alt Hacker News> Even the first-chair musicians and conductors have side gigs.
A principal player (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair') in a major symphony orchestra in the United States makes $250k-400k a year. These are extremely competitive jobs and they are paid well. Certainly enough to live on if you wanted to.
These people often teach, but not really because they need a "side-gig." If you ask them, they will likely tell you they feel a certain duty to prepare the next generation, they like teaching, and their rehearsal/performance schedule affords them the time.
There are about twenty of these people, though.
I said "approximately nobody".
At a first approximation, no musician who does it for money makes a living out of it. Classical, pop, rock, whatever.
Nobody in music, basically, makes real money. Fifty, maybe a hundred violinists in the entire world do earn a pure living. Perhaps another twenty five of each other instrument. A few international soloists in other instruments. But musicians in those jobs are often burning as much money as they are making. (Even Anouskha Shankar has a portfolio career).
This is essentially nobody. Everyone else in classical music is earning just the same way as popular musicians — and society doesn't "support" popular musicians at all! The perception that rock musicians make money touring, for example, is just that: perception. The vast majority of tours either just break even or lose money. Working in music production and staging makes better money than musicians make.
Everyone else, essentially, has another job.
> (I don't think anyone beyond high school band calls them 'first-chair')
Snark noted, though I have no earthly idea why you felt it necessary