16th edition CNMN Bulletin – Spring 2013

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Table of Contents

CNMN Needs You — Now!
Mem­ber­ship Dues 2012–2013
CNMN goes to Ottawa
I.S.S. Is Some­body Singing?
The FORUM comes to Cal­gary 2014
Open Call for Pro­pos­als for FORUM 2014 in Calgary
CNMN’s Online Resource Directory
CNMN Region­al Meet­ings 2012–2013
Toron­to’s New Music 101 — A suc­cess­ful mod­el for Edu­ca­tion and Outreach
Wel­come New Members

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16th edi­tion CNMN Bul­letin – Spring 2013

  • CNMN Needs You — Now!

    Membership Payment

    New music is a com­plex, intense, all-con­sum­ing pas­sion for CNMN mem­bers.  We love music; we love bring­ing new works to life as com­posers, per­form­ers, impro­vis­ers, edu­ca­tors, tech­ni­cians, admin­is­tra­tors and lis­ten­ers.  We know what an incred­i­bly strong, pos­i­tive force cre­ative new music can be in a soci­ety, and we all want to be part of this dream.

    How­ev­er, cre­at­ing new music does not hap­pen on its own. It takes time, peo­ple and mon­ey.  It also means the nec­es­sary social, eco­nom­ic, artis­tic and polit­i­cal con­di­tions must be in place for musi­cal art to flour­ish.  This does not hap­pen on its own.  It’s only through con­stant net­work­ing and rep­re­sen­ta­tion that we, as a col­lec­tive, can shape these larg­er issues that have such a huge impact on our lives.

    CNMN does this work, and is very effec­tive at pre­sent­ing our per­spec­tive to a wide range of partners:

    • No oth­er organ­i­sa­tion is work­ing as close­ly with FACTOR to improve access to record­ings for new music.
    • No oth­er organ­i­sa­tion is work­ing with Her­itage Cana­da to guar­an­tee that new music is con­sid­ered a vital com­po­nent in the renew­al of the all-impor­tant Cana­da Music Fund.
    • No oth­er organ­i­sa­tion cre­ates a com­pre­hen­sive, bi-annu­al net­work­ing nation­al con­fer­ence — the FORUM.
    • No oth­er organ­i­sa­tion is con­sis­tent­ly work­ing with such a broad range of inter­na­tion­al net­works to expand the con­tacts and the con­text for Cana­di­an new music.
    • No oth­er organ­i­sa­tion offers such a com­pre­hen­sive Web resource for new music in Canada.

    SO — you’re busy, and you don’t have lots of extra cash. You just want to cre­ate and enjoy your music. Why wor­ry about these big­ger issues? Seems like a rea­son­able position.

    But it isn’t — that’s not how it works.  Music does not live on its own, it needs sup­port.  And if we don’t show, on a nation­al lev­el, that we col­lec­tive­ly believe and sup­port cre­ative music in Cana­da, then who will?

    With­out CNMN, the con­text for cre­ative new music mak­ing in Cana­da would be great­ly dimin­ished – now, and, more impor­tant­ly, in the future.  Unless there is a strong sup­port net­work for cre­ative new music in Cana­da, the music will not achieve its poten­tial.  It will remain mar­gin­alised, unknown, under­fund­ed and with an uncer­tain future.

    CNMN is an incred­i­bly cost-effec­tive organ­i­sa­tion, run­ning on a minis­cule bud­get and lots of love, sweat and thank­ful­ly, almost no tears.  But we need your mem­ber­ship dues. We need them this year. We need them now.  CNMN is plan­ning its most ambi­tious FORUM ever in Cal­gary in 2014, and we are work­ing on our most com­plex and com­pre­hen­sive rep­re­sen­ta­tion efforts to date.

    Mem­ber­ship renewals are cru­cial for two impor­tant reasons:

    1. It means we can speak for a large com­mu­ni­ty of cit­i­zens. Make no mis­take: this is a BIG deal to politicians.
    2. It gives us the nec­es­sary finan­cial resources to con­tin­ue this crit­i­cal work on behalf of our community.

