GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
— From “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick, 1591–1674
Dear Erda,
I am looking for advice regarding the handling of student loans while trying to build a career. I am a second-year grad student looking into competition and YAP auditions, but I don’t know what I will realistically be able to do next year with all the debt I will have.
I am interested in performing not only opera but also choral, chamber, and concert. Ultimately, I think I would be perfectly happy with a local to regional singing career, coupled with some kind of teaching career and a family life!
With impending heavy debt, is it unrealistic for me to apply to any of those year-long residency programs—or, should I be accepted to one, is there a way to do it and still defer or start to pay off my loans? Would it be more appropriate to keep my applications to smaller commitments like summer programs? I want to build my résumé and experience to be competitive in the singing world, but the “real world” is getting in the way.
—Dana Kephart
Dear Dana,
What you are really asking is “How do I start a small business with little to no money, while I’m owing money, trying to pay rent and grocery bills, and have some sort of life?” I’m afraid there aren’t any easy answers. But you do have some options. Here are some things to think about.
Youth is a commodity in our business, and certain opportunities are open to young singers that are not available to late bloomers. If you want to be a professional singer, it’s in your best interest to “gather ye rosebuds while ye may”—in other words, pursue these opportunities vigorously before you age out. Young Artist Programs, competitions, certain grants, etc., certainly fall into the rosebuds-needing-gathering category.
Furthermore, you need to understand how the business works. Any startup requires a lot of love, especially at the beginning. Regardless of what kind of apprenticeship you seek and whether or not you have a day job, if you want to establish yourself as a soloist, you will need to expend a lot of time, effort, and personal resources. You’ll need to be organized, diligent, and proactive. You’ll need to work on your singing business every day—and I don’t mean just the artistic side of learning music and going to rehearsal. You have to work on marketing yourself, lining up auditions, doing publicity, networking, and more. And you need to do this consistently.
Opera is quite expensive to produce, and very few companies will take a chance on an unknown. Therefore, singers need to do all they can to develop a core of champions—established professionals who will mentor and recommend you; a body of work that shows progress, reliability, and artistry; and relationships with producers who will hire you back. If you are a late starter or if you took a number of years off before coming back to singing, you will have to start from scratch or close to it in order to re-establish yourself, and you will not have those rosebud opportunities to help out. It’s not an insurmountable problem, but it is a significant added hurdle.
If you are accepted into a year-round Young Artist Program or residency, you won’t be making much money and it’s highly unlikely you’ll have time for even a part-time job. In that case, you would probably need a deferment or forbearance on your loans, but the debt would still be waiting for you when you emerged from your program. You’d be postponing the problem—but with the hope that additional training, experience, contacts, and résumé credits would enable you to grow your singing business to the point where you could support yourself as well as cover your loan payments.
How do you know whether you are eligible for a deferment or forbearance?
Depending on the type of loan you have, you may be able to get a deferment (a set period during which time you do not have to pay principal or interest on your loan). The government may even pay your interest on Federal Perkins Loans, Direct Subsidized Loans, and Subsidized Federal Stafford Loans during deferment.
You may be eligible to apply for a deferment if you have federally subsidized loans and any of the following is true:
• You’re enrolled at least half time in college or a career school.
• You’re engaged in an approved graduate fellowship program.
• You’re unemployed or can’t find full-time employment (you can defer for up to three years).
• You’re in a period of economic hardship (you can defer for up to three years).
Since Young Artist Programs and residencies are often low-paying and educational, it seems like they might qualify. But you won’t really know until you discuss it with a representative of your loan servicer (the company that is handling your loans). According to the Federal Student Aid representative I spoke with, only your loan servicer can make the determination as to whether your YAP participation qualifies you for deferment or forbearance.
Another option is forbearance—up to 12 months during which you can reduce your payments or stop making them entirely if you are not eligible for a deferment. There are two types of forbearance: 1) discretionary, in which the lender has the power to grant or deny a deferment when there is illness or financial hardship on your part, and 2) mandatory, in which the lender must grant forbearance if you meet the criteria. These criteria include various types of medical internships, national service positions, military services, and certain teaching services—all of which have additional requirements. You may also be eligible if your total monthly bill for all your student loans is 20 percent or more of your total monthly gross income (additional conditions apply).
Regardless of whether you apply for deferments or forbearance, you should sit down with your loan servicer representative and work out a reasonable payment plan―and if you ever find yourself having trouble making payments, your first call should be to your loan servicer. They want that money, and it’s in their best interest to help you work out something you can afford. Also, visit studentaid.ed.gov or call them at 1-800-4-FED-AID (1-800-433-3243). They can walk you through some of this and will have helpful suggestions.
If you are ineligible for a deferment, or if you decide to channel your resources into summer YAPs and local productions so that you can work a day job and pay down some debt, you will need to have the type of job that pays enough to accomplish your financial goals while still allowing you flexibility to take time off for auditions and the program itself. You’ll also need to make sure you live in a part of the country where you have access to plenty of performance opportunities. And you’ll need to build and maintain relationships with the arts organizations in your community in order to make sure you’re on their artist-to-call lists. You still have to work hard to establish your singing business―and you still have to do that work consistently.
You said you’d be happy with a local or a regional singing career, but you should understand that these are two different things. Although there’s no “official” definition, I think most people would understand a local singer to be one who works mainly in the city in which she is based, probably with a variety of income streams such as a church job, teaching, chorus, and solo work, and possibly even a day job.
Singers with regional careers are on the road quite a lot and are usually unable to hold a day job (unless it’s some sort of work that can be done from wherever they happen to be, with no time constraints). All it means to say you have a regional career is that you work mainly in the small, medium, and large houses that don’t happen to be A houses—the biggest budget companies. And while you certainly can support yourself doing this, you won’t get rich.
Regardless of the path you choose, it takes a great deal of research, planning, time, and money to maintain a singing career, especially at the beginning. The mistake that many young singers make is that they expect there to be some sort of logical path or existing structure to enter after school—but the only path or structure is the one you create for yourself. You’ve taken a positive step by establishing your mission—to perform opera, choral, concert, and chamber music in a local and/or regional setting while maintaining a teaching career and family life—and in beginning to assess your situation and evaluate your options. Keep doing that.
I encourage you to further define your mission in terms of what percentage of your resources you will dedicate to getting your singing career off the ground as you begin. Assuming you can get a deferment on your student loans, will you go all or nothing on the singing for a set period of time? If you can’t get a deferment, will you take time off from pursuing your singing career to pay down some debt and build a nest egg? If so, how long and how will you prepare to get started again after a period of “time off”? (That’s a subject all its own—see next month’s column.) If you decide to hold a 9-to-5 job while pursuing your singing career, how will you structure your life to allow time for lessons, coachings, auditions, rehearsals, performances, and all the accompanying work you must do?
Come up with a basic plan. (Check the April and May 2014 issues for my two-part article, “A Roadmap for Your Career,” to help you do that). I suggest you start by looking at your loans, making sure you understand exactly what you have, and arranging to meet with a representative of your loan servicer to determine your options. Next, you’ll have to make a decision about what you want the next few years of your life to look like.
After that, you take it step by step, or rosebud by rosebud, as the case may be. Good luck!
