19th edition CNMN Bulletin – December 2014

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Table of Contents

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Pre­sent­ing the new Board of Direc­tors 2014–16
Out­go­ing President’s Report / Sea­son 2013–14, Tim Brady
Mes­sage from the New Pres­i­dent, Kyle Brenders

Reports from the CNMN Committees

Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Dec 2014
New Music Ini­tia­tive 2015 – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
FORUM 2016 OTTAWA – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014

Arts Day on The Hill 2014
NASO Meet­ings 2014
Wel­come New Mem­bers – Decem­ber 2014
Mem­ber­ship Dues 2014–15

Member’s Cor­ner

Oppor­tu­ni­ties with New Music Edmonton
ECM+ Generation2016 Com­pe­ti­tion Launch
ECM+ has a new pub­li­ca­tion: Gen­er­a­tion, 20 ans

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19th edi­tion CNMN Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Presenting the new Board of Directors 2014–16

  

  Those who attend­ed our 2014 AGM would have heard, but we want­ed every­one to have a chance to hear the great news!

  The mem­ber­ship vot­ed Kyle Bren­ders as the new pres­i­dent of CNMN.  And sub­se­quent­ly, the board vot­ed for the rest of the exec­u­tive: Jim Mont­gomery as sec­re­tary, Stacey Brown as trea­sur­er, and Louise Camp­bell as vice-president.

  In this bul­letin, read Kyle’s first president’s mes­sage, as well as Tim Brady’s inspi­ra­tional out­go­ing president’s mes­sage locat­ed at the bot­tom of his 2013–2014 sea­son report.

  A full list of board mem­bers by region­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion is avail­able here.

  Vis­it our Board of Direc­tors page to read what our board mem­bers have to say about CNMN, as well as their bios.

   

  Direct link: Pre­sent­ing the new Board of Directors
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Outgoing President’s Report / Season 2013–14, Tim Brady

  

  This will be my last president’s report, as most of you are aware.  2013 – 2014 was a huge­ly suc­cess­ful year for CNMN, so it is with great plea­sure that I present you the “high­lights” of what was our most active and dynam­ic sea­son. “Go out with a bang” as they say!

  The year start­ed very quick­ly with an unplanned but excit­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Mon­tréal-based CINARS (Inter­na­tion­al Exchange for the Per­form­ing Arts) and the UK-based IAMA (Inter­na­tion­al Arts Man­agers’ Asso­ci­a­tion). In late August, at the very last minute, they asked CNMN to organ­ise a whole series of Cana­di­an new music con­certs as part of the IAMA con­fer­ence to be held in Mon­tre­al in Novem­ber.  Amaz­ing­ly, we organ­ised an open call to mem­bers (with 53 appli­ca­tions!), juried the sub­mis­sions, and got the whole project organ­ised in 12 days.  It was, frankly, an insane effort, and much of the cred­it for its suc­cess­ful pro­duc­tion goes to our admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor, Emi­ly Hall.  The event includ­ed many show­cas­es and per­for­mances, as well as a work­shop on new music, and they were great­ly appre­ci­at­ed by IAMA, CINARS, and all del­e­gates, espe­cial­ly the inter­na­tion­al par­tic­i­pants. Many of them came up to me dur­ing the event and said they had no idea there was so much new music in Cana­da, and that it was of such high quality.

  This project was fund­ed by a spe­cial project grant from the Cana­da Coun­cil, who great­ly appre­ci­at­ed the efforts and effi­cien­cy of CNMN.

  This col­lab­o­ra­tion was so suc­cess­ful that CNMN and IAMA are team­ing up on anoth­er, small­er, project this Novem­ber in Mon­tre­al. This new col­lab­o­ra­tion is at the request of IAMA, who will be pay­ing almost all the costs!

  While this IAMA project was going on, we were also plan­ning for the FORUM, which was held in Cal­gary in Jan­u­ary, 2014. Fund­ing for this event was very strong, as we were able to get a new fund­ing stream from FACTOR as well as through the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary. The U of C was able to add sig­nif­i­cant cash and in-kind fund­ing to our bud­get, through both inter­nal grants and a spe­cial, tar­get­ed SSHRC grant.  The bud­get for the FORUM was around $84,000 – a huge increase over past FORUMs, which tend­ed to hov­er around $35,000.

