Scholarship of Choice - help Ala get her oboe! :)

[JohnnyViolin]

Hello everyone!

My name is John, and I study violin in the Cracow Music Academy in Poland.

I am trying to help my girlfriend, Ala, to study music too. She stopped playing right after we finished highschool, because the competition on the music academies was very tough at that time and she didn't pass, which discouraged her.
Unfortunately, that discouraged her to play, and meanwhile she took up studies not related to music (which she studies up to this day). After some time though, she began to play again, as the thought of not playing ever again kept haunting her. It was tough, but she's making progress, and we hope that in a year or so she may try to apply to music studies again. It's very hard to learn without a teacher though...

So we figured, that she might try to audition this year, only on a less popular field, though not in any case less important - the baroque oboe. Soon she fell in love with the sound and taste of baroque oboe music, and is getting ready for the entrance exam in 3 weeks.
Here's the catch - to study baroque oboe, you have to OWN one, because none of the academies we know offers renting that kind of instrument. Right now we can't afford it, luckily we found a scholarship programme in Poland called "Stypendium z wyboru" - which translates to "Scholarship of Choice". We made a short presentation and applied for financing the instrument. Soon we found out, that it's not the best ideas/presentations, that win, but the ones with most votes.

That is why we need your help. It takes less than a minute to vote and to make Ala's dream come true.
I realise that it might seem improper to come out of nowhere and ask for help on a forum, that is not necessarily suited for that kind of pleas.
That's why I put in some extra work, so you see that we're sincere and determined.

First of all, I made an English version of the presentation for the scholarship programme:
http://www.slideshare.net/Ciabatka/p...glish-tutorial

Second, since this is a musicians forum, I'll share with you a recording I made some time ago on an exam with my piano trio. It's not great, but that's all I have now - if you like it, I may be adding more later:


All I ask you to do, is to click this link:
http://stypendiumzwyboru.absolvent.p...c-obrazow-1156
and scroll down, log in to your facebook and click the "Oddaj głos" ("Vote") button, as well as the "Like!" button.

Once again I hope no one finds this post offensive, as I understand that a forum might not be the place for such pleas. However, please forgive us, as the passion for music makes people do all sorts of wrong things, and this might just not be the worst you could do

Yours sincerely,
John.

[Treestump]

I need you to do something very important before you go any further. Is your girlfriend working now and earning a decent wage? Do you know how much money she is likely to earn as a baroque oboist/ are there any jobs for this instrument where you live and how much money will she get compared to what she can earn as a non musician?. There is another consideration that you must consider. If she goes to college for 3 years to do baroque oboe, she will lose any money that she could have earned in those 3 yeas. This may not seem important to you now, but in 10 years when you want to buy a house, have children, go on holiday it might be. If your girlfriend continues to work in the job that she has would it be possible for her to save for a baroque oboe? I live in the UK and it is well known here that amateur musicians can afford better instruments than professional musicians.

[JohnnyViolin]

Before I present our point of view, I'm gonna try to answer your questions.
1. She is working part-time.
2. In Poland it's hard to earn a good wage. She earns a good wage for a student, and a poor wage for international standards.
3. We are aware of how much she can earn as a baroque oboist, since I'm working in classical orchestras from time to time. As I said in the presentation (http://www.slideshare.net/Ciabatka/p...glish-tutorial), there are a lot of jobs for baroque oboists in Poland, since not many people play it.
4. 90% of the cases, as a musician in Poland, you will earn LESS than any other average worker. At least if you don't take other jobs, such as weddings or banquets.
5. She can't save enough to buy her own, since Cracow is very expensive being a tourist location, and having to pay for studies (mentioned in the presentation).

Life in Poland is a lot different than in western countries, such as the UK, so it's not really such a big deal when it comes to earning little. You can tell that we're immature, but I tell you, that we don't care that much about money since we don't have much at all, what we do care about is doing what you love, learning, making progress and having fun while doing so. If it's immature to say that we don't care about money, then we're immature and we'll stay that way.

One last thing - working as either a nanny, a translator or a musician in Poland, you won't earn enough to buy half a house for your lifetime.
Just so no one forgets what's the post about, please vote:
http://stypendiumzwyboru.absolvent.p...c-obrazow-1156