French quartet is barred from the US
NewsMessage from the Quatuor Arod:
The Arod Quartet sincerely apologizes for having to cancel our US tour especially to our public in La Jolla, Gainesville, Charlottesville…
Unfortunately, none of the members of the quartet received their work permit in time, therefore we were not able to ask for our visa, despite having started our application in July 2023. We are deeply saddened by this situation and understand your disappointment.
We are determined to reschedule these concerts in the future, and in the meantime, we thank you for your understanding and your continued support.
We cannot wait to perform for you soon!
I hope they applied in English.
I don’t think it would matter whether they applied in English. There’s no one in he government which understands it. Nor do they understand time. Now..if it had been a visa for Shania Twain or a football player then it would have happened in 48 hours. But, since they do not understand what an Arod let alone 4 with a singular name they were probably confused.
Peter G
From the quartet’s website:
“So, what is this “Arod”? A forgotten composer, a mythical city, a mysterious acrostic? Why not, indeed. In fact, Le Quatuor Arod chose as their tutelary figure a knight imagined by Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings. A symbol of strength and ardour (his name means “agile, swift”), he also embodied a spirit of freedom and companionship given that the elf Legolas provided him with a bareback horse, without reins.”
It’s all Trump’s fault. Or Biden’s.
Or both.
Please, we have enough both-sides-ism going around right now.
Hopefully the quartet won’t try to enter at the U.S.-Texas border where some “very fine person” would be there, ready to shoot them.
Actually, going to Mexico and declaring themselves “refugees” at the Texas border may be the solution to the problem. Added bonus if they are headed to NYC: they’ll a debit card with $10k on it and a free hotel room.
LOL
How in God’s name can’t the US process work permits in 8 months?
It does, I have never had it longer than 10 weeks, normally the processing time is 4-5 weeks.
This is apalliing.
Soe iz yer speling
(s/b “appalling” – not “apalliing”)
Damn! That’ll be Brexit again, I expect.
There seems to be no accountability in the passport/visa US bureaucrazy. Maybe they had a lot of people decide to quit because of covid no sick leave policies? That is workforce-wide.
The employees are federal employees and get sick leave.
In olden days (I e. way before social media = S&M), we hoi polloi would never have been given or known any reason for the cancellation.
One point in favor of easy transparent communication.
But only one….
This is unfortunate and reminds me of when the Dover Quartet almost had o cancel some performances due to the first violinist refusing to get vaccinated. I have read some of his correspondences and oh boy they’re not pretty and he’s very anti vax. scared of the needles perhaps. hopefully, that doesn’t happen.
These frequent irrelevant anonymous jibes at the first violinist of the Dover quartet are getting to be tedious. I know SD apparently tolerates hate campaigns against certain musicians, but it is not one of its more appealing aspects.
I think it’s hate campaign if it’s not true but it is not hate campaign if things that are said are true. do you know what i am saying? all we want is the truth…. i mean he is handful.
We have an Italian quartet visiting our city next week, so it’s not like the U.S. is barring entry of musicians. It’s still taking 7 to 10 weeks for a U.S. citizen to get a passport, unless they pay for expedited processing. There is a lot of demand for post-Covid international travel and not enough staff.
Yes, but the Arod members submitted their applications 8 months ago! It’s shameful negligence on the part of the bureaucracy.
I’ll be honest : while 8 months is a long time, I’ve worked for french artists who needed US visas and we knew to start the process a full year in advance. Usually that meant we would get the visa 1-2 months before the concert. So while I agree the bureaucracy is to blame, it’s not negligence : it’s like this for all artists (in classical music at least)
If you can pay and get expedited processing, they can process without payment. Another money scam by the govt.
Actually, I recently applied for a new US passport: in the mail on Dec 7, new passport mailed to me on Dec 19. And I didn’t pay for expediting.
