<p>Hello everyone</p>
<p>I was accepted to do auditions in Mannes (March) and I really need your help. I'm from Portugal and I'm going to USA to do auditons to some universities in the first two weeks in February (UNT, Boston conservatory and I hope Northwestern University). I'm really worried because New York is a big place but with so many great musicians that I don't know if I have place for me. I need to work as an accompanist ( I have a lot of experience) to cover my expenses and also I'm looking for opportunities to perform. If I decide to go, I have to buy a flight ticket so I really bave to be sure that I will get anything.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>What exactly do you need help with?</p>
<p>I just need to know if NY is a place with opportunities to explore, such as working as an accompanist. There are people that tell me that pianists is always been requested; others tell me that it’s hard to get work there.</p>
<p>There are lots of musicians along with lots of opportunities. You can get work, but you need to be very very good at what you do. D just got done with her auditions in NYC and was floored by the extraordinarily high level of talent among the collaborative pianists. Not a clinker in the bunch.</p>
<p>That is a tough question to answer, because the answer is it depends. First of all, depends on how good you are, there are a lot of talented Pianists in the NY area, many of the trained in collaborative piano, so you would be competing for them for gigs. But more importantly, moving here the way you are planning to, you would be coming in not knowing the lay of the land so to speak, who to talk to, about how to network and get gigs. You may want to search out any kind of websites dealing with the piano world in NYC, and see if anyone there has advice (on the violin, there is a site called violinist.com that has a kind of community). The same would be true if you went to boston conservatory or another school, getting gigs is about networking. The good part about NYC is there are a lot of musical events going on that may need pianists, collaborative or otherwise, the hard part might be getting into the track where you can get them.</p>
<p>My son went to Mannes for grad school in cello. He says it is an excellent school for pianists. Whether you are able to get work or not depends a lot on you. My son found that he had to be very flexible, willing to do all kinds of music, and when starting out, work for very little money. He start grad school in fall of 2007 and has been living there ever since. He is now making his living as a free-lance cellist and does nothing to support himself outside of music. He lives very frugally but he loves his musical life. </p>
<p>Going to school in NYC gave him a chance to start making connections. He ended up with quite a bit of debt from school but it is manageable and he is making enough money to support himself and make his loan payments. He does not feel that he would have been able to make living in NYC just going there cold without the support and contacts he made while at the school. </p>
<p>So, what are your goals? Do you need work in order to make going to school possible? If that is the case, Mannes might be difficult as there are so many excellent pianists in the city and it will be difficult to get established quickly. However, if your goal is to eventually work professionally in NYC, going to school there is a great way to get a start. Regardless of where you end up, work will not fall into your lap. You will have to be aggressive, seek out gigs, and be willing to do some work that may not be great, but gives you contacts and some money.</p>