    Being a paid, vot­ing mem­ber, and pay­ing your mem­ber­ship renew­al in CNMN is the sin­gle most impor­tant thing you can do today to make sure that new music has a future in Canada.

    - Tim Brady — Pres­i­dent — CNMN

     

    Direct arti­cle link: CNMN Needs You — Now!
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • Membership Dues 2012–2013

    Mem­ber­ship dues for the 2012–2013 peri­od are still com­ing in via online and mail. Those who still haven’t paid should have recent­ly received a reminder email with a copy of the invoice. Please try to set­tle dues this month. It is great­ly appreciated!

    If you have any ques­tions, feel free to con­tact Emi­ly Hall, CNMN Admin­is­tra­tive Direc­tor — admin@newmusicnetwork.ca

    Remem­ber: in Sep­tem­ber, we mod­i­fied the dates of our mem­ber­ship peri­od. Instead of Jan­u­ary 1st to Decem­ber 31st, we now fol­low the aca­d­e­m­ic and artis­tic sea­son cal­en­dar: Sep­tem­ber 1st to August 31st. This means your 2012 mem­ber­ship, which start­ed Jan­u­ary 1st 2012, goes until August 31st 2013 – 8 extra months!  We also have a new fee struc­ture. Depend­ing on when you joined, your invoice might have the old rate: in which case you can still pay that amount, but ONLY by cheque. Pay­Pal will only accept the new fee structure.

    Direct arti­cle link: Mem­ber­ship Dues 2012–2013
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • CNMN goes to Ottawa

    Over the past few months CNMN has had sev­er­al meet­ings with Cana­di­an Her­itage and oth­er par­ties to talk about the record­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion of Cana­di­an New Music. The fact that CBC is no longer a part­ner in our com­mu­ni­ty is a huge loss, so we need to find new strate­gies to get our music out there.

    Of great impor­tance is the renew­al of the $25 mil­lion Cana­da Music Fund.  This funds FACTOR, Musi­cac­tion and oth­er music-relat­ed ini­tia­tives at Cana­di­an Her­itage.  The fund will be renewed (we hope) in the 2015 bud­get, but dis­cus­sions are already begin­ning as to how to change the fund to reflect the new real­i­ties.  The Inter­net has rad­i­cal­ly changed all sec­tors of music mak­ing — both art music and com­mer­cial music — and the new fund will have to reflect that reality.

    In Feb­ru­ary 2013, I had a detailed phone meet­ing with Mme. Sophie Cou­ture, the new direc­tor of Music Pol­i­cy and Pro­grams at Cana­di­an Her­itage.  We dis­cussed the needs of our com­mu­ni­ty and the scope of what can be done.  In May, I met with music pol­i­cy ana­lysts Chris­tine Renaud and Mar­i­jo Larouche at their offices in Gatineau (nation­al cap­i­tal region), to present them with CNM­N’s eco­nom­ic mod­el for the spe­cial­ized music com­mu­ni­ty, and to learn more about the renew­al process for the Cana­da Music Fund (CMF).

    Spe­cial­ized music is the term often used to describe non-com­mer­cial music – new music, clas­si­cal music, choral music, con­tem­po­rary jazz, elec­troa­coustic, etc.

    Using cur­rent­ly avail­able sta­tis­tics, we found that the over­all eco­nom­ic impact of the spe­cial­ized music com­mu­ni­ty (ie: non-com­mer­cial music) is approx­i­mate­ly $883 mil­lion dol­lars per year in Cana­da. This includes music edu­ca­tors, orches­tras, jazz fes­ti­vals, choirs, new music groups, music instru­ment sales and the spe­cial­ized music pro­gram­ming por­tion of soft-seater pre­sen­ters.  It is a fair­ly con­ser­v­a­tive esti­mate — there is prob­a­bly more activ­i­ty, but we used only hard num­bers we could doc­u­ment in a cred­i­ble fashion.

