August 2005 Special Report
"Career Guide For Music Majors"

According to a report from the University of Texas at Austin, there are certain characteristic skills developed by music majors as well as representative occupations of graduates with a music degree available. Find out what your careers choices are.

Read the Report

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MyAuditions,

There's a fantastic teacher there, named Brian Lewis. I met many of his students at juilliard for a summer thing.

I think people will be hearing a lot more about UofT Austin in a few years.

anyone on these forums from UT? if so, how's the music program there?

after reading the report, it's nice to know one has alternatives.

Has anyone gone in a different direction in the performing arts other than being a musician?

What qualifications does someone need to be an arts director besides musical background? An MBA?

What's the pay like with mid to major orchestras?

You can find some general statistics on Orchestra Facts.

If you are a member of the AFM, log on to the AFM website and scroll down to "Symphony Wagechart Lookup" under "Members Tools." You will then be able to access a wealth of information regarding pay scales, benefits, and general working conditions in professional American symphony orchestras.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MyAuditions,

quote:

Originally posted by Morassi:
What qualifications does someone need to be an arts director besides musical background? An MBA?

What's the pay like with mid to major orchestras?

Here's the MD pay for ROPA orchestras:
http://www.artsjournal.com/adaptistration/archives/2005...05_compensati_2.html

ICSOM orchestras:
http://www.artsjournal.com/adaptistration/archives/2005...05_compensati_1.html

You can find other salaries via http://www.guidestar.com and perusing IRS form 990's. Good luck.

Drew

Drew, guidestar is certainly an eye-opener, I have perused it before. Particularly in the regional orchestra/ smaller ensembles, it is pretty fascinating and vexing to see what a few folks in the office make.

For anybody about to look anything up, I think you look on pages 4 and 7.

Strangely enough the world’s largest employer of full time musicians was left off of this guide. The United States military employs over 1500 full time musicians. As far as pay and benefits go personally I don’t need to have a second source of income or resort to taking on students.

quote:

Originally posted by SSG Krbec:
Strangely enough the world’s largest employer of full time musicians was left off of this guide. The United States military employs over 1500 full time musicians. As far as pay and benefits go personally I don’t need to have a second source of income or resort to taking on students.

Only concern about joining the military from my friends considering it, is getting through boot camp and possibly getting shipped off to a war zone to fight instead of playing music. Has this ever happened?

Boot camp or in the case of my employer basic training wasn't really all that bad. Not that much worse than sophomore year in college, but shorter and with a lot less beer and more physical activity. As far as being shipped off to a war zone goes I spent 15 months in Baghdad where my job was to perform for soldiers and to open for the USO shows that came down. As to the fighting aspect, we don’t let the infantry play with our stuff and they didn’t let us play with theirs. As much as I didn’t want to go to Iraq, on hindsight I wouldn’t trade the experiences that I had there for anything in the world. Miami Man, I hope this answers your question. Yes military musicians have been sent off to a war zone but no one expects us go on patrols and take down the bad guys.

while i did once contemplate joining the Navy band, i just felt that all i would be playing were sousa, strauss and military marches.

my brother is a LT. Col in the army for the last 21 years so there was some influence by him. Nonetheless, i kind of felt it would be a last resort if i didn't get an orchestral gig at the time. i think there may be the perception by many orchestral musicians that unless they don't succeed in the orchestral field, that there is always the army to consider.

most of the military jobs i see available are more for pop or jazz players, then orchestral. i see brass, percussion and woodwind gigs available but never strings so that only solidifies my point.

quote:

i see brass, percussion and woodwind gigs available but never strings so that only solidifies my point.

There are quite a few string gigs in the military: string quartets, the Air Force Strolling Strings, white House parties et al.

Some great players have done it, during the vietnam era I imagine they had some awesome musicians. Sid Weiss, one of the former Concertmasters of the LA Phil was in it. I have known several of my era ( I was a lil boy during Vietnam)) who did various military music gigs and are extremely fine players.

I know a musician in the Strolling Strings who speaks very highly of the experience. I questioned her regarding all the usual prejudices and she reported that the repertoire was more varied than you'd expect, and that there are good opportunities for interesting chamber music activities. She also seemed to enjoyed the travel and the often quite prestigious events, and, of course, waxed lyrical about job security and benefits (not least of which in her eyes was the assistance she was given in purchasing a top quality violin). At the same time she has the opportunity, when on leave, to pursue selected freelance gigs in her specialist area of musical interest. She seems happy. (And she says she enjoyed boot camp.)

Quite a few years ago now I auditioned for a military ensemble in another country. I had a chance to check out the quality of the music-making and the repertoire and I must admit that quite a few prejudices were dismantled in the process. The one thing that really didn't appeal were the rehearsals that started at 0830. Ugh.

quote:

Originally posted by Blair:
anyone on these forums from UT? if so, how's the music program there?

I go to UT. I'm a bio major and I will soon be switching to music. My teacher is a PhD student here and he's really nice. The program looks good, but I'll probably end up going somewhere else for music. I think that the university as a whole is excellent and so far I've been very impressed academically. We don't have enough practice rooms and stuff like that, but I don't know how much that reflects the actual program seeing as how I'm just taking private lessons here. It seems like we have a lot of music students because the practice rooms are always full, but I think that we just have a lot of students in general.

Can't believe I missed this thread....

quote:

Originally posted by musician:
after reading the report, it's nice to know one has alternatives.

Has anyone gone in a different direction in the performing arts other than being a musician?

I work full time as a recording engineer here in Los Angeles. I still perform when I get the chance, but my focus is in doing sound work.

When I was a student at Eastman, they specifically encouraged us to explore other options in music. During my senior year there, I was a part of the innaugural Arts Leadership Program. A whole program dedicated to the idea that not everybody will be working as a performer in their chosen form of music. Rather, there is a great need for musically literate people in administration, etc...

To this day, I still consider myself first and foremost a clarinetist (even if I'm a bit out of practice), but had I not experimented with recording (to avoid working in the school dining center), I would not have the career I currently have. I will also say that if I didn't have the musical training that I was fortunate enough to receive, I would not have the ability that I currently have as an engineer.

--Ben

Bravo to Ben. You have confirmed, once again, that there are many ways to have a sucessful and fulfilling career in music.

(I still consider myself to be a drummer/percussionist and I haven't played since 1983, except for 1 day in 1998.)

I had many friends in my school that have followed similar paths. Many of them are first-rate performers that saw opportunities in other aspects of the music biz.

One of my good friends from Eastman had a double major in education. She ended up working right out of school doing educational outreach for the Glimmerglass festival. Then from there she was a finalist for several major educational outreach jobs eventually ending up at the Manhattan School doing outreach there.

Eventually, she decided to go back to school and was accepted as one of three opera singers at the Paris Conservatory. She now has a performance career in Europe...

There is plenty of room for both and the better musician you are, the more likely you will be able to pay your bills in a peripheral profession.

--Ben

Ben: You were fortunate that Eastman encouraged its students to look at other areas of music to develop a career. I graduated from New England Conservatory, a great school, in 1975. We had no such career development program in place at that time.

I think that this kind of thinking is a contemporary idea. In 1975, Eastman didn't really have a program like this either- I graduated from there in 1997 and the 1996-1997 school year was the first time it had entered the offical curriculum.

Of course some schools out there have an "unwritten curriculum." There have always been opportunities like that at Eastman, but not officially. At USC (where I went for Grad school), there are opportunities in the LA Music industry. Some teachers embrace them more than others, but if you look hard enough, there are lots of ways to earn a living and still be involved in music- even if it isn't performing explicitly...

--Ben