A French quartet is denied US visa

Message from Jordan Victoria of the Arod Quartet:

 
It’s been almost 3 months since we applied for a US visa to tour the United States. We have the same papers for concerts, made the same trips, we are on the same petition, we are all French with a French passport. On paper it should be the same for everyone! And yet..

Like every time, Jeremy, Tanguy and I have our visa in 48 hours and like every time Alexandre’s one takes longer, we don’t know why.
As every time, a few weeks before departure we get no response from the embassy and start sending emails every day to inform that departure is in a few weeks and that we urgently need Alexandre’s visa.

We warn agents that the date is approaching and still have nothing despite the many emails our agents, contacts, organizers and us send every day to the embassy.

A few days before departure, we’re forced to think of a plan B: find an American violinist who will be there or someone who has a valid US visa at the time. The stress, the fatigue, the sleepless nights, the organization, the rehearsals with the mind that this is a program that we will surely not play with Alexandre. All that hard work..
Every day we expect the slightest phone ringtone, the slightest email!

In vain.

Today we leave without Alexandre, lose a colossal amount of money and see the stress and fatigue of arriving the night before a concert and preparing a Haydn Quartet, a Mendelssohn Quartet and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden with someone we doesn’t know.

I would like to understand, if Alexandre is the only one in this case. If the reasons, which we will never know, are not tied to his origins.

Maybe 3 months were not enough to peel off the paper he had to fill out for the Xth time, including the last 15 years of his musician life in detail.

After all, it’s only for 10 days of concerts, is there really a need for all that?