Bridging the gap: Artistic professionalisation and the evolving role of cultural managers

This position paper examines how the gap between higher music education and contemporary labour reshapes cultural management in classical music. We argue that youth orchestras, Young Artist Programmes and opera studios function as liminal institutions between education and employment, artistic development and employability, care and competition. Within these liminal spaces, the role of cultural managers expands beyond administration to include pedagogical brokerage, labour-market mediation and ethical stewardship (building support, wellbeing, future transition pathways). Rather than treating the education–work gap as an individual deficit in artists’ skills, we frame it as a structurally produced mismatch between inherited models of artistic training and realities of contemporary cultural labour. This has significant implications for cultural management and particularly for how managers design early-career programmes, negotiate institutional responsibility and support more sustainable professional pathways for young musicians.