  With this extra fund­ing we were able to bring in five very high-pro­file guests, who added a crit­i­cal dimen­sion to the project. The spe­cial guests were: Lawrence Cher­ney (Sound­streams Cana­da), Andrew Bruke (Lon­don Sin­foni­ett­ta – UK), Patri­cia Ros­ner (Berlin Phil­har­mon­ic Media), Melis­sa Smey (Mil­let The­atre, NYC) and Nico­las Thi­ron (Fes­ti­val Whynote – France).

  Our increased bud­get meant that we were also able to help cov­er the trav­el costs of many more del­e­gates, which gave us our biggest atten­dance ever at a FORUM – over 150 par­tic­i­pants.  Our for­eign guests were quite impressed with the size and scope of the new music com­mu­ni­ty in Cana­da, and with the qual­i­ty of both the FORUM’s pro­duc­tion and its larg­er vision of cre­ative music.

  The sense of excite­ment and ener­gy was pal­pa­ble at the event – the FORUM had a per­fect bal­ance of round table dis­cus­sions, open net­work­ing events, and focused work­shops and pre­sen­ta­tions.  The Rosza Cen­tre at U of C was the ide­al place for the event, with a great con­cert hall, and sev­er­al meet­ings rooms, all in the same build­ing, lit­er­al­ly 30 sec­onds from the hotel. Even the weath­er coop­er­at­ed – from Thurs­day to Sat­ur­day, it was so warm we did not even real­ly need to wear coats!  On Sun­day, win­ter returned, so it was clear­ly time to go.

  After the FORUM, CNMN start­ed work­ing on six main tasks: Suc­ces­sion plan­ning for the change of Pres­i­dent, plan­ning for the New Music Ini­tia­tive 2015 with CAPACOA, Jan­u­ary 2015 in Hal­i­fax, updat­ing the CNMN bylaws, con­tin­ued work for the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive, pre-plan­ning FORUM 2016, and day-to-day matters.

  Here’s a brief overview of these 6 tasks:

  • After dis­cus­sions with sev­er­al CNMN board mem­bers, Kyle Bren­ders, an ON rep­re­sen­ta­tive, agreed to take on the Pres­i­den­cy of CNMN start­ing at the end of AGM 2014, fol­low­ing a vote of the mem­bers. I (Tim Brady) will stay on the board, to help ensure con­ti­nu­ity and cor­po­rate memory.
  • CAPACOA (the largest net­work of pre­sen­ters in Cana­da) has asked CNMN to be a spe­cial part­ner at their Jan­u­ary 2015 con­fer­ence in Hal­i­fax, cre­at­ing a main focus on New Music. We’ve called this the New Music Ini­tia­tive 2015. This is an amaz­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand our con­tacts to over 250 main-stage pre­sen­ters across Cana­da. This is a big step for­ward for the community.
  • Changes in fed­er­al not-for-prof­it leg­is­la­tion meant that we had to update and sub­mit our bylaws to Indus­try Cana­da. Most of the changes are sim­ple, tech­ni­cal details, but we took the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expand the CNMN board from 12 to 15 mem­bers, to add anoth­er seat for BC, and to add 2 “non-region­al” board mem­bers. This new board struc­ture will take effect in the 2016 election.
  • CNMN received a $20,000 “Lead­er­ship for Change” grant from the Cana­da Coun­cil to pur­sue our Dig­i­tal Con­tent Initiative.
  • The next FORUM (Ottawa, Jan­u­ary 2016) plan­ning is grad­u­al­ly under­way. Dis­cus­sions with local part­ners have begun (the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre, the Ottawa New Music Cre­ators, Ottawa Uni­ver­si­ty and Car­leton Uni­ver­si­ty). CNMN has proven that it is an effec­tive and effi­cient FORUM organ­is­er, and FORUM 2016 will build on the suc­cess and vision of the six pre­vi­ous editions.

