“How much should composers get paid for commissions?” write David E. Farrell and Loretta Notareschi in Wednesday’s (2/3) New Music Box. “Considering how much composers should be paid is even more difficult if we don’t know what composers are being paid…. We decided to create a survey to ask composers to name their commission fees…. In fall 2019, we launched the survey and received data from over 200 composers, reflecting information on 871 commissions from 2017 and 2018…. The major conclusions: … The median commission fee for all compositions was $1,500…. Commissions for small groups or soloists were more likely to be unpaid, or for small fees. Commissions for large ensembles were more likely to be paid…. Composers with more experience tended to receive higher fees. Without taking into consideration factors such as experience level, female composers had a higher per-minute pay rate than males, and white composers had a higher per minute pay than non-white composers (as a group). More data is needed…. Beyond more data collection, we would also like to invite future researchers to collaborate with us to conduct more sophisticated statistical analyses…. The recent trend toward open discussion of pay needs to come to the field of composition.”
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