There was a thread “How much to hire the London Symphony Orchestra” but it dates back to 2005 so I imagine the info is slightly dated.
I’m a classical composer–well-off so I probably have the means to pay, but my question is how much would it cost ballpark to premiere my Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor, which dozens of people over on YouTube and around other websites have been very kind, even enthusiastic toward. Naturally, I own the copyright. The cost would have to include a top-tier pianist and I’ve inquired, but short of getting hold of Lang Lang’s agent (and he probably wouldn’t agree to do it anyway) I’d like to get someone of near caliber.
One question which didn’t arise in the LSO thread: if the premiere were a scheduled concert and, naturally, ticket sales would generate revenue–if I’m paying for the concert doesn’t the revenue generated go to defraying my cost of the concert? Alternately, if my Piano Concerto were one-half of the program would my costs be cut in half?
Thanks to anyone who can contribute helpful info. Hell, thanks for any encouragement you can give me! period
I’ve taken out the link to your video. Since this is your first posts here, it really looks like you’re doing nothing but wanting to get people to look at it and get traffic up/ Spamming isn’t allowed here, so don’t post the link again, however you’re free to have the discussion.
Well, honestly that wasn’t my intention at all. I was only trying to show what resources are required for what I’m asking about for those who can read music.
I called a few middle-tier ones but they couldn’t give me any info. And the top ones like the LSO, forget it. I’d need an agent just to have someone pick up the phone. Classical music today is no different than trying to get Donald Trump on the phone. It’s Big Business. I was hoping some here might have some straight dope like the one who told the story of a man who hired the LSO for 100,000 Lbs. I imagine it’s much more today.
Why don’t you set your sights a little lower than the LSO? Perhaps some university near you has a school of music? Maybe there’s a college with an orchestra?
Look, each musician will expect to get paid. For the rehearsals and the performances. And you’ll have to pay rent on the rehearsal space and the performance hall. Planning to advertise? Ticket sellers and collectors want to get paid too.
During my brief stint 15 years ago in a not so good professional symphony, I think I got paid a bit over $50 per session (rehearsal or performance). We’d typically have one rehearsal just for strings, four for the entire orchestra, and two concerts.
I imagine a good chunk of the orchestra got paid more than me. How much more, I can’t say.
If you can figure out wages, you’ll need to apply a multiple for indirect costs, which I also don’t know. If symphonies are non profits you can probably find some tax forms.
You’ll need a performance or recording hall too.
J Joe Townley, it’s great if you can afford this kind of expense (and I’m thinking six figures in $), but if your purpose is to get a performance and recording of your work, have you considered approaching a mid-tier orchestra (college or smaller town than London) and offering them a World Premiere?
If the quality of your work is professional, both compositionally and on paper, I think you might get a good reception. If you could sweeten the pot by offering to donate to the orchestra, I doubt they would refuse. Most orchestras are not rolling in money these days, and they are also hungry for new, quality material. It could work out for everyone.
If your composition is less than symphony length, it could be included as part of a regular performance and the cost for everyone would be much less than a command performance just for one work.
Just to play around with these numbers and assuming a top thier musician in a major city makes 80k per year working 250 days per year we get needing to pay them 320 per session. So for a hundred person orchestra it would cost $32,000 per session with 6 sessions (I dropped on performance) or $192,000 for the people. From what NPR tells me Carnegie Hall can be rented for $16,810 plus $6,960 for staff. You’d still need to rent practice spaces, I’ll use the smallest hall rental there, $2,025 five times. So your base line cost should run $225,895.
Unfortunately, a school orchestra would mutilate it and a real “premiere” then would not be possible. I watched a poor guy premiere his new piano concerto on YouTube. It’s called “Fantastica” Concerto in A Minor. Youtube it for a heartbreaking experience. He promised us another concerto he was working on. That was three years ago.
If I were going to do this it’s a one-shot deal for it to make an impression. It would have to be note-perfect–as perfect as the electronic rendering I have on YouTube.
These days, you don’t get them, they get you. It’s much like a new writer trying to get his first book published. He sends the manuscript out to 100 agents and gets rejections from all 100. They only want new talent they hear from networking with friends, other agents, etc. “Soliciting” is anathema. You manuscript winds up in the trash can. My score cost $28 to print. And it’s retro—Neo-Romantic, like Rachmaninoff. The music apparatchik these days want only modern extremely dissonant music.
Yeah, I was terrified of hearing that. That info was what I was looking for, thanks very much. I was prepared to go as high as $100K including the pianist, I mean I could make that up on rents over a period. But more than double that is something I’m not willing to do. Several pianists have offered to do it much less in an Eastern bloc country like Slovakia, Sofia, that area but I’m not able to make the trip…too old to handle the rigors of time-change on the body.
So in 2005 it could be one for 100K. In 2015 it’s more than double that. :smack:
You have a low opinion of school orchestras, if we are talking about college-level. I have played in several, including award-winning ones, and unless your work is unusually complex, I’m sure we could have handled it.
I’d like to gently suggest that, given what your experience appears to be, you might benefit from a rehearsal with a college group as much as they would. If you haven’t written for and conducted musical groups for at least 5 years, there may be a lot you have to learn.
I will go as far to say if you approach a college music department, they would turn your request down only if it wasn’t up to their minimum standards in notation, composition, etc. If that is the case, you need to go back to the drawing board. Printed music costs money, and if you supply something decent for free, they might be overjoyed to give students the experience.
To sum up, maybe you need to work up to a major recording event rather than trying it green, even if you can afford it.
OTOH, if you really are an undiscovered diamond in the rough, you might take heart that Bill Withers started his career much as you appear to be doing. He saved his blue-collar wages until he could hire the best musicians to record an entire album the way he wanted it, and the rest is history.
I suspect 99 of 100 people who try that do not advance beyond an expensive hobby, however.
You’re absolutely right. Bolded above: I did approach several music school/university orchestras and they all turned me down, though not for the reason the music wasn’t up to their standard. We never even got to that phase. Those that replied to my message (Colburn School Los Angeles, USC, UCLA) said that rehearsal time is so valuable that even for a fee they simply cannot afford to devote time to “trying out” a composer’s new piece unless it was by a name composer which would draw attention if a premiere were contemplated.
Musicat is right, Cacti. I’m not hopeful I could secure funding competing against a million others looking for that same money. And when they did my assets check they’d say, “You don’t need money from us. Fund it yourself. This is for starving deserving artists who merit a public viewing of their work”.