  There are also the day-to-day mat­ters for CNMN – sell­ing mem­ber­ships, doing the thrice-year­ly Bul­letin, writ­ing grants, doing the book­keep­ing, etc.  For a very small and still rel­a­tive­ly young organ­i­sa­tion, CNMN man­ages to do all this with great effi­cien­cy.  Or per­haps it is because we are young and small that we are so efficient…..

  Two final thoughts, as I bring this President’s report to a close.

  The first is the enor­mous plea­sure I have had in work­ing with the CNMN board, its mem­bers, and our admin­is­tra­tor, Emi­ly Hall, over the past 9 years build­ing CNMN.  The intel­li­gence, com­mit­ment, pas­sion and imag­i­na­tion in our com­mu­ni­ty is quite impres­sive and I think that CNMN has proven to be an excel­lent way for us to work togeth­er to build a bet­ter place for cre­ative music in Cana­da.  Thanks to every­one who has been a part of cre­at­ing the CNMN we have today.

  The sec­ond thought is more philo­soph­i­cal. Over the past 9 years (in fact, 11 years, count­ing the 2 years of pre-CNMN dis­cus­sion), I have spent many hours think­ing about musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty, try­ing to define it to our­selves, try­ing to defend it to fun­ders and to the pub­lic, try­ing to artic­u­late why we believe that unfet­tered musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty is so vital to our soci­ety.  There is no sin­gle, sim­ple answer.  How­ev­er, at its core, cre­at­ing music for the love of the art of music is a strik­ing social and polit­i­cal action.  Cre­at­ing music that tries to encom­pass the scope and com­plex­i­ty of the human con­di­tion is a big job, but that is what we have cho­sen to do.  It is inher­ent­ly human­ist in approach, and is pred­i­cat­ed on a soci­ety where the val­ue of each indi­vid­ual is recog­nised.  Art, includ­ing new music, is pri­mar­i­ly about the human expe­ri­ence, not about the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit or polit­i­cal power.

  This is why cre­ative art is often viewed as a men­ace to exist­ing eco­nom­ic and polit­i­cal struc­tures.  We live in a soci­ety which has, for the moment, a rea­son­able bal­ance between the two forces – the human­ist vision and the eco­nom­ic / polit­i­cal vision.  That bal­ance, how­ev­er, is con­stant­ly shifting.

  I urge all CNMN mem­bers to remem­ber, every time you write a new piece, or step on a stage to do a con­cert, or talk about the impor­tance of music in our soci­ety, that you are part of the ongo­ing polit­i­cal and social dis­course that is shap­ing the world we live in.  New music has a role to play in this larg­er dis­cus­sion, and it is impor­tant that we, as a com­mu­ni­ty, take this role seri­ous­ly. I believe that CNMN is ide­al­ly placed to be a lead­ing voice in this dis­cus­sion.  I hope that my 9 years as Pres­i­dent has helped to build both a strong, cred­i­ble organ­i­sa­tion and to make the case for musi­cal cre­ativ­i­ty as a pos­i­tive force for social development.

  Thanks.

  Tim Brady

   

  Direct link: Past President’s Report / Sea­son 2013–2014 Report, Tim Brady
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Message from the New President, Kyle Brenders

  

  This is my first mes­sage going out to all of you as the new pres­i­dent of the net­work and I want to present you with some thoughts I’ve had about the future of CNMN.

  My hope for the next few years is to con­tin­ue to grow and devel­op our orga­ni­za­tion on the path that Tim Brady has set us on. Let me pause and stress part of that last line. I real­ly want to focus that this is the OUR orga­ni­za­tion.  We are a net­work. The suc­cess of the growth and devel­op­ment of our net­work only exists if we active­ly try to con­nect with one anoth­er. The orga­ni­za­tion is designed to pro­vide for­mal spaces to meet and con­nect – such as our FORUM in 2016 and our inclu­sion as part of this year’s CAPACOA con­fer­ence. How­ev­er, where I think we can begin to become stronger is by cre­at­ing infor­mal spaces that allow us to come togeth­er. Take a look at the new list of board mem­bers in your region. Send them an email. Have a cof­fee. Get togeth­er and share what your cur­rent suc­cess­es and strug­gles are. The net­work is only as strong as its mem­bers and I hope, if any­thing, to strength­en these con­nec­tions. We all have sim­i­lar accom­plish­ments and dai­ly grinds. We can all learn from one anoth­er if we share in a spir­it of open­ness and col­le­gial­i­ty. Most impor­tant­ly send me an email, ask if I’ll be around your part of the coun­try, or just let me know how it’s going and how the orga­ni­za­tion can serve you bet­ter. Hope­ful­ly I can get a chance to meet and talk with you about the future of our organization.

