo.” And when something isn’t quite right, being brave, having the environment that it’s your job and it is okay to say, “Hey, um. We need to get the violins here. We’re not, we’re not, we’re not together here. We need to do X, Y, Z.” And addressing the obvious because I think people really ultimately respect you when they can hear that you can hear and that you are fixing it. And also the coaching that has influenced so many things in my life, it’s how to say what you are thinking in a radically kind, candied way so that things then don’t start to eat you up inside. Um…

Michelle Lynne: Good.

Robert Guy: It’s…

Michelle Lynne: Especially with, you know, you’re working with a team at New Symphonia. I also have a team at TFA, and I know in the past I would, uh, let things go or try to let things go that were actually bothering me. And then it was, it was learning to trust. Like, no, if this is something that’s important to me, then I should speak up about it because. There’s a reason why I think it’s important. There’s a reason why I think it needs doing, and um, yeah, that’s a really good point. And also to bring it in a way that’s healthy for the whole team to say like, you know, “This is what I’m noticing.” I think coaching has given me a new vocabulary. It’s given me a new language to approach topics in a way that’s grounded and maybe less emotional.

Robert Guy: Yes. I completely agree with that. Just taking a, it, it’s kind of taking a step back, “Okay.” Like in that session we had, “It’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to tears. It’s okay to have anger. Actually, it’s okay to be frustrated. Let’s, let’s deal with that.” And that’s actually, that’s all. Okay. ‘Cause everyone responds. I mean, particularly as musicians, we all respond so differently and very often, very passionately about things. What have you noticed in your, you know, in your life since coaching? What’s been interesting for you?

Michelle Lynne: Uh, well, I think coaching has changed me a lot. I mean, this course changed me a lot. I mean, it’s what I already shared a bit, taking more space for conversations, looking at one. Issue from multiple perspectives. You know, like the, the Rubik’s Cube example, “Here’s the Rubik’s Cube. It’s solved. What color is it to you, Rob?” “Oh, you’re gonna say yellow.” “Well, to me it’s blue ’cause you’re, I’m sitting on the other side of the table as you, so we can argue all day. It’s blue, and you say it’s yellow. But actually, you know, coaching is also kind of coming around to the same side of the table and looking at it together and saying, ‘Oh, I see that it’s yellow. Let’s talk about that,’ and then you can turn over the cube and say, ‘Oh, now do you see like the blue side?’” And then from there you see more possibilities open up. You see people relax, you. It takes pressure off of situations ’cause you’re seeing that there’s more than one way to go forward. There’s, because I mean, this classical music training, it’s always right, wrong, black, white. You know, wrong note. You were talking about being in tune. You’re in tune or you’re not. You know, I, so many, so many, um, string players have this complex, but like, intonation, right? They just flinch. If you mention the word tuning, ’cause you guys have like been probably knocked on the head your whole lives about that. For, you know, for us it’s like wrong notes. Um. So it’s al, there is an element that it’s like, it’s either this or this, but in coaching it’s not like that. And in life it’s not like that. And there’s multiple possibilities and reframing things and having slower conversations. Has in the past been like what you said, you just wanna go in and get the answer. Actually, if you can slow things down, like, I don’t know, even in Pilates this morning they were saying like, “Your muscles take time to soften and open up.” So how much more so do our hearts take time to soften and open up about things that we’re so passionate about? And, um, taking that step back to observe the situation like you’re, like, you’re sharing, um, not being so personal about it because you can see more opportunities and possibilities if you’re a little bit. Further back, zoomed-out perspective. I think also like the Lego session that we did, um, building the models. You know, I built a model of the Fearless Artist, and I built a model of my performing career and just like…

Robert Guy: On the top, everybody. It…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: Very nice…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, what does that mean to different people? And it just, I don’t know. It also teaches you new things, seeing things, different perspectives, different ways of thinking. I, it’s just so rich. There’s like a richness that comes in when we have, um, a good session, a good coaching conversation.

Robert Guy: We did that at New Symphonia. We, we, I took a load of Lego into the University of Manchester, and my students were like, “What the hell are you doing?”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: I, uh, team planning. Um…

Michelle Lynne: That’s funny.

Robert Guy: We built New Symphonia next three years at all Lego, and we put out on this massive map on the floor. I mean, I drew a terrible map at North Wales and it had like John Ruth put red together, and. It was, what was interesting was the process that it unlocked when people were building things and Ruth built like red and she said, “That’s the hearts.” And then John came in and went, “Can I build it into an actual heart? So it looks like a heart? ‘Cause it’s kind of stressing me out that it’s just like a blob.” And he built a Lego and then it was like, “Well what are the components of that heart?” You know? And it was really interesting how it unlocked conversation. I think to bring it back to TFA, and I think to where I. Feel like I really resonate with you, Michelle, is I love what you’re doing with TFA because this whole concept of being fearless, it needs bravery, it needs to be practiced, we need role models. And I think that’s everything that you are doing gives unbelievable in that, arena. You know, like, I dunno about you. Like I’m helping a lot of musicians at the moment that. Maybe you’re thinking about coming to do a degree in the arts music, but just in the arts and then a graduating, and it’s like what? Now…

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Robert Guy: This whole thing is going, I don’t know about other subjects, I can certainly say within the arts, what can feel really scary is this sense that it’s not get a job as an intern, then I’ll go to that. Then I go to that. I…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: That, then I’ll go to that and I will earn X money, X money, X money, X money, X money.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, the corporate ladder.

