Rebecca Herman

After training as a cellist at the Royal Academy of Music, Rebecca Herman performed all over the world with ensembles including the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Britten Sinfonia, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and English National Opera. In 2017, Rebecca stopped performing due to debilitating stage fright and went back into education to find answers. After completing an MSc in Performance Science in 2018 (supported by the Arts and Humanities Research council), Rebecca won an LAHP award to pursue doctoral research at the RCM’s Centre for Performance Science, where she is researching the impact of mindfulness training on performance anxiety, supervised by Professor Rosie Perkins, Dr Terry Clark and Professor Margaret Osborne.

Using herself as a guineapig, Rebecca applied the theoretical insights from her doctoral work to her own performance practices and in 2022, after a five-year hiatus, returned to performing professionally. Recent highlights include performing at the Concertgebouw with the Philharmonia Orchestra and touring Shostakovich’s 5^th Symphony from memory with the Aurora Orchestra. Rebecca is currently based in Sydney and performing with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Opera Australia.

Rebecca is passionate about de-stigmatising performance anxiety and helping musicians perform healthily and happily and has delivered performance psychology workshops to young musicians in the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Junior Artists’ scheme, the Street Orchestra of London, the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department and Wells Cathedral School. Outside of work, Rebecca is mum to two boys (aged 4 and 1) and enjoys Klezmer music, experimental cooking and challenging misogynistic assumptions around parenting.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rebecca-Herman-5