   

  Direct link: Mes­sage from the New Pres­i­dent, Kyle Brenders
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Reports from the CNMN Committees – December 2014

  What are com­mit­tees and who is on them? Since 2009, var­i­ous com­mit­tees have formed, some­times on a casu­al basis, some­times on a more con­tin­u­ous basis. They exist to focus-in on par­tic­u­lar issues – around areas of con­cern for the new music com­mu­ni­ty at large (such as the Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee and the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive) or CNMN in par­tic­u­lar (such as the Lan­guage Facil­i­ta­tion Com­mit­tee). Or, they can be based around a par­tic­u­lar upcom­ing activ­i­ty (such as the FORUM 2016 Steer­ing Com­mit­tee and the NMI 2015 com­mit­tees). Any­one can be on a com­mit­tee, but one rep­re­sen­ta­tive from the Board of Direc­tors (see our web site) is required. Mem­bers can pro­pose oth­er com­mit­tees to a mem­ber of the board.

  Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
  Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Dec 2014
  New Music Ini­tia­tive 2015 – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
  FORUM 2016 OTTAWA – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
  The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014

   

  Direct link: Reports from the Com­mit­tees — Decem­ber 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• Public Engagement Committee Report – Dec 2014

  

  The CNMN Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee was formed in the 2012–13 sea­son. Hav­ing evolved out of the Youth Com­mit­tee (2009–12), the Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee seeks to address the range and scope of issues regard­ing Pub­lic Engage­ment and New Music across Cana­da. We all do Pub­lic Engage­ment — so, what are we already doing? Who do we under­stand as our pub­lic? What are our suc­cess sto­ries in Pub­lic Engage­ment? How can we as a com­mu­ni­ty reach more, dif­fer­ent, diverse publics?

  Com­mit­tee mem­bers include Tawnie Olson, Jen­nifer War­ing and Louise Camp­bell (com­mit­tee chair).

  We wel­come more com­mit­tee mem­bers! We need peo­ple from across the coun­try to pitch in, give their two cents worth, and give us a Cana­da-wide per­spec­tive. If you want to join the Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee, we want your ideas!

  Please con­tact Louise Camp­bell for more information:
  mlouisecampbell@gmail.com

  Read past bul­letin entries from this committee:

  I.S.S. Is Some­body Singing – 16^th edition
  Toronto’s New Music 101 – 16^th edition
  Youth/Music Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee Reports (p. 5–6) – 13^th edi­tion (pdf)

   

  Direct link: Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report — Dec 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• Digital Content Initiative (DCI) Report – Dec 2014

  

  CNMN began work­ing on the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) rough­ly two years ago. Put sim­ply, con­cert music (art music, or what­ev­er def­i­n­i­tion you pre­fer) needs some­thing to fill the huge gap left in our com­mu­ni­ty by the dis­en­gage­ment of CBC and Radio-Canada.

  The idea is to cre­ate a new fund, with a mix­ture of pub­lic and pri­vate fund­ing, that will give artists and artis­tic com­pa­nies the funds nec­es­sary to cre­ate very high-qual­i­ty audio and video dig­i­tal con­tent, and to cre­ate and pro­mote a pro­fes­sion­al dig­i­tal hub for dis­tri­b­u­tion (this could be CDs, DVDs, live stream­ing, video for YouTube, Inter­net art, etc.).

