Professional Aspirations in Exile

This paper utilizes qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine the careers of foreign (non-EU) musicians living and working in Europe, and in particular, the second phase of a career in classical music of Japanese musicians in France and Poland. It focuses on the endeavors of both male and female musicians to remain in the profession, in the face of a number of interrelated sources of inequality (i.e., socio-cultural origins, ethnicity, gender and class) (Winker/Degele, 2011) that have a structuring impact on their professional and life decisions. This analysis foregrounds ethnicity (nationality), socio-cultural origins, and socially contextualized gender as the most significant elements in the second stage of the career-making process. In other words, this article takes an intersectional stance (Crenshaw, 1995) to examine the process of performing a “modest” career in music for male and female Japanese migrant artists as a process of “working out a compromise” between what is desired (a passion for music and aesthetic satisfaction), what is professionally achievable (in France and Poland), and what is expected upon an eventual return to Japan.