Just a quickie

A local church has contacted me recently - would I consider playing a "concert" - they heard I include a selection of classical organ music - on the church's organ, a "theatre organ" selection on my own transportable instrument and some piano pieces (if the church piano is up to it.)

They would like 45 minutes first half - interval for refreshments - and then 45 to 60 mins second half.

Now, I make no claims to world fame but THEY would be pleased to offer me a fee of £20

Comments please.

That's, all things being considered, less than £10/hr for a professional service, and I'm assuming no charity is involved. Don't think I need to say much more...

Here is an extract from the ISM website:

"Typical concert or recital fee

Most performers charged between ?150 and ?450 per concert and the midpoint was ?250. This means that half the performers surveyed charged less than ?250; the other half charged more.

Overall highest fee
Most performers charged a highest fee of between ?200 and ?650 per concert and the midpoint was ?350.

Overall lowest fee
Most performers charged a lowest fee of between ?50 and ?200 per concert. The midpoint was ?100."

So they are offering ?30 less than the lowest professional fee in the entire survey. I have done my own calculations of how a musician could make a living from a portfolio career of teaching, composing, arranging, accompanying and solo performances, and I concluded that the market figures they quote are spot on. It turns out that if your playing standard justifies it, and your livelihood depends on it (that is - you are not in the position of an amateur desperate for performance opportunities) That it is not worth turning out for much less than ?200. Unless, of course, it is for some special reason, like an organisation or charity that you support.

You can get more information from the ISM site here: http://www.ism.org/policy_advice/article/concert_recitals/

EDIT: What has the forum done to all those pound signs?

I think it is actually quite insulting! But...if is is for a good cause then you might as well give your time and energy for free.

in all seriousness was this request in writing? Could there be any chance that this is a typo (perhaps missing a zero)? I can't think that anybody would believe that was a sensible fee.

In some churches, you never know. I had a Great Aunt who used to send my sisters and me, each Christmas, a Postal Order for Half-a-Crown, way past the time when it could have bought a Mars Bar. She had no idea.

We always had to write her a Thankyou Letter though!

I'm afraid I've had venues that have indeed called this a sensible fee...

This proposal was originally voiced to me by one of my mature students who is a member of the church. She only put to me the idea of a concert but we did not discuss a fee. She knows that I am a "professional" performer and teacher and that my concerts take me around the UK - mostly Northern half.

It was several weeks before one of the church "committee" phoned me to discuss this (in fact, on Friday afternoon) by which time I had been holding the date in December just in case for quite some time.

When he tentatively broached the subject of fee, he told me it was not in aid of any charity or good cause in particular but would be the last of this years bi-monthly "entertainments" - they have had previously a local choir, a group of church members who play guitar, flute and clarinet, a "Joyce Grenfell-type" comedienne .......all presumably for £20 a go.

I gently broke the news that my concert fee is generally "10x +" the figure offered and that in my circle of mainly theatre organ players, I am quite cheap.........well

He actually said the word "GULP"! and was acutely embarrassed at his offer, to which I replied there was no need for embarrassment.

Let's face it - the organ is a small, locally built, not very good pipe job, so I would rely more on our transportable organ which will have to be "split" - the two, still very heavy units lumped into the car, hauled out at the church, re-assembled, and the reverse procedure after the concert.

It's not really worth it......is it?





Trouble is, they'll ALL want it for free then


Oh, yes - to link up to the "John Wilson Orchestra Thread" - I should probably have played some Rodgers and Hammerstein!!

When our kids were small my wife and I had to educate her mother on that very same problem. As you say, older people have no idea.


This, I think, sums it up. They are used to amateur entertainment, for which, a token payment of £20 is probably quite satisfactory and appreciated. They probably have no concept of professional music and the fees involved.

In my part of the world solo singers seem to charge £150, even when they are no great shakes either vocally or musically (though they all think they are the bee's knees!) and I don't see why an organist should charge less. That said, people's ability to pay is also worth considering. I know of top professional organists who are happy to reduce their fees in certain situations on the basis that (sometimes) a reduced fee is better than no engagement at all. I suppose it all depends on what you consider worthwhile. Even in my far more humble league, however, I would not consider accepting an engagement for £20.

Some context ... I was paid 15 pounds in 1970 (I was still at school - and had only passed Grade 5!) for playing piano at a company's children's party. As a student I used to earn 15 to 20 pounds a night (more than enough to live on for a whole week back then), plus tips, for playing in London pubs in 1974/75.

I would consider doing the concert if it was for a charity but I would not perform for that length of time for 20 pounds. If I was still at school and had been given that opportunity then I might do it for the opportunity to perform... but these days, no way.
I often perform several violin pieces in concerts for free, but only for a charity gig.

THis contrasts with the attitude of the church I have played at for 21 yrs for no fee, just the 'love'.
I have never done an organ recital , and would quite like to do one. I have offered to do one for nothing (or maybe a charitable collection or local 'good cause') They are not interested, they dont think they would get a sufficient attendance.
Yet I know my service playing is well regarded. Bah!

Do you perhaps have some students who might be glad of the experience of preparing and performing in a concert like this? You could 'help' in their normal lesson time and have brownie points for that, the kids would get a good rehearsal for future events and the church would get a concert! Win win win

That's a ridiculous amount to be offered. Two years ago when I was 15, I played for a small church production of the sound of music put on by the ladies group. I did one rehearsal and the 1 hour performance and got £40 for doing it. This is at age 15 when I was around grade 6 standard! If I were a pro musician, I'd be pretty insulted with an offer of £20! From the state you describe the organ in, and all the effort required to bring your own, it hardly seems worth it for that amount of money!