Robert Guy: You know, you can, there is that kind of pathway maybe within like structures that exist. But it’s scary to look at it as an artist and to go, “Well, how am I gonna earn that kind of money on?” You know, the pressures of. That can come from friends and parents and carers and guardians as to how that’s gonna happen and, and seeing, you know, how students and, you know, colleagues are gonna go through that. And it’s this sense of you are your own business. And I do think that university music degree programs, you know, we ask people to come and do and, and say that you can go and do X, Y, and Z. But I do think that every degree should just have this sense of. Business equipping course, either as an optional extra or as part of the course because I think so many people get scared and give up too soon.

Michelle Lynne: Yes, exactly, exactly. There’s so much about this that is perseverance and grit, and you know, I’ve had a thousand reasons to give up and almost did many times. And also TFA, you know, we had many obstacles that we had to decide, “Are we gonna do this or not?” And recommitting and re-replanning. I love that you built out New Symphonia for three years. ‘Cause I think that just speaks to like, “We’re in this, we’ve committed,” and uh, I think when you’re building on a wobble. You just can’t go deep. ‘Cause there’s always that uncertainty in the back of your mind. Like, “Oh, where’s, where’s the back door? I gotta get outta here.” And it gets too hard. But it’s like, no, what you said about you and your brother, like, “We’re doing this.” And, uh, yeah, I know Deanna and I feel the same way about TFA. Um, no, go.

Robert Guy: Students come, “Oh, and it’s not fair that that person got that. And you know, and you know, how did they get that? How did they get that?” And you go, “Well, did you even apply?” “Oh, oh, no, you didn’t. Right? Well, oh, well, I, I, I, I didn’t. I…”

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Robert Guy: You know, I would, should go for it. “Well, no offense, mate. You can’t get frustrated if you didn’t even apply.”

Michelle Lynne: Yes. I know.

Robert Guy: And…

Michelle Lynne: No.

Robert Guy: There’s a…

Michelle Lynne: Did you try? Yes.

Robert Guy: You know, not all the best people get the gigs at the time, but it’s, you have to, it’s a bit…

Michelle Lynne: Do.

Robert Guy: Journey for me has been like, you know, “Actually, let’s not get bitter and jealous and, and all these other people that, you know, graduated at me at the same time, do things. Focus on yourself.”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: There is a place for you in the industry, if you concentrate on being the best version of yourself, being humble, being fun to work with, and have a good network, I do think there’s a place for people to go. And I think that all industries need artistic souls, whatever it is. But yeah, a big thing I tell my students is, “Don’t make the decision yourself. Just apply and leave it to them. Let them.”

Michelle Lynne: That’s so good. I say, I say the same thing, but some a different way. “Don’t be your own ceiling.”

Robert Guy: Don’t be your own ceiling. Love that.

Michelle Lynne: Don’t be the no. We get enough nos in this industry. We don’t wanna be our own no.

Robert Guy: And celebrate other people’s successes, like genuinely do it. Like there’s this beautiful piece by Ben Parry, who’s a composer. Uh, I taught his daughter actually, and he wrote this piece that we sang at Manchester called “Flame,” and I can’t remember the text, but base, the, the, the, the author of the text. But basically it’s called “Flame.” It’s this concept that another, a candle doesn’t burn brighter ’cause it’s the only candle shining. And we did this at Manchester. And I remember saying like, “One of the reasons I picked this piece is that the environment that I want us all to have here is that we not just like tokenistic celebrate someone’s success, but like. These candles are burning brightly. And, and you can do that in your careers. You don’t have to, you know, try to put someone else’s flame out.”

Michelle Lynne: That’s amazing, Rob. Yeah, so good.

Robert Guy: Sing your song, and make other people sing. That’s what I say.

Michelle Lynne: I feel like that’s a Welsh saying that you just said in English or something. So like a Welsh translation of that.

Robert Guy: Uh, well, there’s like all these cheesy sayings. I mean, I’m looking at one on the magnet on my kitchen now, and it says to be born well just to have blood in your music and poetry in your soul. Wow.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, wow. Hey, just super fast. Can you talk quickly about your social media transformation recently?

Robert Guy: Yes.

