Archives: Reports |

Sep­tem­ber 26, 2023 at 1 pm ET on Zoom

Zoom link will be pro­vid­ed the day of to pre­vent any hack­ing, and will be pub­lished in our newslet­ter.

To give your vote to some­one else, please fill in the proxy form.

Agenda

1. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Quo­rum and open­ing of meeting
2. Approve the Agen­da (vote)
3. Approve min­utes from last AGM, of Octo­ber 6, 2022 (vote)
4. Receive the President’s Report — Juli­et Palmer reviews the 2022–23 sea­son as CNMN president
5. Receive the Com­mit­tee reports of the 2022–23 season
6. Receive the Finan­cial State­ments for the year end­ed 30 June 2023
7. Appoint the audi­tor for the finan­cial year 2023–24 (nom­i­na­tion and vote)
8. Oth­er business
9. Adjourn­ment

Reports

President’s Report

The work we do togeth­er plants us deep­er into our com­mu­ni­ties, build­ing resilience and strength for the chal­lenges ahead. Thanks to the tire­less efforts of the CNMN Board over this past year. We’ve wres­tled a new man­date into exis­tence and are prepar­ing to launch a new name (stay tuned!). We wel­comed five fan­tas­tic new board mem­bers — Lib­erté-Anne Lym­be­ri­ou, Mari­na Has­sel­berg, Eric Nor­mand, Jen­nifer Thiessen, and Chenoa Ander­son — and are already grate­ful for their con­tri­bu­tions of enthu­si­asm, crit­i­cal thought and cre­ative insights. We said farewell to Megu­mi Masa­ki, Lin­da Bouchard and An-Lau­rence Hig­gins this year. Thank you An-Lau­rence for your fresh ideas and per­spec­tive! Lin­da, it has been invalu­able to have your sup­port and crit­i­cal think­ing as we grow as an orga­ni­za­tion. Megu­mi, your wis­dom and ener­gy have been vital to our devel­op­ment, espe­cial­ly in our region­al part­ner­ships. And, last­ly, I speak for the whole board when I say that none of this would be pos­si­ble with­out our hard-work­ing and whip-smart staff. Thank you Ter­ri, Aurore, Louise, Kyran, Math­ieu and Jason for anoth­er year of ded­i­cat­ed work. What a fan­tas­tic team!

In the mid­dle of the win­ter I had the joy of join­ing a work­shop on cre­ative music and sound led by edu­ca­tors Doug Friesen and Kather­ine Fras­er. We lis­tened, learned, made sounds and shared ideas and sto­ries. We heard about Katherine’s stu­dents impro­vis­ing to the score the stream of the pass­ing cars out­side the win­dow: colours, sizes, and speeds prompt­ing a shift­ing sound­scape. Just one of many cap­ti­vat­ing approach­es to engag­ing stu­dents in the cre­ative pos­si­bil­i­ties of shared sound-mak­ing. Doug and Kather­ine devel­oped the PCM Hub Sec­tor Focus Guide for Edu­ca­tion: whether you’re an edu­ca­tor or not, the guide is inspir­ing for any­one look­ing to shake up their ideas about music and sound. Look­ing fur­ther ahead, Louise Camp­bell will be build­ing the library resources of the PCM Hub with guides focussed on health care, com­mu­ni­ty, and cor­rec­tion­al institutions

It’s pow­er­ful to gath­er in per­son and real­ize you’re not alone. That sense of sol­i­dar­i­ty and shared con­cern was pal­pa­ble in CNM­N’s region­al con­ver­sa­tions on sus­tain­able futures held this spring. From Hal­i­fax and Ottawa to Bran­don, Van­cou­ver and Mon­tre­al, par­tic­i­pants shared, lis­tened and found com­mon ground. While life may seem to have returned to nor­mal in many ways, the arts sec­tor is still recov­er­ing from the enor­mous impact of the past three years. We need col­lec­tive action to move us for­ward in new more sus­tain­able ways. 

I invite you to eaves­drop on snatch­es of those con­ver­sa­tions (see below). If you’re intrigued, curi­ous, wish you’d said it, dis­agree, or oth­er­wise want to engage, please join us online and in per­son in Feb­ru­ary 2024 at our nation­al gath­er­ing. Let’s dig deep­er together. 

Thanks for read­ing! Look­ing for­ward to meet­ing with you in Feb­ru­ary at Sus­tain­able Futures. 

