Arts and Cultural Management: Alma Shaikimova – Emancipated Voices

At 33, Alma Shaikimova can already look back on a successful career as a musician: she began playing the piano at the age of five and was accepted into the renowned Kulyash Baiseitova Music School just two years later. At the age of 18, she moved from Kazakhstan to Italy and graduated with Magna Cum Laude from the Arrigo Boito Conservatory in Parma. She graduated from the Milan Academy Teatro alla Scala with a Master of Arts in Piano Accompaniment. For many years, she worked as a solo répétiteur at various European institutions and opera houses. What struck her was that despite the large number of women in the arts and culture sector, they are still underrepresented in leadership positions.

The native Kazakh is already in her second semester of the English-language Master's programme in Arts and Cultural Management at the Leuphana Professional School: ‘I speak Russian, Italian and German. But English is particularly relevant in the cultural scene. I also benefit from the international network of students.’

Almost all of the course is taught online: ‘I live with my husband near Frankfurt, where I worked as a music teacher. The flexibility of the programme is particularly relevant for people working in the cultural sector,’ says Alma Shaikimova.

The Master's candidate has just launched her own podcast: The Art She Manages. Her first interviewee was Annette Weber-Hussain, director of the Zurich Opera House. ‘I want to make female managers in culture more visible in order to encourage other women.’ She also wants to expand their practical knowledge: ‘You can't do it without in-depth knowledge, and the cultural sector is a very closed industry,’ she explains.

The native Kazakh says of herself: ‘I grew up in a very patriarchal society. It was only in Italy that I understood what emancipation means.’ As a student, she was honoured by the Zonta Club for her outstanding achievements at the conservatory – and Zonta is now supporting her in connection with her podcast: ‘I was invited to the Zonta podcast and was able to talk about my project,’ says Alma Shaikimova. Zonta is particularly committed to the rights of women and girls.

At the Professional School, Alma Shaikimova is supported by a Germany Scholarship funded by the Leuphana Alumni Association. She wants to give back a lot of this support: ‘As a music teacher, I want to encourage girls in particular to assert themselves in the cultural sector.’

With the Master Arts and Cultural Management, the Professional School and the Goethe-Institut have been offering a new programme in cultural management since 2018. This English-language, part-time distance learning programme trains cultural professionals from all over the world to deal with transformation processes in the cultural sector. The programme focuses on comprehensive content in international cultural management, with a special emphasis on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary links between cultural studies and economics.