Michelle Lynne: I. Just, I watched, I watched the video you posted two days ago, and you like poke your head in and you’re at the piano and you’re like, “Hey, everybody, here’s what I’m gonna do today for a score setting.” I’m like, “This is so Rob.” Like, somehow you have understood the concepts and just ran with it and you’re totally yourself, which I, I think people love. ‘Cause you’re just, you’re just you and then on camera and it’s giving you more visibility. So anyway, just share a little bit.

Robert Guy: So, well, for everyone listening, that is like a huge Rob Guy. I never read him before. I did do social media. I, I did it. It just wasn’t consistent. I would do it when I had the time and the energy for it. And some things would go well and other things not. And, and I’ve always known, particularly through like New Symphonia, like much of our audience for certain things will come through social media campaign. It’s a really powerful tool. So I was doing it just not consistently. And then we were sat in that nice restaurant in Vienna.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, man. Take me back to the schnitzel.

Robert Guy: Yeah. And…

Michelle Lynne: That was so good.

Robert Guy: But it was like, I had on my radar, I wanna speak to Michelle about this. Um, and you just were like, “Where is all of this? What all of these great things that you are telling me now? What, why am I not seeing this here? Like, why is it so random?” And I was like, “Fair point.” And I just realized quickly, you know, not everyone knows everything about you, do they? Just because it’s in your biography doesn’t mean people read it, and it. I felt I’ve always wanted to embrace it…. And a few years ago I felt a little bit uncomfortable, like, “Oh, what would people think?” Now, to be honest, I don’t really care if they…

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Robert Guy: Watch it. Just don’t follow it. Don’t watch it. I mean, nothing that I’m doing is offensive, but this kind of slight, “Oh, am I good enough to be putting stuff?” If people gonna like it, and I’ve just got this attitude. I don’t care what people…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: If they…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: It, I wanna just put my stuff out there. So you gave me a plan. We worked together, and you gave me a plan. It was like, “First of all, what are the three things about me?” I had just been working at my biography and, and had help from Bernhard to think about what I want to be doing. I think I look at it every year as well. These things don’t stick still. And it was like, “I want everyone to know I’m a conductor. I’m passionate about my communities behind the scenes process.” And then it’s like one post for each of those three things a week. Um, incredible feedback from you. And I think the key thing is consistency. It takes me a bit of time. Got quicker. I mean, it was like really slow to begin with. Okay. I’m not very good at these things, but I got quicker. Um, I mean, I do think it would be nice, like it’d be long term to have someone that I can bring in to help with that. But I think what you were saying to begin with, it was like, “Well, how do you know what you want to do? How do you know what you want to do? What’s the method? What’s the program?” And it’s the, you’ve really helped me with the structure underneath. And just because you are fearless, you encourage other people to go, “You know what, let’s just go for it.” And. I’ve been doing it for like six to eight weeks. People through the New Voices community program on Facebook, when they go there, they love them. They’ve just donated to New Symphonia project that we’ve got coming up a couple of quid…

Michelle Lynne: Woo.

Robert Guy: Well, that’s nice. And then, um, so many people that I know have said, “Who’s doing your social media?” Which I’m like, “Oh.” Maybe that means it’s all right actually. It’s like it’s me. And they’re like, “Really? You are doing it? You are doing it?” It’s like, “Yeah,” but they, um, people are commenting and I think that I, I think that that has to be a good thing because it’s increasing what you said, visibility. You can’t be invisible. The consistency and the visibility. And I, I think that I’ve got things that are worth. Saying and sharing. And maybe if I did come to this five years ago, it wouldn’t have been the same because I feel like I’m much more comfortable in my own skin. I know what I’m about and always wanting to learn, but I’m like, “Yeah, I’m gonna do it.” And I think it’s going really well, and I’m trying to not measure it by the number of views or likes, but they do seem to go up. But it’s like you said, you want social media to pay you money, and okay, I’ve had money into New Symphonia that way. And, other people are like, “I conduct a Stockport Symphony Orchestra. I did one for them recently about a piece I’m learning.” They loved it and they were like, “Could you help us with our social media?” And…

Michelle Lynne: Oh, look at this.

Robert Guy: And then…

Michelle Lynne: Not.

Robert Guy: Invited to do a talk when I got to Hong Kong. And that came out through them, seeing the behind the scenes process, talks.

Michelle Lynne: No way.

Robert Guy: “Could you go into that a little bit more and could you come?”

Michelle Lynne: I didn’t know this.

Robert Guy: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh. We need to just like hammer this in because you showed your process and it showed a strength that you have, a skill that you have, and then people are like, “Oh, hey, we didn’t know he was good at that. We need that. We’re gonna bring this guy in.” And this is exactly why we need artists to show what they can do. Because if we don’t know, we can’t hire you.