Warm wish­es,

Juli­et

Sustainable Futures Regional Meetings

Report by Ter­ri Hron

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: ED, Juli­et Palmer, Nor­man Adams, Claude Schry­er, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Ellen Waterman

We have had five region­al meet­ings, all that were sched­uled until now.

In 2022–23, CNMN start­ed Sus­tain­able Futures, which will have a num­ber of projects, with Region­al Meet­ings. Above are some excerpts of par­tic­i­pant feed­back we col­lect­ed dur­ing these con­sul­ta­tions, which were aimed at under­stand­ing where the cre­ative music and sound com­mu­ni­ty are at in terms of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in light of the cli­mate emer­gency. Here is a list of meet­ings that took place:

• March 16, 2023 in Hal­i­fax, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sco­tia Festival
• March 29, 2023 in Ottawa, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Research Cen­tre on Music, Sound and Soci­ety in Canada
• April 22, 2023 in Bran­don, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Eck­hardt-Gram­maté Competition 
• May 23, 2023 in Van­cou­ver, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with CMC BC
• June 14, 2023 in Mon­tre­al, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Le Vivi­er

Each meet­ing was quite dif­fer­ent, depend­ing on the par­tic­i­pants present. In Hal­i­fax, we lis­tened to a pre­sen­ta­tion by the direc­tor of Music Declares Emer­gency and dis­cussed the real­i­ties of small music production/presentation orga­ni­za­tions in less cen­tral areas of Cana­da. In Ottawa, we had many long-time activists and cul­tur­al orga­niz­ers in the room bring­ing a deep, expe­ri­ence-rich per­spec­tive. In Bran­don, there were quite a few com­peti­tors and their col­lab­o­rat­ing pianists, who pro­vid­ed per­spec­tives from those just start­ing out in their careers. Oth­er atten­dees who live and/or teach in Bran­don offered insights from what it is like for peo­ple out­side major cen­tres. In Van­cou­ver, we were joined by many artists work­ing in the city, who often have pieces that are influ­enced by or on envi­ron­men­tal top­ics. The con­ver­sa­tion high­light­ed how much has been done–also historically–by cre­ative music and sound artists to bring atten­tion to the cli­mate cri­sis and rela­tions with the land. In Mon­tre­al, we were offered pre­sen­ta­tions by the CALQ and the Con­seil québé­cois des événe­ments écore­spon­s­ables, who dis­cussed their cur­rent grant pro­grams to sup­port sus­tain­abil­i­ty. This was fol­lowed by a short shar­ing of con­cerns and ideas. Many of the par­tic­i­pants were Vivi­er mem­bers and so the role of umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tions such as le Vivi­er was also dis­cussed. Every­where, there was very vul­ner­a­ble and open sharing. 

We found out mid-May that we received our FACTOR fund­ing for this project, so three more meet­ings will be tak­ing place before the end of sum­mer 2024.

Find a full report, with anonymized tran­scrip­tions of par­tic­i­pant com­ments here. 

Communications & Membership 

Report by Aurore Blonde­lot
Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: ED, PR, Juli­et Palmer, Andrew Miller, Jen­nifer Thiessen

The 2022–2023 sea­son of the Cana­di­an New Music Net­work was marked by a return to face-to-face activities.

After two sea­sons of Con­ver­sa­tions broad­cast online, CNMN pre­sent­ed a series of region­al con­sul­ta­tions (in Hal­i­fax, Ottawa, Bran­don, Van­cou­ver and Mon­tre­al) around Sus­tain­able Futures – as a pre­am­ble to its next Nation­al Gath­er­ing on the same theme. The con­clu­sions of these Region­al Meet­ings were brought togeth­er in short descrip­tive reports, avail­able in a bilin­gual ver­sion on the CNMN web­site, and will sub­se­quent­ly be dis­sem­i­nat­ed in a con­densed man­ner on the CNMN social networks.

Con­tin­u­ing its activ­i­ties for the third con­sec­u­tive year, the Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music Hub ini­ti­at­ed its first work­shop in hybrid for­mat (online and in per­son), with the pre­sen­ta­tion of its new resource ‘Cre­ative Music in Edu­ca­tion’, at the Cen­ter of Cana­di­an music in Toron­to. This work­shop was pro­mot­ed in the CNMN newslet­ter and on social net­works and the video clips pre­sent­ed dur­ing the work­shop are avail­able for free access on the RCMN web­site and YouTube channel.

