WORKING ABROAD - BY VICTORIA DAVIES

Why work abroad?
Having the chance to work abroad as a musician can be a great experience and offer many new opportunities and perspectives. This can be particularly helpful if you didn’t take a gap year before college/university and are not quite sure what direction you want to go in. I was lucky enough to be offered a teaching job for a year in Thailand while I was doing my postgraduate course - which certainly wasn’t something I’d envisaged doing before! - and though I had no idea of what to expect when I got there, I decided that nothing ventured, nothing gained. As a result, I had a great year and a half of wonderful experiences that helped me in many ways. In this article I will discuss some of the issues involved with taking a job abroad and how this affects your work in your home country.

Staying in the loop
The first concern is usually getting out of the loop/losing contacts.  Unless you have a concert diary that is fully booked for the next two years, leaving it all behind for a few months isn’t going to be as big a deal as it first appears!  Prior to going to Thailand, I had a few regular orchestral commitments which I passed onto other people, and a couple of concerts, which I managed to plan into my school holidays (just because you are going abroad doesn’t mean that you have to stay there all the time that you are out there - obviously cost is a factor, but even from Thailand, there were many cheap flight options).  While it may seem to you that you’ve been gone for ages, a lot of people probably will not notice you’ve even been away and if you plan to work abroad for a relatively short period of time (anything up to a year) then it’s unlikely that anyone from your freelance gigs will think you’ve disappeared off the face of the earth, especially if you keep in regular contact via telephone/email.

Email is such a useful resource and is vital in keeping up to date with contacts anyway, but you can become better at it once it becomes your lifeline.  Though organising my email efficiently was never a strong point (!) it did get a lot better during the time I was away and enabled me to stay in touch with employers and keep accepting jobs. Passing jobs to friends still at home will enable you to keep in regular contact and ensure that they return the favour when you get back!  (and this is where things such as Facebook/msn become useful and not just a good way of killing time during practise).

Pros of working abroad
The best part of working abroad can be the opportunity to work outside your normal circle, and especially if you have been in college for a long time, to live outside of an institution! Working in a totally different environment with different rules can be a good preparation for entering work outside the confines of a conservatoire at home, and wean you off the support given by your university/college.  It also gives you the opportunity to make new contacts and friends and widen your circle.  It can also be a good time to undertake a project with people with whom you may not otherwise come into contact. For example, during my time abroad, I did a recording project with my fellow teacher and colleague (Images Orientales, which can be purchased from the Musical Prospects MP3 store), and we performed together many times. This is something we hope to keep up even though we are now living in different countries.

Using your time away from home
You will probably find that your working life abroad will feel less stressful, once you have settled in, as you will probably have a planned job and will not be freelancing as you would at home, so now is the opportunity to take a step back and think about what you would like to achieve in the future. At the risk of sounding like a cheesy motivational coach, this is a really good time to plan and think ahead (don’t leave it to the last couple of months as I did) and start sending off letters/Cvs, etc., to schools/jobs/auditions well in advance--probably after the 6-month mark when you are halfway through your break.  One of my friends took the opportunity to do an orchestral audition in a nearby country when she was abroad, which was something she probably wouldn’t have done if she had still been at home, so this is also something to consider.  While you may not want to stay in your temporary job forever, you may find something else which appeals to you, but not necessarily back in your home country. Either way, it offers more options.

Extending your stay abroad
It’s possible you may love your job abroad so much that you will want to stay there forever. I spent a little longer in mine than planned, as I had such a good time. Even if you decide that you can’t stay there, you should still maintain contact with your employers, as you may have the opportunity to return at some point, should you find that getting back into the rat-race was not quite as alluring as it seemed before.  In any case, no-one is asking you to stay there forever (unless you want to). I found that a year is really a very short time, and mine flew by. As well as doing my job, I also prepared for, and took part in, a big competition (something I might not have otherwise had the time to prepare all the programme for), had some lessons in Australia, did concerts at home in the holidays, made a CD and went to Japan with my colleague to perform the works we’d recorded….and managed to have a couple of non-music-related trips as well.  Surprising how much you can fit in 18 months!

Victoria Davies. June 2007