    Cana­di­an Her­itage was quite intrigued by our new approach that pre­sent­ed the entire scope of our actions rather than just our mod­est tick­et rev­enues and CDs.  We hope this will get them to take our sec­tor more seri­ous­ly. To any Min­is­ter, mon­ey talks, and even more so with the cur­rent government.

    The two main aspects for the Cana­da Music Fund seem to be:

    1. Get­ting Cana­di­an music on the stage (nation­al­ly and internationally)
    2. Help­ing with dig­i­tal innovations.

    Check out the Cana­da Music Fund page on Cana­di­an Heritage’s web site — http://www.pch.gc.ca/eng/1267201611990

    Both these pri­or­i­ties fit with the needs of our com­mu­ni­ty, so the only issue is how will they design the pro­gram so that our com­mu­ni­ty can have fair access to fund­ing.  Tra­di­tion­al­ly, almost all this fund­ing goes to the com­mer­cial sec­tor.  We need to change that.

    In my capac­i­ty as a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Cana­di­an Arts Coali­tion, I also spoke with Robert Hunter, senior pol­i­cy ana­lyst at Cana­di­an Her­itage. The goal was to dis­cuss a very broad approach to poli­cies and strate­gies for the next 4 years, lead­ing up to 2017: Canada’s 150th anniver­sary, and the Cana­da Coun­cil’s 60th anniversary.

    We also began to talk about col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre in Ottawa.  Their nation­al vision, their strong inter­est in edu­ca­tion and tech­nol­o­gy, and their sum­mer new music acad­e­my make them nat­ur­al part­ners for CNMN.  I met with Ste­fani Tru­ant to begin an open-end­ed con­ver­sa­tion about ideas for mak­ing new music a more inte­gral part of the nation­al cul­tur­al dialogue.

    - Tim Brady — Pres­i­dent — CNMN

     

    Want to catch up? Lots more infor­ma­tion from past bulletins:

     

    Direct arti­cle link: CNMN goes to Ottawa
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • I.S.S. Is Somebody Singing

    Part of the “Pub­lic Engage­ment Suc­cess Sto­ries” series

    If you were going to live in a space sta­tion for six months, what would you bring with you? Astro­naut Chris Had­field chose to bring his gui­tar. And while he was at it, he chose to cham­pi­on ama­teur music-mak­ing. Had­field part­nered with Bare­naked Ladies lead singer and song-writer Ed Robert­son to co-write the song ‘I.S.S. — Is Some­body Singing’ for Music Mon­day, a Cana­da-wide annu­al event that pro­motes the val­ue of music edu­ca­tion. On Mon­day, May 6, 2013, peo­ple across Cana­da and even around the world sang this song in events of all kinds, from ele­men­tary school assem­blies to adult con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion sing-alongs. How you view this song as fit­ting (or not fit­ting) under the umbrel­la of New Music is your call — the fact remains that the expe­ri­ence of singing a song writ­ten by two Cana­di­ans, one ama­teur and one pro­fes­sion­al, will stay in the minds and imag­i­na­tions of peo­ple for years to come.

    - Louise Camp­bell, head of CNMN’s Pub­lic Engage­ment Committee

    To see a spe­cial invi­ta­tion to the Music Mon­day event from Chris Had­field, vis­it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTOaXrwatmI

    More infor­ma­tion about Music Monday
    http://www.musicmonday.ca/about/the-5-ws/

     

    Read more suc­cess stories:

    Toron­to’s New Music 101 – also in this Bulletin!
    Youth/Music Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee Reports (p. 5–6) — 13th edi­tion (pdf)

     

    Direct arti­cle link: I.S.S. Is Some­body Singing
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • The FORUM comes to Calgary 2014

    CNMN’s upcom­ing FORUM 2014 will be held from Jan­u­ary 24 to 26, 2014 in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary.  This will be a very excit­ing FORUM; we are plan­ning our most ambi­tious project ever.