The PCM Hub also launched a new call for projects (tak­ing place in social and com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices) and the CNMN con­tin­ued its Con­neX­ions men­tor­ing pro­gram to sup­port artists in their musi­cal and sound cre­ation projects. All of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns and the result­ing projects and men­tor­ing were shared on CNMN social net­works with 2–3 pub­li­ca­tions per week and in bimonth­ly newsletters.

This year, CNMN con­tin­ued to pro­mote its new Pay What You Can mem­ber­ship mod­el and deployed a mar­ket­ing cam­paign to update mem­ber pro­files. Vot­ing mem­bers are always encour­aged to share their activ­i­ties to ampli­fy them on social media. To this end, and in con­nec­tion with the ques­tion of eco-respon­si­ble futures, CNMN notably pro­mot­ed the Con­scious Pod­cast of Sus­tain­able Futures com­mit­tee mem­ber , Claude Schry­er, as well as that of SCALE/LeSaut and Tar Sand Song­book by Tanya Kalmanovitch, guest pre­sen­ter of the next Nation­al Gathering.

To con­clude, the num­ber of sub­scribers to the CNMN mail­ing list remains con­stant, with a newslet­ter open­ing rate of around 50%. The num­ber of sub­scribers to the Face­book page and the X‑Twitter and Insta­gram accounts is still increas­ing slight­ly and the num­ber of inter­ac­tions with the con­tent of the pub­li­ca­tions is main­tained despite a reduced reach. In order to main­tain good vis­i­bil­i­ty, CNMN con­tin­ues to cre­ate dynam­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion con­tent, in par­tic­u­lar by devel­op­ing the video/reels for­mat, to con­tribute to the influ­ence of its var­i­ous activities.

Sustainable Futures National Gathering Planning

Report by Ter­ri Hron
Com­mit­tee mem­bers: ED, Juli­et Palmer, Andrew Miller, Lib­erté-Anne Lym­be­ri­ou, Joseph Glaser

The first meet­ing of this com­mit­tee took place in March, with two con­sul­tants — Yang Chen and Lind­say Dob­bin — to deter­mine how pro­gram­ming would take place for the Sus­tain­able Futures Nation­al Gath­er­ing. The con­sul­tants were brought in to speak to equi­ty and inclu­sion prac­tices, and we have adopt­ed their rec­om­men­da­tions (post­ing detailed infor­ma­tion about the selec­tion process, point­ing to our Equi­ty and Access Pol­i­cy and Action plan, pro­gram­ming more than 50% through the Open Call). 

While we were ini­tial­ly hop­ing to have the event in Novem­ber, in tan­dem with Music Declares Emer­gen­cy’s Sum­mit, we moved the dates to Feb­ru­ary 16–19, 2024 so as to be able to ben­e­fit from FACTOR fund­ing. To that end, we sub­mit­ted an appli­ca­tion to FACTOR for the Sep­tem­ber 15 dead­line for Col­lec­tive Ini­tia­tives. FACTOR has con­sis­tent­ly fund­ed our Nation­al Gatherings/FORUM in the past. 

Invi­ta­tion have been issued and accept­ed to Casey Koy­czan, Jes­si­ca McMann, Rory McLeod/Paolo Grif­fin, Tanya Kalmanovitch, the PCM Hub and Kat Esta­cio. There will be:

• two con­certs, one for Open Call pro­pos­als and one carte blanche curat­ed by Kat Esta­cio for Toron­to-based artists.
• two pan­els with pre­sen­ta­tions and mod­er­at­ed con­ver­sa­tions, one on Ecol­o­gy and one on Economy.
• 3–5 work­shops
• a facil­i­tat­ed presenter/arts orga­ni­za­tion round table
• two impro­vi­sa­tion sessions
• participatory/experiential par­tic­i­pant shar­ing and listening

The Open Call for Pro­pos­als is accept­ing sub­mis­sions until Sep­tem­ber 30. Select­ed par­tic­i­pants will have their trav­el and accom­mo­da­tions orga­nized and fund­ed by CNMN and receive a small fee. 

An access fund will be announced in Novem­ber to facilite par­tic­i­pa­tion for those who wish sim­ply to come to the Gath­er­ing, with finan­cial sup­port for trav­el, accom­mo­da­tions, child care, acces­si­bil­i­ty needs, etc. 

