Together [You & I]

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432 Park Avenue, New York

Seokhoon and Rona said goodbye to Yoonhee. Suryeon was currently in London with Seokkyung. Her semester was about to begin, so they didn't want to bother either of them right now. With what they just said to Yoonhee, they headed into their study room and looked at the piles of documents on the table. This entire stack indicated just how popular Seokhoon and Rona were.

The typical path of a professional classical musician/singer was that after they graduated from University, they would find a music residency. This means that the musician would be attached to a specific concert company or music company for a period of time. During this time they would perform mainly with this company although depending on the musician/artist, they can take other jobs outside of the residency.

Some musicians who are very popular would often be managed by another agency. Like in the case of Seokhoon and Rona, they were managed by Shimwoo & Co - Suryeon has specifically created a company/entertainment agency for them (only two artists). So even though Seokhoon and Rona had the freedom to choose which residency they wanted, Shimwoo & Co would have to approve and their managers would follow them as well.

So Seokhoon and Rona needed to narrow down what their top 3 choices were to clear with Suryeon. They sat down and started to sort the different documents by cities and countries. Seokhoon and Rona had already decided they would like to probably work in Europe so they had already put the offers from the USA in the 'No' pile.

So which countries should we decide on?

Hmmmm, I like Italy, Austria and France.

I like those choices but compared to France I would prefer Germany.

Then let's look at these 4 countries. Seokhoon and Rona spent the next 2 hours looking at every  offer from the 4 countries and finally they narrowed down 5 offers from each city. One of the criteria was that they offered it to both Seokhoon and Rona. Since Seokhoon and Rona performed more as a duo, more residency was offered for both of them.

With that narrowed even further down, France was taken off the table. There were no music residency offers that Seokhoon and Rona received from the same location. That left Italy, Austria and Germany. Overall all three countries were famous for their classical music programmes, either of the three would be a good choice. But what the couple had to take into consideration was the living cost as well as future. Even though music residencies don't last too long (about 1-2 years) it was obvious the couple would continue to live in Europe for a couple more years before coming back to Seoul.

In terms of countries to best raise a family, Austria and Germany were the best countries based on their research. So Seokhoon and Rona started to concentrate on these two countries and look very carefully at each offer. Some offers were much more constricting; there were many more conditions that Seokhoon and Rona had to fulfil in order to keep their music residency. This was not ideal for the couple as that meant that they could not do many freelance performances of their own.

Soon after 3 hours, Seokhoon and Rona finally narrowed it down to 3 offers in total. 2 of the offers came from Austria while the last one from Germany. All three offers were good, there was creative freedom for the couple, the organisation gave Seokhoon and Rona the exact same offer and even allowed them to perform as a duo. So all in all, any of these three were good. For now, Seokhoon and Rona couldn't really decide on their next steps. They informed their managers of their decision, it would be wise to have a second pair of eyes looking at the offers. Also they needed Suryeon to sign off on the final decision, so it would be best that she takes a look at what Seokhoon and Rona had narrowed down into. Only after they finalised where and what offer they were going to take can Seokhoon and Rona begin the processes of moving.

Note: I am sorry I didn't update as much this week. Super busy week, so I didn't have the brain power nor the time to really sit down and write ^^