    The uni­ver­si­ty facil­i­ty is key. It com­bines a hotel, restau­rant, a state-of-the-art con­cert hall and meet­ing rooms all with­in a 5 minute walk­ing radius.  It’s a per­fect way to get to know peo­ple and to do some seri­ous net­work­ing.  Down­town Cal­gary is also easy to get to, via a 20-minute ride on the fan­tas­tic mono­rail system.

    Much depends on fund­ing, but let’s be opti­mistic!  The plan is to incor­po­rate sev­er­al new fea­tures in this FORUM includ­ing an open call for pro­pos­als, some seri­ous feed­back from lis­ten­ers and fans, com­mu­ni­ty-wide dis­cus­sion on plans for 2016 and beyond, con­certs by the Land’s End Ensem­ble and New Works Cal­gary, and a new part­ner­ship with FACTOR, among others.

    We are also plan­ning on invit­ing some very high-lev­el inter­na­tion­al new music pre­sen­ters to the FORUM.  Dis­cus­sions are on-going, but the plan is to bring some of the biggest names in new music pre­sent­ing from Lon­don, New York, Paris, and Berlin to Cal­gary to hear Cana­di­an new music — and to bring Cana­di­an new music to these inter­na­tion­al cities in the future.  If you are inter­est­ed in pre­sent­ing your work in these mar­kets, this is the way to meet the peo­ple who can make it happen.

    The steer­ing com­mit­tee will be work­ing on the FORUM this sum­mer, and final details will be avail­able in mid-Sep­tem­ber. Book those dates — Jan­u­ary 24–26 — and makes sure you are in Cal­gary for FORUM 2014.

    Check in with our Forum 2014 event page (under devel­op­ment) as we con­tin­ue to update and add to the information.

     

    Direct arti­cle link: The FORUM comes to Cal­gary 2014
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • Open Call for Proposals for FORUM 2014 in Calgary

    Could you help spread the good news?

    The Cana­di­an New Music Net­work has launched a CALL FOR PROPOSALS for its 6th nation­al FORUM being held Jan­u­ary 2014 in Cal­gary. Dead­line August 15, 2013.

    We are look­ing for pro­pos­als from the entire new music com­mu­ni­ty – per­form­ers, impro­vis­ers, edu­ca­tors, pre­sen­ters, com­posers, ensem­bles, admin­is­tra­tors, agents, pro­duc­ers, researchers, pub­lish­ers, etc – everyone!

    Click here for more details…
    https://www.newmusicnetwork.ca/forum/forum-2014/call-for-proposals-forum-2014/

    Look­ing for­ward to your proposals.

     

    Direct arti­cle link: Open Call for Pro­pos­als for FORUM 2014 in Calgary
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • CNMN’s Online Resource Directory

    Did you know our web­site con­tains the best list­ing of new music con­tacts in Cana­da that you can find, cross-ref­er­enced by region, cat­e­go­ry and name?

    We list fes­ti­vals, artist manage­ments, asso­ci­a­tions, con­cert pre­senters, pro­mot­ers, media, pub­lishers, record labels, music schools, researchers, and much more.

    We think the direc­to­ry is well on its way. We try to keep in touch with all that is new music in Cana­da. But there is always room for improvement.

    Oth­er areas could be fur­ther devel­oped such as our venues list­ing. We needn’t list ALL venues in Can­ada, but we could cer­tain­ly focus on those that are heav­i­ly pre­sent­ing new music.

    We also have 27 Arts coun­cils and foun­da­tions list­ed, cov­er­ing all the provin­cial coun­cils, but we are miss­ing more local fund­ing sources for new music.

    Let us know if we are missing something or someone important in your region!

    Con­tact Ter­ri Hron, CNMN Exec­u­tive Direc­tor — dir@newmusicnetwork.ca

     

    Direct arti­cle link: CNMN’s Online Resource Directory
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • CNMN Regional Meetings 2012–2013

    The CNMN Region­al Meet­ings have been ongo­ing since Decem­ber 2012.  All in all, a total of 7 meet­ings make up this ini­tia­tive. A high pri­or­i­ty is to make sure region­al con­cerns and region­al real­i­ties are a big part of these meetings.

