Snapshot

Overview

Work Environment

Education, Training, and Advancement

Earnings and Advancement

Earnings depend on whether the individual is employed as a music director, conductor, composer, or a combination thereof. Many other factors can influence earnings, such as if the individual conducts a large orchestra, or scores films, for example. Median annual earnings of music directors and composers were $52,250 in 2020. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $23,890, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $124,390.

Music directors and composers may receive paid vacations, holidays, and sick days; life and health insurance; and retirement benefits. These are usually paid by an employer, if not self-employed. An employer may also cover travel expenses.

Employment and Outlook

Music directors and composers held 58,000 jobs in 2019. Twenty-eight percent were self-employed. Employment is expected to grow slower than the average for all occupations through the year 2029, at a rate of 2 percent.

Music directors will be needed to lead orchestras for concerts and musical theater performances. They also will conduct the music that accompanies ballet troupes and opera companies.

In addition, there will likely be a need for composers to write original music and arrange known works for performances. Composers will be needed as well to write film scores and music for television and commercials.

However, orchestras, opera companies, and other musical groups can have difficulty getting funds. Some music groups are nonprofit organizations that rely on donations and corporate sponsorships, in addition to ticket sales, to fund their work. These organizations often have difficulty finding enough money to cover their expenses. In addition, growth may be limited for music directors in schools due to struggles with school funding, and music programs may be cut.

Tough competition for jobs is anticipated because of the large number of people interested in entering this field. In particular, there will be considerable competition for full-time music director and composer positions. Candidates with exceptional musical talent and dedication should have the best opportunities.

Music directors and composers may experience periods without work. During these times, they may work in other occupations, give music lessons, attend auditions, or write music.

More Information

Alliance for Women Film Composers (AWFC)

6404 Hollywood Boulevard, Suite 408

Los Angeles, CA 90028

theawfc.com

American Bandmasters Association (ABA)

c/o Thomas V. Fraschillo, Secretary-Treasurer

11738 Big Canoe, 209 Cherokee Trail

Jasper, GA 30143

thomas.fraschillo@usm.edu

www.americanbandmasters.org

American Choral Directors Association (ACDA)

P.O. Box 1705

Oklahoma City, OK 73101-1705

405.232.8161

membership@acda.org

acda.org

American Composers Alliance (ACA)

P.O. Box 1108

New York, NY 10040

212.837.8082

info@composers.com

composers.com

American Composers Orchestra (ACO)

494 Eighth Avenue, Suite 503

New York, NY 10001

212.977.8495

info@americancomposers.org

americancomposers.org

American Federation of Musicians (AFM)

1501 Broadway, 9th Floor

New York, NY 10036

212.869.1330

www.afm.org

American School Band Directors Association (ASBDA)

2280 W High Street

Lima, OH 45805

419.996.9667

www.asbdaband.org

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)

250 West 57th Street

New York, NY 10107

212.621.6000

www.ascap.com

American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC)

11333 Moorpark Street, Suite 174

Studio City, CA 91602

818.824.6718?

info@asmac.org

www.asmac.org

College Orchestra Directors Association (CODA)

codaweb.org

Future of Music Coalition (FMC)

2217 14th Street NW, 2nd Floor

Washington, DC 20009

202.822.2051

futureofmusic.org

International Conductors Guild (ICG)

15 E. Market Street, Suite 22

Leesburg, VA 20178

202.643.4791

guild@conductorsguild.org

conductorsguild.org

National Association of Composers/USA (NACUSA)

P.O. Box 49256, Barrington Station

Los Angeles, CA 90049

nacusanews@gmail.com

www.music-usa.org

National Association of Schools of Music (NASM)

11250 Roger Bacon Drive, Suite 21

Reston, VA 20190-5248

703.437.0700

info@arts-accredit.org

nasm.arts-accredit.org

National Orchestral Association (NOA)

P.O. Box 7016

New York, NY 10150-7016

212.208.4691

info@nationalorchestral.org

www.nationalorchestral.org

Society for American Music (SAM)

P.O. Box 75073

Seattle, WA 98175

206.601.4062

sam@american-music.org

www.american-music.org

The Society of Composers and Lyricists (SCL)

8306 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 512

Beverly Hills, CA 90211

310.281.2812

thescl.com

Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA)

P.O. Box 25653

Chicago, IL 60625-9998

tsdca.org

Conversation With... ANNA BINNEWEG

Music Director/Conductor

Londontowne Symphony Orchestra, Annapolis, MD

In the field, 15 years

What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?

I followed the traditional educational path for attaining a professional career in music—completing an undergraduate, masters, and ultimately doctoral degree in orchestral conducting from Northwestern University. While I had other professional opportunities along the way, such as working with youth symphonies and guest-conducting professional orchestras overseas, I currently hold a full-time academic position as an orchestra director, as well as music director of a local semi-professional/community orchestra.

