Music Work and Solidarity Politics in the Age of Covid-19: Some Thoughts from Greece

Professional musicians in Athens are a community notoriously lacking in solidarity and collective campaigning. Even during the so-called ‘Greek Crisis’, that exacerbated circumstances of precarity among performing artists, musicians seemed reluctant to resort to collective struggle and unionisation. However, the wake of the pandemic that resulted in the closure of music venues and cancellation of all face-to-face musical activity overnight had an unprecedented effect on the collectivisation of Greek musicians. The Panhellenic Music Union is rising in visibility and agency and a new grassroots movement called ‘Support Art Workers’ has emerged as a point of solidarity for thousands of creative artists including musicians, actors, dancers, visual artists and technicians. In this audio statement, Ioannis Tsioulakis (author of Musicians in Crisis, Routledge 2020) reflects on these new developments and provides some thoughts on why Covid-19 might be a time that cultivates collective campaigns for musicians and other precarious creative workers.