Slave Labour

Many if not most classical music concerts in Australia run on free performer labour. This in itself is not particularly surprising or offensive given the large amount of amateur musical (particularly choral) activity around the country. However, much of this free or cheap-as-chips labour comes under the inappropriate title of 'professional' performances. As a young professional flute player I have experienced much of this first-hand.

In three weeks time I will perform two extremely challenging flute works and two contemporary chamber pieces as part of the Melbourne Festival, one of the largest and best-funded of the Australian arts festivals, and not be paid anything for my efforts. The justification is that the contemporary music component of the festival was a last minute addition, and was not funded properly; the composers are not being paid for their new works, either. But as part of a professional, well-funded festival?! A couple of months ago I performed in a handful of concerts as part of a regional festival, run by a professional chamber group, in NSW. For this I was paid the grand total of $400 - which works out at about $10 an hour, just for the rehearsals and performances. The festival runs on a small budget, but the main problem was that they literally employed far too many people, filling the stage with different instrumental combinations where a more conservative festival program would surely suffice. Players cannot say 'no', however, because the quality of the music-making at the festival is so high.

In Melbourne there is an outfit called Independent Classics that promotes 'professional' concert events, including operas as well as chamber, orchestral and choral concerts. For the orchestral concerts players get paid $35 per call, which works out at about $12 per hour, well below the Australian minimum wage.