Robert Guy: Yeah. And a lot of people have no idea how a conductor learns music behind the scenes because you don’t have a choir and orchestra in your practice room. Yeah, I mean, like just yesterday a student that I taught five years ago wrote out to me, said, “I really love your process videos. Can you keep them going?” I haven’t heard ’em in five years. Um, so I enjoy those and I think the thing that I’m growing to be more comfortable with is, yeah, it’s not, I don’t think it’s arrogant. I need to say, I want people to see what I’m doing. I wanna get more work. You know…

Michelle Lynne: And bigger impact.

Robert Guy: I wanna get, I wanna get bigger gigs to have more impact to, to earn more money.

Michelle Lynne: Yes.

Robert Guy: Wanna get, I wanna get bigger gigs to have more impact to, to earn more money. Yeah. But to, to have more impact and to get the life I want to help the people that I wanna help. And, and it’s just, gotta sing your own song. So I just basically try to do that on social media, and I, I actually really enjoy it. I really enjoy taking responsibility of the narrative of something. And then you were helping me to be like, quicker, quicker, quicker, quicker, quicker. Um. To, to, to snap things out, but to think about, “Why is anybody going to find this interesting?” It’s quite a direct blunt question delivered in a very Michelle way, but that’s what I needed. “Why does anyone give a beep?” So I…

Michelle Lynne: I say that. I said, “Why would anyone care in a nice way?”

Robert Guy: And the nice way, but like what do you want it to do? What do you want it to say? And it’s, um. Yeah, like wherever I’m working now, so many people are coming to say, “Loving the socials, loving the socials.” Or “You are really on it.” And I think people, a student said to me recently that I haven’t seen for three years, “Oh, your social’s really wholesome.”

Michelle Lynne: Aw.

Robert Guy: And I’m like…

Michelle Lynne: That’s a Gen Z compliment. That’s a big compliment from them. If you get that…

Robert Guy: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: “Wholesome” is like a key word.

Robert Guy: And…

Michelle Lynne: I’ve learned this.

Robert Guy: When you. That your, they said your socials wouldn’t be as if you were like coming out of college at 21. And, and it was like, “What would it look like if I was?” And they were like, “I know we couldn’t really sense, but maybe it’s also what I’m saying, this sense of like you, I’m being basically in life just trying to show that you can be a, from a state educated, normal background, you can have loads of, barriers in front of you. And if you work hard. Work hard, have people around you and you work really hard to develop your skill. You can do it and you can hopefully show that it’s a possible for other people to do it.”

Michelle Lynne: Hey, I’ve loved having you. You’ve shared so many wonderful things. Thank you for what you’re doing for the community, for the orchestra, for the students. Thank you for what you continue to build and, uh, pursue. I know it’s, it’s not easy what you’re doing and you’re an example to many and your socials are amplifying that. So I’m glad you’re in my life. I’m glad that we’re friends.

Robert Guy: Vice.

Michelle Lynne: And, uh…

Robert Guy: Say to your audience that, TFA are not on any commission for anything that I’ve just said about social. She should all just do it. Just do it. It’s good fun.

Michelle Lynne: It’s good. And you’ll get money, you’ll get gigs. We have our social media sprint coming up in July, make sure you just send us a DM about the sprint. Six weeks. We’ll get you up and running so you can be consistent. Rob, we’d love to finish each episode with a takeaway action point. What do you want the audience to, to take away from today’s call?

Robert Guy: I guess if I can do one, but it’s divided in two. If…

Michelle Lynne: A conductor thing to say.

Robert Guy: Yeah, sorry. We’re gonna go from letter A and…

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Robert Guy: No.

Michelle Lynne: We’re in two-four time.

Robert Guy: If any of you were building a project and you are holding back on drafting a pitch or writing to somebody, send it.

Michelle Lynne: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We’re all sitting…

Robert Guy: Write a…

Michelle Lynne: On something.

Robert Guy: And send it to someone.

Michelle Lynne: Oh my gosh. I’m doing, I’m sitting on one right now. Oh. I’m getting called out on my own podcast.

Robert Guy: And I guess the other thing is, go and put that reel, that post up. Share it with me and I’ll share it on my socials.

Michelle Lynne: Ooh. Okay. So then they have to tag Rob Guy Conductor.

Robert Guy: Yeah. And…

Michelle Lynne: Alright, everybody, I’m gonna put, I’m gonna put double behind that offer. If you guys put out a post after you hear this episode. Tag Rob Guy Conductor and The Fearless Artist Mastermind. We will reshare it to our stories. Screenshot this episode. Let us know that you were listening. Rob, any final thoughts? Any, any, uh, anything you wanna finish with?

Robert Guy: Be fearless.

Michelle Lynne: Be fearless. I love it. Alright, well it’s been a real, real pleasure to have you and I’m always happy when we connect, so I will see you real soon. And as always, thanks for listening. Be fearless.