Mentorship 

Report by Helen Prid­more
Com­mit­tee: Nor­man Adams, Müge Büyükçe­len, Ter­ri Hron, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Pridmore

The com­mit­tee received eight Con­neX­ions Men­tor­ship pro­gram appli­ca­tions for the 2022–23 sea­son. The sub­mis­sions received were for devel­op­ment of com­po­si­tion­al work, learn­ing new tech­no­log­i­cal skills, out­reach pro­gram­ming (in care homes), or for per­son­al per­for­mance men­tor­ing.  We were dis­ap­point­ed that there were no sub­mis­sions from peo­ple in arts admin­is­tra­tion or oth­er, less “typ­i­cal” men­tor­ing areas of the cre­ative music com­mu­ni­ty.  How­ev­er, the sub­mis­sions received were strong.

The com­mit­tee received award­ed men­tor­ships to the fol­low­ing six peo­ple: Lau­ra Gillis (Toron­to) — men­tor Ruth Howard; Lance Mar­cus Samp­son (Hal­i­fax) — men­tor Michael Dono­van; Sarah Rossy (Mon­tréal) — men­tor Myr­i­am Bouch­er; There­sa Thor­dar­son (Win­nipeg) — men­tor Zohreh Ger­vais; Gabo Cham­pagne (Mon­tréal) — men­tor Marie-Annick Béliveau; and Thomas Gau­thi­er-Lang (Mon­tréal) — men­tor Noam Bier­stone. 

For the next round of appli­ca­tions, hap­pen­ing now, the Com­mit­tee dis­cussed some new ideas.  Some adjust­ments to the word­ing of the Con­neX­ions descrip­tion have been made, and fur­ther detail added, for clar­i­ty.  There had been a sug­ges­tion that men­tors and mentees could apply as teams, but the Com­mit­tee decid­ed to rec­om­mend against this:  as stat­ed in the project descrip­tion, “…the spir­it of the pro­gram is in cre­at­ing new connections”. 

Organizational Transformation

Report by Helen Prid­more
Com­mit­tee: ED, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Prid­more, Julie Richard, Jen­nifer Thiessen

This com­mit­tee began to meet in Feb. 2023. The aims of the com­mit­tee were to deter­mine the next steps for CNMN and the Board, includ­ing a new name, and a new mission/mandate.  It seems that CNMN is ready to move in a new direc­tion, some­thing dif­fer­ent from the CNMN goals cur­rent­ly in our mis­sion state­ment.  CNMN is mov­ing more in an activist direc­tion, seek­ing real change in how art works in soci­ety. The com­mit­tee dis­cussed key issues here, includ­ing a def­i­n­i­tion of “cre­ative music and sound” that can hold the net­work togeth­er; a need for sus­tain­ing artis­tic well-being, as well as com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment; and a desire for a net­work of shared learning. 

For the next few months the com­mit­tee met online and via email exchanges, and worked hard to craft the new ideas into a name and a mis­sion that can be sup­port­ed by CNMN mem­bers.  Ideas were shared at Board meet­ings and Board mem­bers assist­ed with editing.

After much delib­er­a­tion, the Com­mit­tee pro­pos­es the new name:

Réseau de cre­ation musi­cale et sonore / Cre­ative Music and Sound Network 

RMCS / CMSN

Ter­ri has reserved the domain names:

• • Creativemusicandsound.ca

• • Creationmusicaleetsonore.ca

The new Mis­sion State­ment can be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zly5BBRrJKD2fy66BO_pmYGIJz5bQY4euGDSqs5G9So/edit

PCM Hub 

Report by Project Lead Louise Campbell

In 2019, CNMN received fund­ing through the Cana­da Coun­cil’s Dig­i­tal Strat­e­gy Fund to cre­ate an on-line Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music Hub. Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry cre­ative music is a vari­ety of prac­tices in which all peo­ple involved have active input into the process of cre­at­ing music. A facil­i­ta­tor may guide and par­tic­i­pate in the process, and deci­sion-mak­ing and author­ship is shared. The Hub is full of inspir­ing, inno­v­a­tive projects hail­ing from the fields of edu­ca­tion, health, com­mu­ni­ty, social ser­vices and incarceration.

The key achieve­ment of the 2022–23 sea­son was a suc­cess­ful Open Call for project with a focus on projects occur­ring in the sec­tor of Com­mu­ni­ty, and pos­i­tive response and vis­i­bil­i­ty gained at two major con­fer­ences in the area of Arts and Health and the peer-reviewed jour­nal Per­for­mance Mat­ters. Con­sul­tants have been con­tract­ed for Sec­tor Focus Resources in the areas of Rehab & Incar­cer­a­tion, Health and Com­mu­ni­ty, for deliv­ery of mate­ri­als in fall 2023.

