Dr Elsa Perdomo Guevara

My purpose is to help individuals perform at their best, keep their inspiration alive and find fulfilment in their activities. As a researcher, I am particularly interested in musicians’ wellbeing, and I aim to identify the factors that may promote it. I am also interested in pinpointing the impact that the conservatoire culture may have on the emotion and cognition of music students.

I studied music at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where I obtained the 1st Prize for Piano and 1st Prize for Chamber Music, after which I received the most advanced training as a pianist (Cycle de perfectionnement de piano). I played as a soloist and in ensembles in Brazil, France, Chile, South Africa and Uruguay.

I taught at several conservatoires in France (Paris X and Paris XV, Chennevières-sur-Marne, Valbonne and Nice), at a conservatoire I founded and directed in South Africa (Conservatoire Maurice Ravel in Johannesburg, created in association with the French School), and at the School of Music and Fine Arts of Parana in Curitiba, Brazil, in addition to private practice.

I have always been fascinated by the human mind; this is why I took up studies in psychology and education at UNISA (University of South Africa), obtaining a Bachelor of Arts. Afterwards, I discovered the field of psychology of music, and this led me to the University of Sheffield.

For my Master’s degree, I sought to identify common elements in the narratives of three professional musicians who love to perform. For my PhD, I studied the quality of performance experiences of more than six hundred musicians, seeking to understand how the emotions and thoughts that they reported related to their performance experiences. Based on my findings, I created an on-line course aimed at helping musicians feel more confident, joyful and inspired during their performances. Analysis of a pre-intervention and two post-intervention questionnaires showed that, after the intervention, performers reported statistically significant increases in the perceived quality of their performance, joy, confidence, inspiration and connection with the audience, and a decrease in anxiety.