Name: Conquering the Stage with Dr. Sara Brooks
Start: 2025-09-20T13:30:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-20T17:00:00-04:00
Location: Nepean Creative Art Centre Theatre Studio

Conquering the Stage with Dr. Sara Brooks

NATS Members/Students: $10
Non-NATS Members: $25
Family Rate (Max 4 People): $40
**Fee covers both sessions!**
For more information contact
Angela Burns-Crowley [email protected]
Session 1: Music Performance and Mental Health
1:30-3pm
Performance anxiety and managing emotional wellness are challenges that nearly all musicians face at some point in their careers. If you’ve ever experienced a racing heart, clammy cold hands, or a churning stomach 5 minutes before you hit the stage, you’re not alone. In fact, you're in the company of Glenn Gould, Maria Callas, Vladimir Horowitz, and Frederic Chopin, who all lived with performance anxiety.
What are the other mental health elements that we must consider when performing? Can we learn to live well with performance anxiety? Absolutely. By learning to embrace our unique experience, we can learn to not only cope, but thrive.
Join for an interactive workshop where we will look at the ways in which performance anxiety and emotional processing impacts your overall mental health. Participants will come away with a deeper understanding of their own mental health experiences as well as a toolbox of skills to help them thrive.
Session 2: Mental Wellness for Music Educators
3:30-5pm
Where do we even begin? With countless demands on personal and professional time, many may feel that they lack opportunity to reflect on their own mental wellness needs. Additionally, many educators find themselves as the first point of contact for students and may often be required to support mental health challenges of others.
How do we take time to support our mental wellness needs while balancing the demands of the career? How do we support the mental health needs of our students in the studio?
This session will include open dialogue on the individual mental wellness needs of music educators. It will also explore methods to support the mental wellness of students.