Hub activ­i­ties in 2021–22 sea­son included:

• 15 con­sul­tants hired to pro­vide expert advice 

• Open Call with a focus on projects occur­ring in Community

• 8 suc­cess­ful Open Call projects com­plet­ed and uploaded by Saman­tha Tai, jashen edwards & Patrick Mur­ray, Lau­ren Best, Frédérique Dro­let, Jen­nifer Lang, Kathy Kennedy, Shu­maila Hemani, and Shifra Coop­er (pend­ing)

• Dis­sem­i­na­tion through
• • pre­sen­ta­tion at con­fer­ences includ­ing ACFAS Con­grès: Arts et réadap­ta­tion (keynote speech) and Music and Health Research Insti­tute Con­fer­ence (round­table ‘Social Pre­scrip­tion Mobi­liza­tion for Music Mak­ing and Men­tal Health’)

• • pub­li­ca­tion of arti­cle in peer-reviewed online jour­nal Per­for­mance Mat­ters 

• • part­ner orgs such as Cana­di­an Net­work for Arts and Learn­ing etc

• • Beta test­ing to assess the func­tion­al­i­ty and con­tent of the Hub web­site, and sub­se­quent adjustments

For more infor­ma­tion, and to be part of the Hub, please con­tact Louise Camp­bell at mlouisecampbell@gmail.com.

Agenda

1. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Quo­rum and open­ing of meeting
2. Approve the Agen­da (vote)
3. Approve min­utes from last AGM, of Octo­br 14, 2021 (vote)
4. Receive the President’s Report — Juli­et Palmer reviews the 2021–22 sea­son as CNMN president
5. Receive the Com­mit­tee reports of the 2021–22 season
6. Receive the Finan­cial State­ments for the year end­ed 30 June 2022
7. Appoint the audi­tor for the finan­cial year 2022–23 (nom­i­na­tion and vote)
8. Board Mem­ber Votes
9. Vote to change bylaws on Board Mem­ber vot­ing — see new word­ing here
10. Oth­er business
11. Adjourn­ment

Reports

President’s Report

Communications & Membership 

Forum 2021

• 5 videos on Land, Access, Indige­nous, Inno­va­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty issues, with the voic­es and work of artis­tic lead­ers. These videos were edit­ed by Jeff Mor­ton. Pre­sen­ters includ­ed: Bec­ca Tay­lor (Oci­ci­wan Col­lec­tive), Astro­labe Musik The­atre (Del­phine Der­ick­son-Arm­strong and Heather Pawsey), Ian Cus­son, Geron­i­mo Inu­tiq and Sandy Scofield for Indige­nous Resur­gence; Rebec­ca Caines, Louise Camp­bell, Gior­gio Mag­na­nen­si, and Rox­anne Tur­cotte for Com­mu­ni­ty; Col Cseke (Good Host), Chelsea Jones, Julie Richard and Ellen Water­man for Access; Suzanne Kite, Amy Bran­don, Tere­sa Con­nors, Hel­ga Jakob­son and Annie Mar­tin for Innovation/Technology; and Tanya Kalmanovitch, Heather Peat Hamm, Tina Pear­son and Jen­ni Schine for Land;
• A show­case of 20+ short videos of cre­ative music and sound artists from across the coun­try and artis­tic prac­tice. Artists includ­ed Evelin Ramon, Andrew Adridge, Michelle Boudreau, Jen­na Turn­er, Caitlin Sian Richards, Sarah Albu,Lia Pas, Kathryn Ladano, Frank Hor­vat, Anoush Moazzeni, THIRTYMINUTES, Park­er Thiessen, Arlan Vriens, Chenoa Ander­son, Erin Dono­van, SHHH!! Ensem­ble, Alexan­dra Gor­lin-Cren­shaw and Kim Farris-Manning;
• 4 events pro­duced by pre­sen­ters from the heart of Cana­da on the Prairies: the Eck­hardt-Gram­mat­té Com­pe­ti­tion, Holophon Audio Arts, New Music Edmon­ton and New Works Calgary.