  The fol­low­ing work was car­ried out in the 2013–14 season:

  • Octo­ber 2013: We met with Sophie Cou­ture, Head of Music Pol­i­cy at Her­itage Cana­da. In April 2015, the $25 mil­lion Cana­da Music Fund will be renewed by Cana­di­an Her­itage. Dis­cus­sions are already under­way as to how this mon­ey will be allo­cat­ed – what are the pri­or­i­ties, what will be the new pro­grammes. Cana­di­an Her­itage has told us that almost all the real deci­sions will be made by Novem­ber 2014, in order to be ready for the April 2015 roll­out. So we need to make a very strong pro­pos­al to Cana­di­an Her­itage before Novem­ber 2014.
  • Decem­ber 2013: Applied for Lead­er­ship through Change fund­ing through Cana­da Coun­cil. Received $20,000.
  • Decem­ber 2013: DCI nation­al meet­ing in Toron­to – work­ing group with CMC, empreintes DIG­I­TALes, Le Vivi­er, Action Jazz Cana­da, and con­sul­ta­tions with Sound­streams and Tafelmusik.
  • Slight name change: The Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive was for­mer­ly called the Cana­di­an Spe­cialised Music Dis­sem­i­na­tion and Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (CSMDDCI) but we thought it best to sim­pli­fy the name.
  • June 2014: We hired con­sul­tant Pierre Lalonde. This is a big, com­plex, very polit­i­cal process and M. Lalonde for­mer­ly worked at Her­itage Cana­da, run­ning the music pol­i­cy divi­sion – so he knows how things work.
  • June 2014: Fur­ther DCI meet­ings in Toron­to with con­sul­tant Pierre Lalonde.
  • Work­ing on final­iz­ing a strong pro­pos­al for fall 2014. We will ask for a scal­able bud­get start­ing at $2.5 mil­lion and pro­gress­ing to $7.5 mil­lion in 4 years.
  • Work­ing with Michel Dusches­neau, head of OICRM, to cre­ate a com­pre­hen­sive doc­u­ment show­ing the over­whelm­ing evi­dence that sup­ports the need for a true musi­cal diver­si­ty in the Cana­di­an music indus­try and in our edu­ca­tion system.

  This project is very ambi­tious, but the bud­get shows we take the project seri­ous­ly, that the loss of the CBC/SRC is hav­ing a huge­ly neg­a­tive impact on music in Canada.

  Please con­tact Tim Brady for more information:
  tim@timbrady.ca

   

  Direct link: Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Dec 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• New Music Initiative 2015 – Steering Committee Report – Dec 2014

  

  A por­tion of the 2015 CAPACOA con­fer­ence in Hal­i­fax has been designed with CNMN and its mem­bers in mind. We con­tact­ed the orga­niz­ers of the con­fer­ence a while ago and stressed that the gen­er­al pre­sent­ing cul­ture of Cana­da that attends the con­fer­ence tends to steer away from New Music and that we feel we can do some­thing about this. At the con­fer­ence we will be pre­sent­ing a show­case of new music per­form­ers from across the coun­try, a nation­al pan­el of new music pre­sen­ters dis­cussing inno­va­tion in pre­sen­ta­tion, and a crit­i­cal response per­for­mance by Gabriel Dhar­moo, where his work will be pre­sent­ed and then dis­cussed by the audi­ence. It’s tru­ly an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for CNMN to con­nect to the larg­er pre­sent­ing com­mu­ni­ty in a sig­nif­i­cant way. For all of our mem­bers, there is a CNMN con­fer­ence rate. We hope that if it’s pos­si­ble, you’re able to attend. Please let us know if you can make it so we can con­nect at the con­fer­ence. It’s time to begin to shift the per­spec­tive of pre­sent­ing New Music in Canada.

