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