CONCERT BUREAU

Press, Volume C, Issue 29682, 28 November 1961, Page 23

CONCERT BUREAU

Aid For Young Soloists Something new for aspiring young concert artists has been organised in New York. The National Music League is a non-profit concert bureau for young concert soloists, not over 30 years of age, who have never been under professional management. Its purpose is to bridge the gap between the completion of musical studies and the position of a well-known artist in the concert world. It is open to anyone who has established permanent residence in the New York areaThe league chooses artists through periodic auditions in which the judges are famous musicians. The artists chosen by them are those whom the judges-consider worthy and ready for a concert career. Auditions are held only when there is a vacancy on the league’s artist list or when an increase in business warrants enlarging the list The chosen artists are then booked by the League everywhere possible for concerts: in colleges, clubs, schools, choral organisations, symphony orchestras—anywhere where a fee is paid. For each concert, the artist receives money from the league for transportation, for the accompanist, and 20 dollars a day, from which he pays for food and hotel expenses. The remainder of the concert fee goes into a fund which carries on the organisation, pays for the artists’ promotion, salaries, rent, office overhead, etc. Since at the beginning of a career, concerts cannot provide the only livelihood, the artists earn their living by their own means—such as teaching or church jobs. Although the artist is under the exclusive management of the National Music League, the league does not participate in commission of any sort of these jobs.