  Please con­tact Kyle Bren­ders for more information:
  kbrenders@gmail.com

  P.S. Also, per­haps of inter­est to some of you: CAPACOA is run­ning Pitch Ses­sions for those look­ing to pro­mote tour-ready work. More infor­ma­tion on how to par­tic­i­pate: http://www.capacoa.ca/en/conference/about/pitch-sessions

  Direct link: New Music Ini­tia­tive 2015 – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• FORUM 2016 OTTAWA – Steering Committee Report – Dec 2014

  

  A com­mit­tee has been formed and a city has been cho­sen! FORUM 2016 will take place in Ottawa with sup­port from the Nation­al Arts Cen­tre (NAC), Uni­ver­si­ty of Ottawa, and Car­leton Uni­ver­si­ty. We hope to present a dynam­ic forum that looks at cur­rent direc­tions and influ­ences of pop­u­lar cul­ture on the new music milieu. If you’d like to be involved in the forum please let me know.

  Com­mit­tee mem­bers include Ste­fani Tru­ant, Jesse Stew­art, Jen­nifer War­ing and Kyle Bren­ders (com­mit­tee chair).

  Please con­tact Kyle Bren­ders for more information:
  kbrenders@gmail.com

   

  Direct link: FORUM 2016 OTTAWA – Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – Dec 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• The Language Committee Report – December 2014

  

  Stacey Brown, chair

  The goal of the Lan­guage Com­mit­tee is to sup­port CNMN in main­tain­ing its com­mit­ment to bilin­gual­ism, by pro­mot­ing aware­ness of lan­guage issues, assist­ing from time to time with minor trans­la­tion needs and, every two years, ful­fill­ing var­i­ous kinds of lan­guage facil­i­ta­tion roles at our nation­al FORUMS (for exam­ples, see FORUM 2012 and FORUM 2014). Com­mit­tee mem­bers are invit­ed to reflect on ways in which we can facil­i­tate com­mu­ni­ca­tions in both offi­cial lan­guages and con­tin­ue build­ing a nation­al net­work that can real­ly “speak” to all our members.

  This com­mit­tee is active­ly seek­ing mem­bers who might be inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in any of the above dis­cus­sions and activ­i­ties. We would also like to begin to build a list of mem­bers who are will­ing to occa­sion­al­ly assist with some vol­un­teer trans­la­tion towards their moth­er tongue (Eng­lish, or French).

  Ques­tions? Think­ing about get­ting involved in the Lan­guage Com­mit­tee? We’d love to hear your ideas!

  Mem­bers: Stacey Brown (chair), Louise Camp­bell and Jérôme Blais

  Please con­tact Stacey Brown for more information:
  sb@staceybrown.ca

   

  Direct link: The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – Decem­ber 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• Arts Day on The Hill 2014

  

  On Octo­ber 21 (just one day before the trag­ic shoot­ings in Ottawa), I rep­re­sent­ed CNMN at the Cana­di­an Arts Coali­tion’s annu­al Day on the Hill.  This event brings hun­dreds of artists and admin­is­tra­tors to Ottawa to meet with elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives to talk about arts pol­i­cy, and to under­score the impor­tance of the arts to Canada’s devel­op­ment. This was the sev­enth Day on the Hill Event, an event which has been men­tioned by the mem­bers of Par­lia­ment as one of the key rea­sons that Cana­da Coun­cil fund­ing has NOT been cut. We show up, we make the case, and they actu­al­ly listen.

  The goal this year was to start mov­ing away from the “don’t cut us men­tal­i­ty” to the “we real­ly need new invest­ments in the arts” approach. This is done in rela­tion to the upcom­ing fed­er­al elec­tions (2015) and the Cana­da 150 cel­e­bra­tions (2017).

  I was sched­uled to meet three mem­bers of par­lia­ment. Due to some last-minute com­pli­ca­tions, only one of the meet­ings hap­pened. I met with NDP mem­ber Tyrone Ben­skin, mem­ber for Jeanne-le-Ber in Mon­tréal (who is actu­al­ly my own MP!). Mr. Ben­skin was, in fact, a pro­fes­sion­al actor and artis­tic direc­tor before becom­ing an MP, so our argu­ments fell on fer­tile ground. Mr. Ben­skin also chairs the non-par­ti­san Arts Cau­cus on Par­lia­ment Hill, and he is impor­tant to get­ting the mes­sage out to oth­er members.