    Did you attend a regional meeting? Please send us feedback.

    admin@newmusicnetwork.ca — we’d love to hear from you.

    CNMN Board Mem­ber Hei­di Ouel­lette orga­nized the Man­i­to­ba Region­al Meet­ing. It took place March 10, 2013 at the Urban Shaman Gallery in Win­nipeg and was struc­tured as a half-day con­fer­ence. Co-host­ed by the Clus­ter: New Music + Inte­grat­ed Arts Fes­ti­val the con­fer­ence fea­tured a num­ber of the fes­ti­val artists as pre­sen­ters. The event was an inti­mate gath­er­ing of com­posers, per­form­ers, admin­is­tra­tors and stu­dents from the Win­nipeg new music com­mu­ni­ty as well as guest artists in town for the fes­ti­val. This mix of indi­vid­u­als from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, at dif­fer­ent stages in their career/life made for inter­est­ing dis­cus­sions, with many dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives. The con­fer­ence fea­tured pre­sen­ta­tions, a pan­el dis­cus­sion, the pre­miere of a new the­atri­cal vocal work per­formed by Sarah Albu, and an engag­ing round table dis­cus­sion that had near­ly every indi­vid­ual in the room dis­cussing a myr­i­ad of top­ics con­cern­ing cre­ative music mak­ing in Man­i­to­ba and Cana­da. ~ Hei­di Ouellette

     

    Man­i­to­ba Region­al Meet­ing in Win­nipeg — Pho­to cred­it: Leif Norman

    The Saskatchewan Region­al Meet­ing took place April 21, 2013 at the Arte­sian in Regi­na. CNMN Board Mem­ber Alain Per­ron planned this meet­ing, and soprano/musicologist Sophie Bouf­fard helped facil­i­tate. In con­junc­tion were two Holophon per­for­mances fea­tur­ing Andrew Love and Ernie Dulanowsky. It was a busy week with the JUNOs in town, but the meet­ing drew par­tic­i­pa­tion by very inter­est­ed mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty. The dis­cus­sion func­tioned as a check-up of Saskatchewan’s new music com­mu­ni­ty as well as an impe­tus for the region to move for­ward togeth­er on mutu­al inter­ests, includ­ing build­ing a func­tion­al region­al net­work to link every­one in the province inter­est­ed in new music.

    Note: the Que­bec, Alber­ta, Atlantic and Ontario meet­ings have already tak­en place, and report­ed in the Win­ter bul­letin here.

     

    Direct arti­cle link: CNMN Region­al Meet­ings 2012–2013
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

     

  • Toronto’s New Music 101 — A successful model for Education and Outreach

    Part of the “Pub­lic Engage­ment Suc­cess Sto­ries” series

    Toron­to’s New Music 101 is a shin­ing suc­cess sto­ry about how new music can move beyond the usu­al spaces to reach a broad­er community.

    New Music 101 was orig­i­nal­ly part of the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre’s New Music in New Places series in 2011. But for the last two years, the Toron­to New Music Alliance has con­tin­ued the pro­gram, with its third sea­son just completed.

    From the begin­ning, New Music 101 was envi­sioned as a con­ver­gence of music prac­ti­tion­ers offer­ing engag­ing, edu­ca­tion­al pre­sen­ta­tions to new audi­ences. Hav­ing artists lead dis­cus­sions is impor­tant because it brings the pub­lic clos­er to what the artists do, giv­ing the pub­lic a larg­er con­text to bet­ter con­nect with their music.

    Cre­at­ing more acces­si­ble pub­lic edu­ca­tion about new music in Toron­to has proven to be a suc­cess­ful way to build audi­ence.  It has been thrilling to see audi­ences from the New Music 101 ses­sions attend­ing con­certs, or buy­ing CDs fea­tur­ing con­tem­po­rary music.  Each ses­sion man­ages to spark curios­i­ty among listeners.

    But how did New Music 101 find this success?

