Japanese Classical Musicians in Europe: Institutional Constraints and Survival Strategies

In my presentation I will examine career building processes of Japanese professional musicians on the Polish and French markets of classical music to see whether a profession of classical musician can be conceived as cosmopolitan. On account of its universal language, we tend to imagine that the art world (Becker 1982) of classical music encourages equal international exchanges and is open to all musicians regardless of their national, cultural or personal characteristics be it nationality, education, language, value system etc., provided that they have an excellent command of the musical instrument (technique, expression etc.).

 To verify whether this cliché reflects reality I have carried out over 40 interviews with Japanese musicians, music teachers, composers, who currently pursuit their professional career in Poland or in France, as well as with those who being unable to do it, have come back to Japan.

The Japanese migrating to or circulating around Europe are already formed as musicians and social actors when leaving Japan. If they wish to perform their profession outside the Japanese environment, they will have to adopt conventions (Becker 1982) produced by people from the given environment to cooperate with them.

 Will they have equal opportunities to compete on the European world of classical music and become a part of the highly skilled privileged migrants or rather end up as another type of precariat (Coulangeon 1998) due to uncertain professional conditions? What are then objective (relatively independent from individual decisions, such as education system, labor market, immigration law etc.) and subjective (resulting from the person’s individual choices), factors in biographies of the Japanese, which influence professional orientations (Hughes 1972)? Ultimately, what does it tell us about shifts on the labor market triggered by globalization and universalization at least in the domain of arts?