Talk Pay, 2025 Update

About 10 years ago I made a concerted effort to create more transparency around finances in the music world. The lack of financial transparency within a profession is a leading factor in pay inequality and how we end up with exploitive labor practices and being in the awkward position of needing to negotiate our own pay.
This movement started in the tech world among programmers, specifically to address the gender pay gap, and it was popular trend on social media under the tag #TalkPay.

I’ve made it a regular practice to update these numbers based on where I am in my career, and inflation has also changed things dramatically (or not…) in the last 10 years. It’s also worth noting that these numbers are from work mostly within the largest coastal cities in the US and might not translate to places with a different cost of living.

If you're curious, you can compare what I've written here to my last TalkPay update in 2019. I'll also offer a little analysis at the end, but for now here are the numbers.

Composer

• Choral Commission from professional ensemble, 5-7 min: $5k
• Choral commission from a university (5 min) with a two day residency: ($1,250 + transport, meals, housing, etc)
• Guest Artistic Director Fee: $5k (for me) $15k towards the production itself
• University residency: $500 per day, $2k for the week (housing included + per diem and travel)

Performance

• Chorus work, $100-$150 per call, typically $500-$1000 total
• Solo or small ensemble  (opera, oratorio, etc), $150-$200 per call, typically 800-$1000
• Film soundtracks (indie): $75-$150 per hour, 3 hr minimum call
• Solo show: $150 - $1000 (depends on size and scope of show and organization)

Music Directing

• Assistant conductor, church ensemble: $46 / hr
• Choral conducting, chamber professional group: $200 / call
• Opera music director, small-size company: Typically about $200 per call, about double what the singers make.
• Opera music director, mid-size company: $7k per show
  • This was a weird situation that was a combo of specialized vocal coaching and music directing

Teaching

• Private composition lessons, though community college: $65 / hr, 50 min lessons
• Fitness classes (capoeira): $45 / class
• Guest lectures (university): $200-$500
• Guest lectures (small org): $150

 Admin

• Film score contracting: depends on the number of singers, but often one singers pay or if it’s just a couple of people, 50% of one singers pay
• Chamber choir contracting: 5-10% of total singer budget

Some thoughts / Analysis

Comparing this to five years ago, numbers are generally higher. Partly because I've continued to grow in my career, and partly because things have change since covid and the inflation of recent years.

Things that have stayed consistent (some since 2011, which is kind of wild...), in particular community choir like conducting gigs and  private lesson teaching at collegiate institutions. Conducting is one of the kinds of work that seems to have the least consistency. Some places it's once a week and pays about $10k a year, other places it's the same time commitment but only $2k.

For a long time, $100 per call was a decent average for gigs, usually 3 hours per call, so about $33 an hour. At this point in my career that's starting to feel like and $40-$50 average hourly rate feels more appropriate, especially when it's work with groups like HEX who are more of a 'premiere' ensemble. I've sometimes paid less, $50-$100 per rehearsal for choral gigs that are community based passion projects.

My commissions are few and far between. It's not a big source of income and I don't pursue it heavily preferring to stick to projects that I REALLY want to do. Because of that I often create new work for nothing.

Performance fees are somewhat similar. Most of my low paying gigs are evening length solo events where I can do whatever I want, and I use those opportunities as a chance to experiment and explore (like what I do at the PRS). The higher paying fees are generally more visible gigs with higher expectations (like a recent gig at LACMA).