Not sure where you live but in France, you first need to petition for a US visa, that can take months to be approved, then you fill the DS-160, and then you usually need to go to an appointment at the embassy (spoilers : they’re always full you can wait for months). And then you apply for the visa. Yes, that usually takes a few days, weeks at most. But that’s only the last step to a long process.
You can request “expedited” processing for an O-1 visa for an additional fee of $1,400. This could have been split equally among the three presenters they were working with.
A scam.
Having performed several tours in the US as a visitor from Europe, I can only shake my head at your comment. No US Presenter would ever countenance covering travel, hotel, visa, or any associated production cost.
I’ve been in this situation and usually the presenters won’t pay : but you can work with a lawyer on this, who will be the petitioner. It’s even more expensive but sometimes you don’t have a choice. I’ve worked with an artist who needed a US visa for a concert that was in 5 months (it got confirmed late) and at that point we knew the expedited processing was the only way.
This visa problem for touring musicians has been going on for quite some time. Whose fault? The State Department bureaucracy.
This has nothing to do with the State Dept. What the positing says is that they didn’t get a timely approval of their work petitions, this is something the petitioning organization (US agent, presenter, whoever) filed with the USCIS.
Not necessary. It’s the Department of Homeland Security that receives and adjudicates the visa petition (probably a P1). Only after it’s processed by DHS does it get to an embassy for a visa interview. You would think DHS would get it there in less than seven months, but you never know.
They should have said on the application that they were sporting heroes. They would have been there yesterday with a ticker parade
If they came in through Texas illegally, the governor would bus them up to NYC where they would get a free hotel room and each a gift Visa card with a $10,000 balance before the first concert.
The headline is misleading, the facts are unclear. They are not barred from the US, they didn’t get their performance work approvals on time, these are different things. They can reapply any time they wish. “Having started” an application doesn’t mean “having filed” an application with the USCIS to get the review process started. Started what? Gathering documents? Getting their contracts for the tour? In my experience the turnaround time for this type of work permits has varied from 3 to 10 weeks the longest from *filing* without a premium processing fee. Premium processing gets you a response from the USCIS in 15 days. It is easy to blame someone else’s screw ups on the bureaucracy (which has a lot of problems, of course). Maybe not this one.
There are just not enough people at the Department of Homeland Security to process and adjudicate the visa petitions faster, or then to adjudicate them in an embassy consular section. Nothing nefarious, just: Who wants to hire more bureaucrats?
They weren’t “barred”- they didn’t do their paperwork in time.
Nine months is not enough time?
It’s an absurdly long time, but when you have to choose between conspiracy and incompetence…choose incompetence.
They didn’t file nine month ago, nothing in the post suggests that. Starting an application (it is called a petition) is not the same as filing. Someone screwed up something at their end, but of course no one will ever admit that and one can always blame anything on the government. I deal with artist visas all the time, things can take up to a couple of months to get a response the government, but I have not seen longer processing times.
They say they “started” the process nine months ago. They didn’t say when their visa applications were completed. It doesn’t matter when you start the process. It matters when you complete it so that it can be reviewed by USCIS.
Not in the US these days, and they should know that by now.
Easy solution. Go to Mexico and walk across the border into California, not far from La Jolla. Claim asylum from the guillotine in France. The border guards will say they heard about Marie Antoinette and will give you free mobile phones to talk to your fellow refugees. They will also offer you free health care.I exaggerate only about the guillotine.
Hardly barred
Perhaps we’re not getting the full story here. We are, of course, getting their version of this story. A sad outcome either way.
There are plenty of hungry American quartets, or even other types of chamber ensembles (they do exist).
Spot on, Peter.
One office mate asked the other office mate, “what’s a string quartet?” The other one shrugged. “Sounds suspicious.” Rejected.
Chalk up another wonderful accomplishment by our fantastic DOS. They sure put the awe in awful.
They were not barred. They did not get their papers in time, there’s a difference, unless they will never be allowed entry. They could have walked across the Rio Grande like so many others…