Edition: 18th Edition CNMN Bulletin | 6

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Table of Contents

FORUM 2014 Wrap-up
Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation Project — CNMN Com­mit­tee Report
Elec­tions 2014 – Call for Nominations
News from FACTOR
Wel­come New Mem­bers – March 2014

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18th edi­tion CNMN Bul­letin – March 2014

Since 2007, CNMN has pro­duced a nation­al / inter­na­tion­al new music con­fer­ence called the FORUM. Pre­vi­ous edi­tions were held in Win­nipeg, Toron­to, Mon­tre­al, Hal­i­fax and Vancouver.

This past Jan­u­ary, the 6^th edi­tion, FORUM 2014, was held in Cal­gary and fea­tured over 175 par­tic­i­pants from across Cana­da and beyond, includ­ing four major inter­na­tion­al guests, many of Canada’s most impor­tant new music pro­fes­sion­als from across the coun­try, over 25 stu­dents from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary, and 27 stu­dents from Chester­mere High­school music program.

The theme was Cana­di­an Music, Cana­di­an Audi­ences. The goal was to help Cana­di­an new music pro­fes­sion­als con­nect with the world, and FORUM 2014 deliv­ered in a big way to con­nect them with artists, with pro­duc­ers and pre­sen­ters, with the web, with the media, with edu­ca­tors, and with the public.

“I think your forum is rare…the UK could get some­thing from a sim­i­lar forum… I gained so much from the expe­ri­ence per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly by being there, and I hope left some­thing behind in shar­ing [Lon­don Sinfonietta’s] expe­ri­ences of new music plan­ning, fund­ing, pro­duc­tion and pro­mo­tion …  I also was impressed by the qual­i­ty of the project. The depth and thought of the del­e­gates struck me – and I was hap­py to soak up their breadth of expe­ri­ence. But also the orga­ni­za­tion of the event – it was prac­ti­cal­ly seam­less, and the good mood and shar­ing that result­ed made the event suc­cess­ful.” ~ Andrew Burke, Chief Exec­u­tive, Lon­don Sinfonietta

“I had nev­er been to Cana­da, and did not know much about Cana­di­an music, so this was a great oppor­tu­ni­ty for me to learn about your coun­try and its music. I met many fan­tas­tic peo­ple, learned a great deal and had a won­der­ful time. … Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can come back for the planned FORUM 2016!” ~ Patri­cia Ros­ner, Berlin Phil Media GmbH

“I reg­u­lar­ly attend nation­al con­fer­ences in the Unit­ed States, includ­ing Cham­ber Music Amer­i­ca, the Asso­ciate of Per­form­ing Arts Pre­sen­ters, and Ear­ly Music Amer­i­ca, and I espe­cial­ly appre­ci­ate that there is focused atten­tion in Cana­da for new music, which is crit­i­cal for the suc­cess of the field, both nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly.” ~ Melis­sa Smey, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Miller The­atre (New York)

For the first time, there was not one keynote, but an entire pan­el of keynote guests: Lawrence Cher­ney – Sound­streams Cana­da (Toron­to), Patri­cia Ros­ner – Berlin Phil Media GmbH (Berlin), Melis­sa Smey – Miller The­ater (New York), Nico­las Thiri­on – Why Note Fes­ti­val (France) and Andrew Burke – Lon­don Sin­foni­et­ta (Lon­don). This kind of inter­na­tion­al net­work­ing is crit­i­cal for Cana­di­an new music to reach inter­na­tion­al audi­ences. In addi­tion to tak­ing part in the two hour “keynote pan­el,” the inter­na­tion­al keynote guests gave por­trait ses­sions paired with a Cana­di­an coun­ter­part, where they shared infor­ma­tion about their com­pa­ny and their expe­ri­ences in more detail.

Also for the first time, FORUM pro­gram­ming was fuelled by an open call. This was very suc­cess­ful – 40+ sub­mis­sions – and added a whole new and excit­ing dimen­sion of new music pro­fes­sion­als, emerg­ing and estab­lished, from a wide range of gen­res and per­spec­tives, from across the coun­try and beyond, lead­ing a vari­ety of activ­i­ties such as mini talks, demos and workshops.

There were also four open ses­sions, which have become a pop­u­lar activ­i­ty. These open ses­sions are crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and an inte­gral part of the FORUMs because they move atten­dees from observers to active engagers.

