Some Best Practices for Hiring Accompanists

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Meri's Musical Musings has a very informative post on how to choose an accompanist for your performance, audition, exam, or competition, with best practices for both parents and teachers:

Respect the accompanist’s fee and DON’T BARGAIN WITH THEM; remember, they need to factor in the time you gave them to learn the music (which in one case my husband got was literally the night before, only had an hour to rehearse the music just before the audition, as the candidate’s previous accompanist proved to be inadequate), the time it takes to travel to the rehearsal and performance locations (especially if they are different), the accompanist’s experience, and if the performance and rehearsal locations are easily accessible by public transit or not.

This is useful advice for teachers hiring a pianist for their entire studio:

Another thing if you are a teacher when you have a number of students working with the same accompanist: collect the money from each student or parent first, instead of asking each student or parent to pay the accompanist directly, which you then give the money collected from each student to the accompanist on the day of the first rehearsal. Otherwise, you run the risk of the students not showing up, or forgetting to pay the accompanist, or the students running into the next session if they show up late, or losing a bunch of cash or cheques.

What else would you recommend as better ways for performers, parents or teachers to hire a pianist?

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From Unknown — Sunday 27 April 2014 — Add Comment — Careers