Decade: Ten Years of Starling Arts in a Changing World

As we approach the end of the decade and our own ten year anniversary, we look back at the changes in the world during the time we’ve been running Starling Arts and the impact those changes have had on our work. Here’s where the time has gone…

Internet

Remember when you had to plug your computer into the wall or a dongle to get the internet, and even then you had to carefully consume in case you went over the data limits or caused the system to crash. Now the internet, 4G and public WiFi is everywhere. Like most people, we can now work on the go, respond to emails wherever we are, and even update this blog on a bus in another country, should we choose to do so.

Mobile phones / technology

Remember landlines? Most homes no longer have a land line, and 78% of the UK population now own a smartphone. The way we communicate has come a long way - ten years ago, Blackberries were all the rage and the main staple of every business person. Now the smartphone reigns, with every app you can think of. Most of us no longer own a camera whose only job is to take pictures. The way we listen to music has changed, too. Ten years ago many people hosted their music collection on an iPod or were still cutting CDs, but most phones now play that role, with much music streamed rather than owned. In the movie world, ten years ago Netflix only delivered DVDs through your letterbox. Now streaming is all the rage and most of us are ditching our disks.

There are many apps that help us run our business, and the development of the smart phone means we can send audio and video files to each other and our choir members via WhatsApp, our singers can access rehearsal materials on their phones, we can use platforms like YouTube to upload rehearsal and performance footage, and we aren’t likely to drop an album on CD anymore. In fact we’ll be releasing a single in April 2020 that will only be available to stream and download.

Social media

Facebook was already established ten years ago, and Twitter was fairly new. However, the way we consume and communicate through social media has changed dramatically. Now our tech goes beyond our immediate friends to collections of followers who we interact with. Much news is exchanged via these platforms, both public realm (the most up to date news often lands on Twitter first) or the private (marriages, births and divorces are often announced online before most people are told in person).

The way we use social media has also adapted with the times. Facebook is a great way to interact with our immediate community and followers, Twitter allows us to connect to other people in the industry, and Instagram and Facebook generate business for us through their ads. When we first started Starling Arts, we advertised for members on Gumtree; long gone are those days!

Politics

Fake news, scandal and disunion are all prominent today. Needless to say we have a very different government now, and the thought of an impending Brexit would have sounded ludicrous 10 years ago. Donald Trump in power in America? No one would have believed it. Politicians have begun to morph into celebrity figures across the world, and now many sources claim to be authorities on things they are not.

We’re firm believers that everything is political, and legislative moves in the past decade have had an impact on our work. Cuts to vital services in schools have seen a vast reduction in the number of schools workshops we’re offered, with teachers working with smaller and smaller budgets, the thought of paying for an external company to come into schools is unfathomable to some. We’ve adored our work singing in hospitals over the last decade, but much of this work has been delivered by us in kind due to collapsing finances in our wonderful NHS. When we hear feedback on the impact this work has on patients, and witness its positive effect first hand, we wish there there was the funding for longer term projects of this nature. Happily, with the help of our Arts Council National Lottery Project Grant, we’re able to fund a short term hospital project throughout Spring 2020.

Feminism #MeToo

Feminism is in its third or fourth wave, depending who you speak to. The focus has more recently shifted to intersectionality, female rights across the world, and a crack down on gender based abuse of power. The Everyday Sexism and #MeToo movements have empowered women to share their experiences and call out shitty behaviour, but there’s still a long way to go.

We’re very proud to be two women running a business, showing the world ‘this girl can’, and we’re thrilled to be surrounded by so many amazing women in our community. We’re also really proud to work and sing alongside many men and women who are fighting for progress and parity. We very much hope that in another 10 years, things will have shifted to an even more equal playing field.

Climate

If the summer’s heat waves tell us anything, it’s that there is a real and viable threat to the planet. Although many steps have been taken in the last ten years, such as the plastic bag ban, focus on cutting back red meat and reducing waste, we still have a long way to go before we make a dent on the damage still being done.

At Starling Arts we have reduced our use of single use plastic and have noticed a significant change in the number of our singers swapping plastic for reusable bottles for that much needed water in rehearsal. More and more of our singers use a tablet or smartphone to read their sheet music too, which has vastly reduced our use of paper. Perhaps, if more people start doing more to combat climate change, on our 20th anniversary we’ll be able to report on major improvements. We live in hope.

The Arts

The remakes, the live Disney movies and the rise of the popular movie musical have all dominated the last ten years. The Greatest Showman took over the charts, and stage musicals like Hamilton have transformed the way the public interact with musicals. This has been hugely beneficial to our work with choirs, encouraging new members and generating new repertoire for our choirs to sing along the way.

Despite popularity on the big screen and commercial stages, new musicals still struggle in a culture industry often afraid to take risks (it’s very telling that we’re saturated in remakes and adaptations across all media). As we continue to write musicals as Garsin & Shields, we’re thrilled to have been involved with great initiatives like SIGNAL musicals and All That Scratch, working hard to highlight the amazing work of musical theatre writers in this country. Here’s to a wealth of new, original musicals hitting our stages and screens in the next decade!

Decade

As we look back over the last ten years, we are filled with a sense of pride, wonder and gratitude. In the midst of the technological advances, the things we’ve enjoyed the most have been the moments of real human connection; smiles, laughter or the live sound of music that can never be replicated online. Here’s to the next ten years of Starling Arts, however the world changes next with it..!

Anna and Emily