Mentorship 

Conversations

Indigenous Resurgence — January 18, 2022

Land — February 15, 2022

Innovation/Technology — March 15, 2022

Access Apr 12 2022

Participatory Music Hub 

• 17 con­sul­tants hired to pro­vide expert advice
• Open Call with a focus on projects occur­ring in Health completed
• 8 suc­cess­ful Open Call projects com­plet­ed and uploaded by Naila Kuhlmann, Sher­ry L. Dupuis, Lau­ra Gillis, Julia Wed­er, Pia Kon­tos, Leah Abram­son, Ira Lee Gath­ers, and Geremia Loren­zo Lodi
• Dis­sem­i­na­tion through part­ner orgs Cana­di­an Net­work for Arts and Learn­ing, Cana­di­an Music Edu­ca­tors’ Asso­ci­a­tion, Coali­tion for Music Edu­ca­tion, provin­cial music ed orgs, Room 217, Cana­di­an Asso­ci­a­tion for Music Ther­a­py and more

Octo­ber 14, 2021 at 1 pm EDT

Agenda

1. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Quo­rum and open­ing of meeting
2. Approve the Agen­da (vote)
3. Approve min­utes from last AGM, of Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020 (vote)
4. Receive the President’s Report — Juli­et Palmer reviews the 2020–21 sea­son as CNMN president
5. Receive the Work­ing Group reports of the 2020 21season
6. Receive the Finan­cial State­ments for the year end­ed 30 June 2021
7. Appoint the audi­tor for the finan­cial year 2021–22 (nom­i­na­tion and vote)
8. Present the new Board Mem­bers (An-Lau­rence Higgins)
9. Oth­er business
10. Adjourn­ment

President’s Report

by Juli­et Palmer

Anoth­er twelve months have rolled by in the dis­ori­ent­ing drag and rush of pan­dem­ic time. The qui­et of the past year has been both a gift and a chal­lenge. I miss the inti­ma­cy and con­nec­tion of live music-mak­ing, the unpre­dictable con­ver­sa­tions in the line-up for tick­ets, the ran­dom glimpses into each other’s lives and work. I crave con­nec­tion, the alive­ness that comes from mak­ing music togeth­er, and the sim­ple joy of shar­ing space — one per­son among many atten­tive and rapt lis­ten­ers. I know it’s com­ing back, this world of con­certs and instal­la­tions and improv ses­sions and fes­ti­vals. In some towns and cities it’s already here — in oth­ers, a con­cert seat is still a com­fy spot in front of a com­put­er screen. 

In the mean­time, CNMN has tak­en to heart its man­date to con­nect and nur­ture rela­tion­ships amongst the wide and diverse sound and music com­mu­ni­ties of Cana­da. The Con­ver­sa­tion series con­tin­ued with a focus on decol­o­niza­tion, invit­ing us to move beyond dis­cus­sion to take tan­gi­ble action that address­es sys­temic inequity. We look for­ward to the evo­lu­tion of this series as it expands from FORUM 2021 with its focus on activism in cul­tur­al practice. 

Under Louise Campbell’s steady hand, the Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music Hub has grown apace, with a vibrant library that sup­ports cre­ative musi­cal engage­ment in pris­ons, hos­pi­tals, schools and oth­er less-traf­ficked areas of musi­cal life. 

The Con­neX­ions men­tor­ship pro­gram offered vital oppor­tu­ni­ties for growth and con­nec­tion in a time of uncer­tain­ty and finan­cial insta­bil­i­ty. We are thrilled to offer the pro­gram once again this year — the dead­line is rolling, so find out more and apply online. 

FORUM is under­way, even as I type, in a gen­tle ten week dig­i­tal unfold­ing that spans five full-length videos, twen­ty cameo videos and four events by Prairie pro­duc­ers. “Lis­ten Up!” cel­e­brates the inno­va­tion and par­a­digm shifts of music and sound prac­tices out­side the con­cert hall.  Thanks to the stead­fast work of pro­duc­er Jeff Mor­ton, ED Ter­ri Hron and the FORUM com­mit­tee (Helen Prid­more, Megu­mi Masa­ki, and Po Yeh). Expe­ri­ence FORUM and Lis­ten Up! on our web­site, Youtube chan­nel and social media feeds.