    Loca­tion and part­ner­ship is key:

    New Music 101 col­lab­o­rates with the Toron­to Pub­lic Library who hosts the series at their flag­ship loca­tion, the Toron­to Ref­er­ence Library. This library is very busy with dozens of activ­i­ties each month, so it gets the atten­tion of many peo­ple. The loca­tion puts New Music 101 in touch with a whole new audi­ence, most of whom are unfa­mil­iar with the music pre­sent­ed. Check out the pro­gram on the Toron­to Pub­lic Library web site.

    Pro­gram­ming approach is also important:

    The series always fea­tures new par­tic­i­pants and puts togeth­er inter­est­ing and dif­fer­ent com­bi­na­tions to ensure it con­tin­ues to pro­vide a dis­cov­ery expe­ri­ence for every­one involved.  Check out the season’s pro­gram here.

    Music crit­ic John Ter­auds host­ed each event this year, and he proved to be a great asset.  Apart from bring­ing excep­tion­al knowl­edge, skill, and per­son­al­i­ty, Ter­auds act­ed as a bridge to new audi­ences.  For exam­ple, he was able to pro­vide addi­tion­al con­text when dif­fi­cult or obscure con­cepts were brought up in a pre­sen­ta­tion, and he also prompt­ed the pre­sen­ters to effec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cate their ideas. Check out some cov­er­age on Teraud’s blog – here and here.

    So often we, the artists jus­ti­fy our music amongst our­selves or with arts coun­cils. New Music 101 instead lets us con­nect with the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty of which we are a part and grants us greater aware­ness as well as vis­i­bil­i­ty. This is a cru­cial step if we are to increase our relevance.

    When we extrap­o­late from our reg­u­lar con­cert pro­gram­ming while explor­ing new spaces, audi­ences, and col­lab­o­ra­tors, our music gains greater momentum.

    by Matthew Fava with Emi­ly Hall

     

    David Het­her­ing­ton per­forms at New Music 101’s April 22, 2013 event. Pho­to cred­it: Daniel Foley

    Direct arti­cle link: Toron­to’s New Music 101 — A suc­cess­ful mod­el for Edu­ca­tion and Outreach
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013

  • Welcome New Members

    Since late Jan­u­ary 2013, CNMN’s mem­ber­ship has grown by 22 mem­bers. More mem­bers in our net­work means stronger rep­re­sen­ta­tion and con­nec­tion for our com­mu­ni­ty. We warm­ly wel­come all our new mem­bers, and we hope this marks the begin­ning of a long-last­ing and fruit­ful collaboration.

    The new mem­bers are list­ed below, many of which have web sites for fur­ther infor­ma­tion. We also hope all our mem­bers get a chance to check each oth­er out – you can access a full list of mem­bers on our web site, view­able by cat­e­go­ry, region or name.

    Who will be the next new member?

    New Voting Members

    ensemble1534 Nation­al http://www.ensemble1534.ca/
    Kris Cov­lin BC http://www.kriscovlin.com/
    Nicole Strum NS http://www.nicolestrum.com/

    New Supporting Members

    Sarah Albu QC
    Valenti­na Bertolani AB
    Scott Whetham AB
    Jen­nifer Black­well USA
    Danielle Buon­a­lu­to ON http://www.daniellebuonaiuto.com/
    Luciane Car­das­si AB http://www.lucianecardassi.com/
    Avi Gran­ite Brook­lyn USA http://www.avigranite.com/
    Tobia How­ell AB http://www.toblapottery.com/
    Tim Jones ON
    Ethan Lustig BC http://www.quaternin.com/
    Bri­an Mac­Don­ald AB
    San­dra Mogensen Copen­hagen http://www.sandramogensen.com/
    Claire Ness YT http://www.claireness.com/
    Ken Read AB
    Dave Ried­stra ON http://www.daveriedstra.com/
    Bernard Savoie QC http://www.voiesi.com/
    Marie Josée Simard QC http://www.mariejoseesimard.com/
    Kris­ten The­ri­ault ON http://www.harpnoise.com/
    Matthew-Carl Todd ON

     

    Direct arti­cle link: Wel­come New Members
    Return to full Bul­letin – may 2013