  At the end of the day, we all gath­ered for a meet-and-greet cock­tail, with many MPs (Eliz­a­beth May, Marc Gar­neau, Mr. Ben­skin, the Deputy Speak­er of the House of Com­mons, etc). Cur­rent Her­itage Min­is­ter Glover was not avail­able, but ex-Her­itage Min­is­ter (and cur­rent Indus­try Min­is­ter) James Moore was on hand and did give a nice, very friend­ly thanks to all for our work.

  Though our work was very clear­ly over­shad­owed by the regret­table events of the next day, this event has become an impor­tant moment for arts pol­i­cy in Cana­da, and it is impor­tant that CNMN be part of the event.

  Tim Brady – QC representative

   

  Direct link: Arts Day on the Hill 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• NASO Meetings 2014

  

  On Octo­ber 19 and 20, 2014, I rep­re­sent­ed the CNMN at the meet­ing of the Nation­al Arts Ser­vice Orga­ni­za­tions (NASOs) in Ottawa. The meet­ing was short but incred­i­bly impact­ful. I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to hear Simon Brault, the new Direc­tor and CEO of the Cana­da Coun­cil, speak about his vision for the future of the Coun­cil. You can read his speech here: http://canadacouncil.ca/council/blog/2014/10/remarks-of-simon-brault

  In short, he knows the coun­cil is in need of more mon­ey and he’s going to try and get it. He’s less inter­est­ed in con­sul­ta­tion than his pre­de­ces­sor and more inter­est­ed in action. This will hope­ful­ly lead to some sub­stan­tial changes to the Coun­cil over the next few years.

  I also had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with the oth­er NASOs in the music dis­ci­pline along with Aimé Don­tigny, Head of the music sec­tion. A ques­tion was posed to Mr. Don­tigny: what can our mem­bers do to sup­port the music sec­tion? He had three main points that he felt could sup­port the entire music milieu:

  1. Stop being at each oth­er’s throat! This is tongue-in-cheek, but the mes­sage is mean­ing­ful. All genres/styles of music strug­gle with fund­ing, out­reach, audi­ence engage­ment, etc. From orches­tras to exper­i­men­tal soloists, we all are try­ing to cre­ate a stronger musi­cal cul­ture for our cit­i­zens and we should remem­ber we are all in this together.
  2. Habits of Cana­di­ans have changed for spe­cial­ized music: no one cre­ates a gold­en bridge to con­nect to a larg­er audi­ence. How can we make sure that when some­body is look­ing for music on the Inter­net their first dis­cov­ery is Cana­di­an spe­cial­ized music? And, how can Cana­di­ans play­ing spe­cial­ized music con­tin­ue to inno­vate how they get the music to the citizens?
  3. We have to make pub­lic engage­ment impor­tant not by chang­ing our out­put but through engag­ing with the larg­er soci­ety that hosts us as artists. What we do needs to be all intrin­si­cal­ly linked to our larg­er society.

  Pret­ty sim­ple, right?

  It was a great cou­ple of days and helped me form a sense of our place in the larg­er cul­tur­al ecol­o­gy of our country.

  There was a lot of research pre­sent­ed to the con­stituents and you can get it all here:

  http://www.canadacouncil.ca/council/blog/2014/10/2014naso

  Kyle Bren­ders – CNMN President

   

  Direct link: NASO Meet­ings 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Welcome New Members – December 2014

  Since March 2014, CNMN’s mem­ber­ship has grown by 34 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

  musi­ca inti­ma society		BC	http://www.musicaintima.org/
  Reverb Brass		ON	http://www.reverbbrass.com/
  Bruno	De Cat	QC
  Matthew	Fava	ON