This year we wel­comed An-Lau­rence Hig­gins to the board. An-Lau­rence brings expe­ri­ence and per­spec­tive as a per­former and cre­ator devot­ed to col­lab­o­ra­tion and thought­ful inquiry into cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty. We say farewell and offer heart­felt thanks to André Cormi­er for his years of ser­vice as a Board mem­ber, in par­tic­u­lar for his work as a bilin­gual advis­er. We are indebt­ed to the mem­bers of the Board for their per­sis­tence and ener­gy over this unique­ly long year in keep­ing our active com­mit­tees active: from FORUM, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty, to the Men­tor­ship Advi­so­ry. The board’s wis­dom, expe­ri­ence and com­mit­ment to the net­work are deeply appre­ci­at­ed and we look for­ward to anoth­er year work­ing togeth­er. Maybe this year we will final­ly meet in person!

I’ve learned much over the course of the year col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Ter­ri Hron. Her ded­i­ca­tion and sharp wit have helped CNMN nav­i­gate an uncer­tain year with grace and cre­ativ­i­ty. CNMN is a grow­ing team and I’m delight­ed to thank our media spe­cial­ist Aurore Blondet, admin­is­tra­tive assis­tant Suzu Enns, book-keep­er Math­ieu Leclair and web design­er Jason Camp­bell for their skills and team work behind the scenes. I look for­ward to work­ing with the Board and staff, along with our fund­ing and part­ner orga­ni­za­tions to strength­en CNMN’s role as a hub of learn­ing and exchange, an agent of change and a cat­a­lyst for new ways of cre­at­ing and connecting. 

Forum Planning

Report by Ter­ri Hron

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: ED, Megu­mi Masa­ki, Jeff Mor­ton, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Pridmore

The 2020–2021 sea­son was ded­i­cat­ed large­ly to reimag­in­ing the Forum as an online celebration.

In Decem­ber, the deci­sion was tak­en not to host a post­poned, in-per­son event and to pro­ceed with our first online version. 

The pan­dem­ic year pro­vid­ed us with many exam­ples of online pre­sen­ta­tions and pan­els, and it also became clear that there was a lot of fatigue with real-time, online events. For this rea­son, the Forum team decid­ed to focus on pre-record­ed con­tent and a deploy­ment of events over a longer time — ten weeks , with the hope of increas­ing our reach and vis­i­bil­i­ty on social media, as well as engage­ment through our newslet­ter. In the end, we decid­ed to focus on the fol­low­ing for the  14th edition:

• 5 videos on Land, Access, Indige­nous Resur­gence, Inno­va­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty issues, with the voic­es and work of artis­tic leaders;
• A show­case of 20+ short videos of cre­ative music and sound artists from across the coun­try and artis­tic practice;
• 4 events pro­duced by pre­sen­ters from the heart of Cana­da on the Prairies.

In order to have enough time for this pro­duc­tion, the launch of Forum was set for late Sep­tem­ber. At the end of June 2021, we were well under­way with the pro­duc­tion of the 5 the­mat­ic videos, in con­tracts with the Prairie pre­sen­ters, and the Forum Show­case appli­ca­tions were about to open.

While this is a report on last year, at the time of this AGM, Forum is well under­way and all activ­i­ties can be found on the FORUM page.

Communications & Membership

Report by Ter­ri Hron

Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: ED, PR, Juli­et Palmer, Lin­da Bouchard

In the past year, com­mu­ni­ca­tions have become more reg­u­lar with min­i­mum bi-week­ly social media post­ing and reg­u­lar newslet­ters to announce calls, online events and membership/profile reminders. The strat­e­gy and deploy­ment was designed and exe­cut­ed by PR assis­tant Aurore Blonde­lot, and our num­ber of fol­low­ers and engage­ments on social media keep increas­ing. Our newslet­ter num­bers stay steady with new mem­bers and inter­est­ed par­ties join­ing and often old­er con­tacts unsubscribing. 

Since all our activ­i­ties were online in this past year, the YouTube chan­nel, our web­site and social media have been close­ly linked with Face­book Live Con­ver­sa­tion events, PCM Hub videos on the YouTube chan­nel and all things search­able on the website. 

Improve­ments to the web­site con­tin­ued, with a new page about dig­i­tal acces­si­bil­i­ty and at-home-activ­i­ties for music cre­ativ­i­ty.

After con­ver­sa­tions at each board meet­ing about mem­ber­ship and how best to sup­port artists dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, it was vot­ed in June 2021 that we would switch to a pay-what-you-can mod­el for the com­ing year. We look for­ward to see­ing how peo­ple respond and whether this encour­ages more peo­ple to become full members. 

