Trying to Beat the Odds With Instagram and a Viola

Meet Drew Alexander Forde, also known to the world as ThatViolaKid.

His Youtube videos have names like “How To Get Into Juilliard”, “How to Fake it in Orchestra”, and “I Suck at Viola.”

On Instagram, Forde has more than 35,000 followers.

And he’s now trying to parlay his personality and his skills as violinist into paying work. It won’t be easy.

Forde, 24, received a graduate diploma from The Juilliard School in May. Soon, he’ll have to start repaying about $75,000 incurred in student debt at Juilliard and Mercer University.

He’s emerging into a classical music job market that increasingly resembles the “gig economy,” full of freelancers and independent contractors, but precious few steady jobs.

A study by the group BFAMFAPHD, relying on Census data, found only ten percent of bachelor’s degree arts grads go on to make their primary income from their art.

A different survey by Strategic National Arts Alumni Project offers a somewhat more optimistic view, with more than half of respondents with arts bachelor's degrees reporting they spent the majority of their work time employed in the arts.

Over the last decade, Juilliard has begun to acknowledge that a rigorous program of rehearsals and training may not be enough to help students make it after they graduate. The school now offers courses with titles like "The Musician as Entrepreneur" and “Understanding the Profession: The Performing Arts in the 21st Century.”

Bill Baker, a former TV executive who teaches the latter class, said unlike Drew Forde, a lot of young artists feel icky about the idea of promoting themselves and their work.

"I’ve had students say, all I want to do is play before a loving and respectful audience. And I say, 'Well that’s great. But do you have any desire to eat? Do you have any desire to have a bed where you can sleep at night? If you do, you're going to have to have money. And if you're going to have money, you gotta make this into a paying career,'" Baker said.

Drew Forde is betting social media will help him to break through, and built a career that reflects his personality: outgoing, nerdy, and unabashedly enthusiastic about classical music.

“I want to be the Neil deGrasse Tyson of classical music,” Forde said, referring to the director of the Hayden Planetarium, who is a frequent presence on TV and is also very popular on twitter.

Recently, Forde missed class to take a three-day paid job in Boston, from someone who learned about him through social media. 

Now that Forde has graduated, his ability to drum up more gigs like that one will be put to the test. Maybe one day he'll be able to make a video titled "How to Make Money with a Graduate Degree in Viola."