What are the most important skills and/or qualities for someone in your profession?

Having a high level of musicianship and knowledge about the orchestra and its repertoire (both new and old), in addition to having excellent leadership/communication skills, ability to work collaboratively with others, and the desire to keep growing in the field.

What do you wish you had known going into this profession?

A stronger background and training in marketing and fundraising skills.

Are there many job opportunities in your profession? In what specific areas?

There will always be a natural ebb and flow to available Music Director posts in our nation (ranging from academic, community, and professional positions) as the field grows and changes, but they are highly competitive and difficult to attain.

How do you see your profession changing in the next five years, how will technology shift, and what skills will be required?

An excellent question—one all conductors are carefully pondering and considering as we work to recover from the pandemic. We have already seen an increased number of livestream performances, further diminishing our numbers in live concert attendance—this will likely continue, so innovative programming that will reach a diverse audience demographic is critical. The ability to accept the here and now and work with communities where they are will be a crucial component for conductors and orchestras as we navigate the next few years.

What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you enjoy least about your job?

Bringing people together through music—for both the orchestra, the audience, and the community. In addition, working collaboratively with other organizations in the community to create more diversified concert programs and an inclusive concert experience. I least enjoy navigating board politics, fighting for workable budgets, and/or conflict when it arises.

Can you suggest a valuable “try this” for students considering a career in your profession?

For a young conductor in training, try this: attend a webinar or course in marketing, not led by a musician, but rather from a team representing a high-level, professional company.

Conversation With... DR. JULIUS P. WILLIAMS

Music Director/Conductor

Artistic Director and Conductor, Berklee College of Music Contemporary

Symphony Orchestra, Boston, MA; Music Director and Conductor, Trilogy, An Opera Company; President, International Conductors Guild; Composer with the Boston Symphony Orchestra “Composer-In-Residence, Project”; Cover Conductor to the Boston Pops Orchestra In the field, over 35 years

What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?

I began by being exposed to a great deal of music in my home through my parents and other family members. I learned to play the piano and still use it every day of my working life. I went to Lehman College for undergraduate school and studied music, then to a graduate school— the Hartt School of Music—that specializes in music, and received an honorary doctorate from Keene State College.

What are the most important skills and/or qualities for someone in your profession?

Learning music from an early age is very important, having piano skills, and being able to hear music and play it back exactly as you heard it—all very important. You must love doing a lot of work in order to get to the bigger ensembles and work with them. It’s usually a gradual process, and it takes time to develop solid music skills. You can’t hurry it.

What do you wish you had known going into this profession?

As an African American conductor, I wish I had known how challenging it would be for someone like me. I started years and years ago when Black conductors were unheard of—and most would go to Europe to work since they were more highly accepted there. But there are now opportunities for everyone to be a conductor—you just have to work at it and make the right connections along the way, and you must be committed to doing it!

Are there many job opportunities in your profession? In what specific areas?

There are approximately 1,800 orchestras in the United States, so if there is one, sometimes two, conductors working at each orchestra, you can see there just aren’t enough opportunities for everyone to have the top job. That’s why it is important to work hard and work smart. There are choruses, bands, operas, etc., and of course, high school and other teaching jobs, too. Most conductors combine their work between professional ensembles and some teaching.

How do you see your profession changing in the next five years, how will technology shift, and what skills will be required?

The current pandemic has taught everyone, not just conductors, that we must have additional knowledge and skills in technology. It’s not enough to just know music and how to conduct music. We need to know the terminology and technical skills needed to send our performances out to the public via livestreaming, and also through recordings. I see more and more of this being a part of the work we do in the conducting profession.

What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you enjoy least about your job?

I think if everyone had the experience of how it feels when you give a downbeat—the first stroke of a baton—when you step onto a podium, you’d understand why we love what we do. Bringing a group of musicians together, and including singers, dancers, other performers, and quite often, the audience in the performance of music-it is very exciting and fulfilling. And we make beautiful music!

The most difficult thing about any job or profession is dealing with people. You must be a leader who listens, who is patient, but also a leader who stands up for what you believe and know. Convincing others to see the same or similar way, is always a challenge.

Can you suggest a valuable “try this” for students considering a career in your profession?

I would suggest you talk with your local high school or middle school orchestra, band, or chorus director and ask if you could sit in on some of their classes to observe. If you have a symphony orchestra in your city or town, call them and ask to speak to the General Manager or Artistic Administrator to see if you might be permitted to sit in one of their rehearsals and then possibly meet with the conductor when she/he has a minute. You’ll find most are willing to speak with you, if asked politely. And, if you don’t yet play a musical instrument, get started, now! Learn the piano as much as possible (you can even do this online now) or learn how to play a violin or cello. There are a million possibilities if you simply ask!