The sched­ule fol­lowed a rhythm and bal­ance that mixed longer ses­sions with short­er ones, and full-group activ­i­ties with small­er groups in par­al­lel ses­sions, in an effort to con­tin­u­al­ly pur­sue bet­ter, deep­er dis­cus­sions and to keep peo­ple engaged and refreshed through­out the 2.5‑day con­fer­ence. It was also impor­tant to find a bal­ance between lots of inter­est­ing con­tent, and giv­ing par­tic­i­pants enough space to just “hang out and talk.” Lunch­es were longer this time, and there were more breaks, in both the morn­ing and after­noon schedules.

And it wasn’t all talk: New Works Cal­gary, Land’s End Ensem­ble, the Dis­cov­ery Series at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary and Bug Inci­sion pro­vid­ed fan­tas­tic music dur­ing the evenings.

There was major sup­port from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary, through the Music Divi­sion of the School of Cre­ative and Per­form­ing Arts, and the con­fer­ence was held at the Rosza Cen­tre, a dream venue: four spaces of dif­fer­ent sizes, a 240 seat con­cert hall, all in one floor, one space, a few strides from one anoth­er. Plus Hotel Alma, a very com­fort­able hotel, was just 30 sec­onds away.

Anoth­er first was the live inter­net stream­ing of ses­sions on the Fri­day, thanks to the direc­tion of Lau­rie Rad­ford. “Although I was not there I actu­al­ly did feel like I was some­what a part of it. It’s a good way for me and oth­er ex-pats to take part,” com­ment­ed one per­son who checked in from Ger­many. In fact, the whole con­fer­ence was video-doc­u­ment­ed, and the U of C team plans to pro­duce some pod­casts, video bites and longer the­mat­ic takes in the com­ing months, which will be made avail­able on the CNMN web site.

As with past edi­tions, it was a plea­sure to see the famil­iar faces of those who are reg­u­lars to the FORUM, along with new faces. The FORUM is noth­ing with­out the peo­ple who come to it. Thank you to every­one who attend­ed the Cana­di­an New Music Net­work FORUM 2014. There was a true sense of pos­i­tive activ­i­ty in the air where thought­ful con­sul­ta­tions were tak­ing place, mutu­al sup­port struc­tures were being built and life­long col­lab­o­ra­tions were being formed.

The whole FORUM team, many vol­un­teer-based also deserve a great big thank you.

The guests, the high-lev­el dis­course, the strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty, the amaz­ing open dis­cus­sions and great net­work­ing, the evening con­certs, the pro­gram­ming and gen­er­ous vol­un­teers and sup­port staff, led to a very spe­cial event for all those who participated.

Look­ing for­ward to FORUM 2016!

~ Emi­ly Hall and Tim Brady

p.s. If you would like to sup­port the con­tin­u­a­tion of these FORUMs, we would love to hear feed­back from you! Whether it’s a cou­ple of words, a few sen­tences, or more, about any aspect of the FORUM, your feed­back and tes­ti­mo­ni­als will help tremen­dous­ly with our report­ing and future plan­ning. Please email Emi­ly — admin@reseaumusiquesnouvelles.ca

Direct link: FORUM 2014 Wrap-up
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2014

CNMN Com­mit­tee Report

Since 2012 CNMN has been work­ing to find more and bet­ter resources for dig­i­tal con­tent cre­ation for new music (and music in gen­er­al!).  CD, videos, YOUTUBE, streaming…music is under­go­ing a big change, and recent rad­i­cal cut­back and pol­i­cy changes at the CBC/SRC mean Cana­di­an artists no longer have any sup­port in get­ting their music to the pub­lic, both nation­al­ly and internationally.

We are cur­rent­ly work­ing with a coop­er­a­tive of 6 com­pa­nies to try to get a seri­ous dis­cus­sion under way with var­i­ous part­ners about this issue.  We met to dis­cuss the issue in per­son in Toron­to last Decem­ber, 2013. Cana­di­an new music must get out into the dig­i­tal world, with high qual­i­ty, well curat­ed and pre­sent­ed con­certs, stu­dio pro­duc­tions, inter­ac­tive art, inno­v­a­tive new ideas…

This is a com­plex but very press­ing issue.  We are cur­rent­ly await­ing news on fund­ing to hire a con­sul­tant to start the real­ly detailed work of build­ing a coher­ent nation­al pol­i­cy for Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation, and present this to seri­ous gov­ern­men­tal and pri­vate part­ners.  This is a very big idea, and will require a great deal of research, admin­is­tra­tion and per­haps just a few more meetings!