  New Sup­port­ing Members

  Val­dine	Ander­son	MB
  Alyssa	Aska	AB	http://www.alyssaaska.com/
  Hélène	Beaulieu	QC	http://www.helenebeaulieumusique.com/
  Rose	Bolton	ON	http://www.rosebolton.com/
  Olivi­er	Bouz­i­tou	Con­go
  Andrew	Clark	ON
  Sta­cie	Dun­lop	ON	http://www.staciedunlop.com/
  Bri­an	Gar­bet	AB	http://www.briangarbet.ca/
  Glen	Hall	ON	http://www.glenhall.com/
  Mark	Han­nes­son	AB	http://www.ualberta.ca/~mjh7/
  Shahri­yar	Jamshi­di	ON	http://www.shahriyarjamshidi.com/
  Ran­dolf	Jimenez	ON	https://www.facebook.com/randolf.jimenez
  Bernardj	Josef
  F Tim	Knight	ON
  Jean Christophe	Laporte	France	https://soundcloud.com/jean-christophe-laporte
  Claire	Marc­hand	QC	http://www.clairemarchand.net/
  Elaine	McCann	ON
  Stephanie	Moore	QC	https://soundcloud.com/stfnymoor
  Ethan	Mose­ley	ON	http://www.allgirlknifefight.com/
  Katya	Pine	BC	http://www.pineproductions.ca/
  Justin	Poon	ON
  Matt	Poon	ON	http://www.mattpoon.com/
  Cody	Puls	ON
  Fer­nan­do	Recalde	Ecuador
  Quinn	Redekop	ON
  Shaan	Sing­ha	ON	http://www.downtojam.com/
  Fran­cis­co	Sot­toli­chio	QC	http://www.utopsie.com/
  Antho­ny	Tan	QC	http://www.anthonytanmusic.com/
  Kris­jana	Thorstein­son	QC
  Gabriel	Valle­jo	France	http://gabriel.vallejo.online.fr/

  Direct link: Wel­come New Mem­bers — Decem­ber 2014
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Membership Dues 2014–2015

  We sent out mem­ber­ship invoic­es by email in Octo­ber.  Mem­ber­ship dues for the 2014–2015 peri­od are still com­ing in.  Did you receive your invoice?  For those who haven’t paid yet, you can set­tle your dues by cheque through the mail, or by cred­it card (Pay­Pal) on our web site.  It is great­ly appreciated.

  If you have any ques­tions, feel free to con­tact Stephanie Moore, CNMN Admin­is­tra­tive Assis­tant: assist@reseaumusiquesnouvelles.ca

   

  Direct link: Mem­ber­ship Dues 2014–2015
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• Members’ Corner

  Want to submit to the next CNMN bulletin?

  Down­load the Sub­mis­sion Guide­lines avail­able at the top of our main NEWS page:
  https://www.newmusicnetwork.ca/category/news/

   

  Direct link: Mem­bers’ Corner
  Return to full Bul­letin – Decem­ber 2014

• Opportunities with New Music Edmonton

  

   

  Oppor­tu­ni­ties with New Music Edmonton

  Invit­ing all com­posers, impro­vis­ers, soloists, ensem­bles, sound artists and oth­ers! New Music Edmon­ton, Edmon­ton’s pre­mier orga­ni­za­tion for the pro­mo­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion of new music, launch­es both a Call For Pro­pos­als (dead­line Jan 15) and a Call for Works (dead­line Dec 10).

   

  Direct link: Oppor­tu­ni­ties with New Music Edmonton
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• ECM+ Generation2016 Competition Launch

  This pres­ti­gious and ambi­tious com­pe­ti­tion has just fin­ished cel­e­brat­ing its 20 year anniver­sary, with the Generation2014 tour. Now, a new round of tal­ent­ed emerg­ing com­posers has a chance to par­tic­i­pate in Generation2016! Full infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion guide online here. Appli­ca­tion dead­line is March 1^st, 2015.

   

  Direct link: ECM+ Generation2016 Com­pe­ti­tion Launch
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014

• ECM+ has a new publication: Generation, 20 years

  ECM+ is pleased to announce the pub­li­ca­tion of Gen­er­a­tion, 20 years (1994–2014). Over 144 pages, the book presents the com­posers and key col­lab­o­ra­tors whose con­tri­bu­tions have allowed this com­po­si­tion com­pe­ti­tion, the only one of its kind in Cana­da, to flourish.

   

  Direct link: Gen­er­a­tion, 20 years
  Return to full Bul­letin — Decem­ber 2014