I spent last Friday morning at Galt Collegiate Institute’s Women in STEAM* (Science, Tech, Engineering, ARTS & Math) event, talking to high school students about my career path. [Sidebar: this fantastic annual event to bring women in various careers together with youth has been organized for the past several years by Dan Reiss, the amazing head librarian at the school] It was, as always, inspiring to sit together with young people and hear about their passions, their concerns, their fears and hopes.
One of the topics that arose frequently in these conversations was AI. Understandably, young people are concerned that AI will take away their job opportunities. It’s a question we are getting repeatedly from prospective university music students (and their parents)–how will my music matter if AI can create music faster and maybe even better than I? My answer was this: AI cannot create live music performances. Whether a concert, a music theatre show, an opera, a “happening”, it is real humans who make those shows and bring them to life. And this is where “caring” comes in.
What I am realizing increasingly, as a big consumer of live performance, is that quality matters. When I say “quality”, I don’t mean “elite, top-notch quality”. What I mean is CARE. Attention paid to the details, large and small. When artists apply great care to their entire process–the curation of their program, their preparation of the music, the communication they have with the audience during the performance, the setting of their event, the way they market it to the community–these are elements that have impact. Now, more than ever, as artists we need to double down on really caring about how we present ourselves and the music we perform. When we do things mindfully and intentionally, when we demonstrate our deep love for the art we are sharing by learning it, rehearsing it and presenting it in engaging and unexpected ways with precision and personal artistry, we pull audiences in.
Great art–and by this I mean art that is lovingly, CARINGLY presented–is transformative. We can address important societal questions. We can move people to tears, to laughter, to rage and back again. We can encourage a collective experience through music that is like no other, and it can become infectious, addictive. It builds empathy and bridges divides. When we sit beside someone who doesn’t look like us in a public performance and we laugh, cry or gasp at the same time, we recognize humanity. These are things we are all craving at this critical juncture in our collective lives.
So. IF we care, we are going to work harder to bring deep attention to the work we do. We are not going to half-ass it. We are not going to offer up ill-prepared, half-baked art. If we care, we are going to pay service to our own practice and do it with great love. We are going to present things that matter to us, and package them in a way that encourages others to listen, and listen deeply. We are going to bring so much care to this work that people will be clamouring to come to witness it. Witness what no machine can do. Sing, act, play our little hearts out. Care so much that we are bursting with it. IF we care.
*The featured image shows me talking to a group of students at the Women in STEAM event on Friday, May 2, 2026 at Galt Collegiate Institute in Cambridge, ON.