Nobody else is doing this. The idea that Cana­di­an new music will not have a strong dig­i­tal pres­ence now and in the future is real­ly unac­cept­able; it would be a huge loss for music in Canada.

Updates as the project evolves.

Tim Brady
Chair, Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation Project

Direct link: Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation Project
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2014

The time has come to cre­ate a new Board of Direc­tors for the Cana­di­an New Music Net­work. This is a self-nom­i­nat­ing process.

DEADLINE for nom­i­na­tions is April 15^th, 2014.

TO NOMINATE YOURSELF, please con­tact Tim Brady, CNMN Pres­i­dent, tim@timbrady.ca, 514.931.9747.

Twelve posi­tions to be filled, 2‑year mandate.

2 – Atlantic Canada
3 – Québec
3 – Ontario
1 – Manitoba
1 – Saskatchewan
1 – Alber­ta and the North­ern Territories
1 – British Columbia

• New to CNMN? Our PDF brochure pro­vides more infor­ma­tion about the organization.
• The board meets by phone 3–4 times per year. Board mem­bers should expect to con­tribute some time and ener­gy to var­i­ous com­mit­tees and projects over the course of their mandate.
• For more infor­ma­tion about the orga­ni­za­tion of the board, please vis­it online: www.newmusicnetwork.ca/org.e/structure
• Details about the cur­rent board of direc­tors can be found here: www.newmusicnetwork.ca/en/category/about/board-of-directors/
• To run for board mem­ber­ship, you must have a CNMN mem­ber­ship as an indi­vid­ual with vot­ing rights.

PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE to peo­ple who you think might wish to run.

Direct link: Elec­tions 2014 – Call for Nominations
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2014

FACTOR is looking for MORE JURORS FROM THE NEW MUSIC FIELD

The Foun­da­tion Assist­ing Cana­di­an Tal­ent on Record­ings (FACTOR) is call­ing on con­tribut­ing mem­bers of the Cana­di­an Music Indus­try to par­tic­i­pate in online jury ses­sions. FACTOR receives thou­sands of appli­ca­tions for their Juried Sound Record­ing and Demo Pro­grams each year and it is through the pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence and under­stand­ing of our jurors that FACTOR is able to deter­mine which appli­ca­tions are strongest and best suit­ed for fund­ing. Jurors play an imper­a­tive role in the devel­op­ment of Cana­di­an Artists by offer­ing their time and exper­tise to review­ing appli­ca­tions, pro­vid­ing a scored eval­u­a­tion and offer­ing valu­able feed­back for each of the appli­ca­tions avail­able in a jury. If you are inter­est­ed in becom­ing an accred­it­ed FACTOR juror, please go to www.factor.ca and click on the “Become a juror” page under the “Get Involved” menu. You can also call Christi­na Cas­saro at 416–696-2215 ext. 223 or send an email to juror@factor.ca

We would like to congratulate the following FACTOR-funded New Music Recipients

The Cana­di­an New Music Network
CONTACT Con­tem­po­rary Music
Cana­di­an Music Cen­ter (Prairie Region)
Sarah Neufeld
Matthew Patton
And more…

To know more about which pro­grams New Music mem­bers may be eli­gi­ble to apply, please con­tact Joshua Four­ney at 1–877-696‑2215 ext. 230 or send an email to joshua.fourney@factor.ca

FACTOR invites NEW MUSIC recipients to share their success stories

FACTOR Suc­cess Sto­ries is an ini­tia­tive intend­ed to show­case the impact of con­tri­bu­tions from the Depart­ment of Cana­di­an Her­itage and pri­vate radio broad­cast­ers on the Cana­di­an inde­pen­dent music industry.

If you have been a recip­i­ent of FACTOR fund­ing, we would like to hear your sto­ry and learn more about how this fund­ing has impact­ed the suc­cess of your activ­i­ties as an artist, com­pos­er, per­former, ensem­ble, com­pa­ny, or organization.

To share your sto­ry, please vis­it www.factor.ca and click on “Share Your Sto­ry” page under the “Get Involved” menu. You can also call Joshua Four­ney at 1–877-696‑2215 ext. 230 or send an email to joshua.fourney@factor.ca

For more infor­ma­tion on FACTOR’s pro­grams and poli­cies, please vis­it www.factor.ca

Direct link: News from FACTOR
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2014

Since Decem­ber 2013, CNMN’s mem­ber­ship has grown by 31 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

New Sup­port­ing Members

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