When celebrity photographer Barbra Porter picks up her camera, such stars as Billy Bob Thornton, Garth Brooks and Eric Clapton know she'll make them look good. But in her other career, Porter also makes the stars sound good -- by performing as a violinist for the Academy Awards telecast, on the soundtrack to "Pirates of the Caribbean" and in concert with Celine Dion.
"I think many musicians have multiple talents," says Porter, who rejects the image of stuffy, single-minded classical artists. "A musician's mind is often racing with ideas, yet you're expected to just sit there without wiggling during a performance."
Porter is one of many successful musicians who lead parallel lives, carrying on two or more high-powered careers simultaneously. Blasting through stereotypical images of the starving artist, these top studio, symphonic and theater musicians explore multiple passions without compromising their musical integrity. In doing so, they also hedge their bets against the economic downturn that is eroding arts budgets and threatening employment.
"Dual careers are almost always a bonus -- both for the income and for the variety and exposure to contrasting environments," says Barbara Sher, author of the 2006 book "Refuse to Choose: A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love." "And the second job might allow them to use sides of their natures that aren't expressed as musicians."
Manhattan Beach cellist Margo Tatgenhorst Drakos could be a poster child for Sher's book. A former member of the American String Quartet, Drakos has taught at the Manhattan School of Music, summered at Vermont's prestigious Marlboro Music Festival and worked as associate principal cellist with the Pittsburgh Symphony.
You'd think that any performer would be content with such a resume. But in 2008, Drakos also earned a master's in human rights from Columbia University's School of International Affairs, and today she works as chief operating officer for instantencore.com, an online service in San Diego linking audiences, performers and music schools, while continuing her performing career.
Much like those of other dual-career musicians, the path Drakos forged wound unpredictably. Her executive job developed after she met high-tech board members while playing with the San Diego Symphony; her graduate studies grew out of political debates with her husband, a petroleum engineer turned physician.
"I didn't feel qualified to back up my arguments, so I applied to Columbia in international affairs," Drakos says. At first, she was denied admission because the college she had attended -- Philadelphia's elite Curtis Institute of Music -- did not become accredited until 1993, but she was later accepted.
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So complementary
As Drakos began studying at Columbia, she was surprised to feel resistance from colleagues in both the classical and the business worlds. Fellow musicians sometimes dissed her for "selling out," she says, while co-workers in the second career assumed that she had been a failure as a musician and were distrustful of her other abilities.
Yet musicians such as Drakos often excel equally in two discrete worlds, their pursuits complementing each other. For example, mathematics and proportion learned through musical form may plug directly into another field, such as architecture or computing. Other musicians find more abstract uses for their musical training, citing the competitive nature of performing, the discipline of practicing and flexibility learned from irregular scheduling as among their professional assets.
Tenured as assistant principal cello with San Francisco Ballet, Victor Fierro is also a top real estate agent who nailed 15 deals in his first year of sales back in 1988. He keeps the two careers separate but sees how they also mesh well.
"Real estate is very compatible with a musician's life," says Fierro, whose busy "Nutcracker" ballet season falls during the winter house-selling doldrums. "And because I like to practice cello late evenings, I see clients late morning or afternoon."
Many musicians such as Fierro -- especially those with entrepreneurial second interests -- jump at the chance to fold a new career into their existing schedules. Others, tired of working nights, weekends, holidays and at other people's weddings, actually yearn for the regular hours of nine-to-fivers.
"Law school gave my life order and consistency," says Rochelle Skolnick, an attorney in St. Louis who describes playing freelance violin in southern Florida as tenuous and stressful. Skolnick left her violin in its case during law school but recently started fiddling again. "Now when I'm playing, it's like filigree," she says.