Although the fee offered sounds ridiculous, you have to be clear about what is being expected on both sides. I have often given and organised concerts and recitals in churches for charity, at no fee - probably about 8-10 a year. Maybe the church wasn't expecting you to see it as a professional engagement? If they're engaging you to give a recital on a professional basis, then obviously the fee is ridiculous, but it might simply be the case that this is unclear.

Really surprised to hear this, f#minor. I'm sure my church would welcome you with open arms! Lots of organ recitals don't attract a huge audience, but surely if you're doing it for charity any money they got in would be worthwhile? How very ungrateful of them!

If maybe they are not too sure of how much they will raise from tickets how about a suggestion of half the takings? This is the sort of 'deal' an amateur band might have.
Depends how much you want to do it of course.

And if you do don't forget to ask them to that the piano has been tuned very recently or that it will be tuned for the concert if you will be playing it. could also be worth checking that it#s actually in a reasonable condition. But you probably already thought of this.

I think there is a fine line between paying 'expenses' and paying a 'fee'.

We organised a recital series earlier this year, when all of the recitalists were offered expenses. (We were not really in a position to offer a fee, but it seemed fair that the recitalists should not be out of pocket on our behalf. I should add that all of the recitalists were known to us.)

Anyhow, one took £50 to cover expenses, (but could easily have asked for a fee of ten times that figure), one gave us a donation of £20, and the others were just happy to play for the fun of it.

SB

Without naming names (which might be invidious) what do cathedral organists charge these days for giving recitals elsewhere?

I can find out if you like - we have a thriving organ society in our church.

Thanks, Dulcet. It would be interesting to know.

Let's have some guesses on this whilst we wait shall we? I would say £400 + expenses.

I do know of a church locally who paid for a 'big name' concert organist and the fees was well over £1K. This was in the 1990s...

I have already sent a PM to Vox on this subject, so I would be cheating!

However, I did hear that a wedding couple specifically requested a piece by Philip Glass, and that there were only a handful of organists in the country who could (or would) play it for them. The figure quoted was around £900 + expenses.

SB

Is that likely to have been his Satyagraha - Act III Finale?

I played in a small orchestra (about 15 people) for a production by the local amateur dramatic society. We had 2 rehearsals of about 2.5hrs each, then played for 6 nights, (approx 3hrs per night) and were given the princely sum of £60 each.

I'd still do it again though - I enjoyed it

I was once hired by a music software company to record 2 sets of 4 bars of singing to illustrate the tenor voice. The fee was £25, probably 7 or 8 years ago.

£25!

As choirboys we used to get 2/6- (Half a Crown) for singing at a wedding. If we had two weddings on a Saturday we thought we were well off

(For those who are too young to know, 2/6- is 12.5 pence in modern money!)

SB

Half a Crown was the weekly pocket-money I received when I was a little chap. I still remember the day I had saved eight of them - a whole pound!

Ah - nostalgia ain't what it was !

But what was £1 worth back in the mid 1960's?

In my money, Black Jacks were ten for a penny, and Sherbet Fountains were 3d each. (There were 240 pennies in the pound then).

I distinctly remember my parents buying a top of the range stereogram which cost 70 Guineas (£73.50) around 1963. That must have been a lot of money in those days! The radio dial seemed to list all of the radio stations around Europe, such as Hilversum, Luxembourg, Athlone, Hamburg and Nice, as well as the BBC Home Service!

For the younger generation a Guinea was £1 and a shilling, (or £1.05), and was a popular way of pricing furniture and more expensive goods so they didn't look quite as expensive. Nothing changes does it?

And just to put things into perspective, petrol was 5/- a gallon or £1 for four gallons. (That would be 5.5 pence per litre.)

These prices seem very attractive, but I wonder what the average wage was in those days?

SB

From about 1900 to the Second World war, church organists often existed quite comfortably on their church salary, wedding and funeral fees and a few pupils.

My first organist's post, in 1974, was remunerated at £156 per annum. The churchwardens increased this in 1976 to £208 per annum when I passed the ARCM. (They also paid for the hood.)

I currently get £100 for a wedding, but I think that there is a huge variation in the salaries and stipends on offer.

Barry Williams

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index...15071014AA4sFWm

I'm never quite sure how meaningful these figures are though. Throughout my life a majority of the people I have known have had a income well below the average. Maybe I just haven't moved in sufficiently high falutin circles!

I see what you mean!

The figure of around £1,000 pa for the period 1960 to 1963 looks reasonable, but I wonder just who's 'average salary' this is?

£1,000 would have bought a very nice motor car in the early 60's, and a house could be bought for perhaps two or three times that figure, even in the prosperous southeast.

I have to say that average of nearly £38,000 pa in 2008 looks rather optimistic. If we are taking the UK workforce as a whole I would have put the figure nearer to £20,000 pa.

SB

Exactly! I can only assume that the averages are severely distorted by the comparatively small number of bankers and other like-minded, thoroughly well-deserving citizens who are incontestably worth every penny of the utterly astronomical salaries paid to them.

The average is the wrong measure, as it is easily distorted. The mode is better. Better still, let's just have a graph of salary distibutions so that we get the full picture.

I was told of a fee of £2k a few years back for a "big name" organist - I gather that there are very few who command four figures, and that £200-£500 would not be unusual, with some artists in the higher hundreds. I was asking about upper and lower limits and modes rather than details.

It's a long time since I've been on a soloist-hiring committee; for concerto or oratorio soloists etc in the 80s and 90s I think we were paying from £250 up to £650. I don't think that the rates always reflected the artistry... but that's a whole other issue!