Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise: Who is the American composer?
1) Composers don’t make a mint from their work. They have a median total income of $45,000, and, on average, they derive 19% of that amount from composition. Yet they spend twenty-seven hours a week on composing-related activities. Eighty-five respondents — 6.4% of the total — make a living entirely from writing music. That figure is actually higher than I might have guessed.
2) Composers — at least those responding to this survey — are predominantly white and male: 85% and 79% respectively. But those figures will drop as new generations rise.