Conversation With... JONATHAN NEWMAN

Director of Composition & Coordinator of New Music

Associate Professor of Composition

Shenandoah Conservatory, Winchester, Virginia

Professional composer, 25 years

What was your individual career path in terms of education/training, entry-level job, or other significant opportunity?

I became very focused quite early on. As a child, I played piano, and always created little pieces for myself to play. Later I played trumpet, and then trombone, and got interested in jazz. All through school, I played in bands and orchestras and sang in choruses nearly every day of the week. When I started writing pieces for those student ensembles and for my friends and myself to play, I realized I was composing. I attended a summer composition program and looked up composition degrees for college. I received my undergraduate degree in music from the Boston University School for the Arts (now the College of Fine Arts), and my Master’s at The Juilliard School in New York. Both degrees were in music composition. It is most common now for young composers to receive a doctorate, but my role models at the time did not. After graduating with my Master’s, I lived in New York and supported myself with various jobs working at box offices and concert halls, at a major music publisher, and most especially as a freelance music copyist, which is kind of like being an assistant to other composers. I helped to prepare their performance materials for premieres and worked with music publishers to prepare music publications. During this decade, I wrote for musicians and ensembles for various concerts until my performances and commissions got to the point where I felt I could be a composer full time. After another 10 years or so, I added in teaching full-time at a university. I have been at the Shenandoah Conservatory for five years, where I run the composition program, direct the new music ensemble, and curate our new music performing arts series.

What are the most important skills and/or qualities for someone in your profession?

Composers possess an unquenchable desire to figure out how music works and how it is put together. Much as an engineer wants to take apart a mechanical device to see how it works, a composer searches out scores to do exactly the same.

Composition is very much a collaborative art and working with other musicians as well as artists in other fields is an essential skill.

Composers also tend to be very detail-oriented people focused on the minutiae that go into putting a musical score together.

In addition, composers also are self-driven. They tend to be people who aren’t interested in something like an office-job type life. The career doesn’t have weekends or vacations or set hours. It’s all project-based and quite entrepreneurial, with months of non-stop work—all managed by yourself alone.

What do you wish you had known going into this profession?

Time-management issues were the biggest surprise for me. If you self-publish your works as I do—and as many do now—you need business and administrative skills. While they are fairly simple to master, the larger challenge is the time management required to execute business tasks such as invoicing, licenses, inventory management, and correspondence, while protecting the large swaths of time required to write music. If, like me, you have a family and a teaching position, that becomes more complicated. I finally hired an assistant, who also manages my self-publishing business.

Are there many job opportunities in your profession? In what specific areas?

It’s important to understand that there is no such thing as a “job” as a composer. Rather, it is a career. As with all careers in music, one’s complete income comes from a variety of sources. A composer might write a work on commission for a fee, receive earnings from publishing existing pieces and licensing them, and also have work rehearsing or conducting those pieces. S/he might also play in an ensemble, teach piano lessons, or teach at a university. The most common path for a concert music composer is to write while also teaching at the college level, and because of the staggering number of composers qualified to do exactly that, those specific opportunities are rare, extremely competitive, and challenging to secure.

How do you see your profession changing in the next five years? How will technology impact that change, and what skills will be required?

Technology has already drastically changed my profession so much that as long as computers and software remain relatively the same kind of construct (rather than say, something sci-fi like being implanted into your head), I don’t expect the field to change much more. Music notation software is so sophisticated that I can open a score from a young composer and instantly tell if the work was written on computer (rather than conceived of on paper, and then later copied to computer for clarity). The artistic issues of that notwithstanding, available software options can be useful tools, and fluency with them, as well as with sound editing, sequencing, and recording software and equipment, will continue to be essential for composers. I also expect social media will become even more of a publishing venue for composers.

What do you enjoy most about your job? What do you enjoy least about your job?

Nothing beats the experience of creating something from nothing—of conceiving an idea, and then hearing that idea made real by musicians in a live performance. It never gets old, and it makes the months—and sometimes years—of long, detailed work worthwhile. I also really enjoy working with musicians; making music together in a group or ensemble is the single best thing about being a musician.

I least enjoy the pile of self-promotion tasks essential for the entrepreneurial twenty-first-century musician, including promoting through social media, mailings to ensembles and conductors, promotional recordings, traveling to promote one’s performances and catalog. These are crucial but drain my energies. I often wish I could just write.

Can you suggest a valuable “try this” for students considering a career in your profession?

If you have some friends who play instruments, or sing, try writing them something to play! Rather than composing something for a computer to play (which is quite easy to do and very common), conceive of what you’d like to hear, look at scores of pieces you’d like to emulate, sketch out the ideas and keep honing them down until they become a musical work you’d like to hear. Prepare a score and parts and rehearse the work with your friends. If possible, arrange for a live performance! There is no better learning experience. The key is to write for people you know, who can give you feedback, and with whom you enjoy collaborating. If you like the experience, you can simply do it again and again and again...and then you’re a composer!

This interview was originally published in 2020.