I’m writing this in our small Chicago apartment. The day outside is chilly and flat, passers-by wrapped up well against the cold lake air. The blistering, steam-filled radiators in the apartment hiss and wheeze. There’s coffee brewing on the stove. I’m wearing a polo-neck. Give me a pipe to smoke and a Remington typewriter and Central Casting really should be on the phone quicker than you can say “B movie”. …
All the stuff that has gone before in these Gobs – getting the work, doing it, and the logistics – those are in so many ways the easiest aspects of singing abroad. The hardest task when singing abroad is stopping yourself going out of your mind with boredom and loneliness.
“How can this be?” you are probably asking yourself. …
It’s interesting to report that of all my recent Gobs, the one that provoked the largest response from fellow old pros was the one on money. Some of them, prompted by their own experiences, felt that there were more gobbets of information that I should be sharing. I’m not remotely surprised by this. I was once at a post-concert dinner in Amsterdam where the salaried administrators were all talking about music and the working musicians (including two top composers) were talking about the best place to exchange their fees into pounds. (It used to be the Bank of Abu Dhabi near Hyde Park Corner but anti money-laundering laws came in and the bank hurriedly closed; not surprising as you could walk in with a thick envelope of foreign cash, but without any ID, and quite simply change it into pounds, and at brilliant rates. Now, if it’s cash it’s Marks and Spencer for me. Much less exotic.) …
Gillett’s Gobs Of Advice: 4, Money
It’s time to talk about money. But let’s not get our knickers in twist about whether or not we should. We should. We are professionals after all. This is how we earn a living and anyone who does it because they think it’s a lark, and that a fee is some kind of fun bonus, will probably end up on the scrap head faster than a soprano can flutter her eyelashes (albeit in vain) at a casting director.
When I was young no-one told me about tax. When you sing abroad, with very very few exceptions, you will have tax deducted from your gross fee at source. The only places that don’t, off the top of my head, are the Netherlands and Monaco, though don’t ask me why. The tax rate varies wildly from nation to nation. Last time I was there, Italy and Spain took 25%. That’s about the going rate you should expect, and as I said in Gob 1, they will usually take it off your airfare too. …
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