Pianist Anna Kavalerova is well known in different countries. She lived in Israel for many years, toured the world, and in 2019 her debut album was released in Germany. In other words, Anna was an ideal candidate for the Passeport Talent renommé national/international visa.
However, Anna first moved to France on a student visa in 2022, and her Passeport Talent was approved in July of 2023.
I learned that you can go to France on a student visa to a language school. And I did it with the intention to later change the visa to Passeport Talent.
I applied for Passeport Talent renommé national/international online in June 2023. My case had about 180 pages and included the maximum amount of information for the last 2 years as well as something for 2016-2017. I didn’t put any work contracts there as those are not very common in the music industry. Instead I included a lot of information about my past earnings from 2022. It worked.
A week later I was asked to clarify where I study. Then after 2-3 days they asked me to send the info about my attendance, grades from the French course and resend my financial documents. After 3 weeks my Passeport Talent for 4 years was approved.
8 translated award certificates
Interviews in the magazine and articles in online media. There are a lot of publications about me, because I have an official album released on a German label which is sold in online stores and is on various streaming services.
There are seven in total: two from French individuals and five from past and future employers from different countries. Some of the recommendations were simply my characteristics. And the other ones mentioned intentions about future projects and concerts. But without any specifying fees.
The biggest challenge in the paperwork was that musicians often do not have standard contracts. Therefore, in my case there was no evidence that I would have specific earnings in the next season. But it turned out that visa can be approved even without this information.
One page of text in French. I wrote it myself and I think there are mistakes there, but I decided to leave everything as it is. To make it clear that the text is mine.
In the letter I stated:
“I would like to become an individual entrepreneur and open a private teaching studio.”
1. If you’re applying from France, translate and notarize all your documents there. For some translations simple free online PDF translators were enough.
2. Make sure your motivational letter is perfect - it’s the key.
3. Passeport Talent is a relatively new program and not everyone understands all of its nuances. So make sure whoever's assisting you, is well aware of all the requirements of all 11 categories of Passeport Talent.
4. You need to be prepared that when you relocate, everything takes longer than you expected: what you thought was going to take 6 months, will in fact take 2 years.
5. You can translate a lot of things using free online tools.