Mentorship

Report by Helen Pridmore

Com­mit­tee: Nor­man Adams, Müge Büyükçe­len, Ter­ri Hron, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Pridmore

The CNMN Con­nex­ions project was suc­cess­ful in its first year of oper­a­tion.  The project pairs appli­cants with spe­cif­ic projects, with men­tors from our com­mu­ni­ty who meet with them for one to four ses­sions to devel­op these new projects.  The pro­gram is open to any­one inter­est­ed in cre­ative music and sound prac­tices.  In the first year, we were able to sup­port 14 match­es. To see the list of mentees and men­tors, please vis­it the Con­neX­ions Men­tor­ship page. 

We sub­mit­ted an appli­ca­tion to Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts Sec­tor Inno­va­tion and Devel­op­ment for this project for upcom­ing years, but our appli­ca­tion was not deemed applic­a­ble since we had men­tioned this project as a pos­si­ble new project should we receive a fund­ing increase (which CNMN was not accord­ed). We will con­tin­ue to seek pos­si­ble fund­ing sources. 

We will con­tin­ue with the project in 2021–22 with a rolling appli­ca­tion dead­line start­ing in August and end­ing mid-October.

Conversations

Report by Juli­et Palmer, Octo­ber 7, 2021

Com­mit­tee: Ter­ri Hron, Matthew Fava (CMC), Ian Crutchley/Sophie Dupuis (CLC), Juli­et Palmer, Aurore Blondelot

CNMN’s Con­ver­sa­tion series active­ly engages with CNMN’s mem­ber­ship and beyond. Begin­ning with the Rolling Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tions on Diver­si­ty (2017, Hal­i­fax, Mon­tréal and Vic­to­ria), the series con­tin­ued through 2019 in Vic­to­ria (Sus­tain­abil­i­ty) and Win­nipeg (Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty). In 2019–20 we moved to an online for­mat in response to the pan­dem­ic and to ensure wider access to mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ties across Cana­da. The themes evolve in response to changes in our cul­tur­al land­scape and wider soci­etal upheavals. 

Our 2020–21 series focused on decoloni­sa­tion. All con­ver­sa­tions are avail­able on Youtube — edit­ed and with closed cap­tion­ing.  Fol­low the links below!

Octo­ber 22 Cura­tors: Dylan Robin­son & Mitch Renaud “Decolo­nial Imag­in­ings”
Set­tler composers/ com­pos­i­teurs : jake moore, Joce­lyn Mor­lock, Juli­et Palmer, Luke Nick­el, Kel­ly Ruth
Respondents/ répon­dants : Tina Pear­son & Tama­ra Levitz 

Novem­ber 12 Cura­tor: Parmela Attari­wala “Can West­ern Art Music ever be Equi­table in Prac­tice and in Per­cep­tion?”
Guests: Pat Carrabré, Ian Cus­son, Lise Vau­geois, Dinuk Wijer­atne 

Decem­ber 2 Cura­tor: Olivia Shortt “Process vs Prod­uct”
Guests: Olivia Davies, Kim Sen­klip Har­vey, Mar­i­on New­man, Tyler J. Sloane 

Jan­u­ary 14 Cura­tor: Remy Siu “We can’t play their game, their way”
Guests: Gabriel Dhar­moo, Melody McK­iv­er, Nan­cy Tam & Leslie Ting. 

March 11 Cura­tor: Cur­tis Left­hand “Songs We’ve Always Known”
Guests: Matthew Car­di­nal, Black Belt Eagle Scout,Wyatt C. Louis, Han­nah Owl Child

April 22 Cura­tor: Gabriel Dhar­moo “Décolo­nial­ité et diver­sité : per­spec­tives d’artistes en musiques nou­velles”
Guests: Daniel Añez, An-Lau­rence Hig­gins, Corie Rose Soumah, Rouzbeh Shapdey

Participatory Music Hub

Report by project lead Louise Campbell 

In 2019, CNMN received fund­ing through the Cana­da Coun­cil’s Dig­i­tal Strat­e­gy Fund to cre­ate an on-line Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music Hub. Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry cre­ative music is a vari­ety of prac­tices in which all peo­ple involved have active input into the process of cre­at­ing music. A facil­i­ta­tor may guide and par­tic­i­pate in the process, and deci­sion-mak­ing and author­ship is shared. The Hub is full of inspir­ing, inno­v­a­tive projects hail­ing from the fields of edu­ca­tion, health, com­mu­ni­ty, social ser­vices and incarceration.

The key achieve­ment of the 2020–21 sea­son was the launch of the online Hub user-based plat­form. Feed­back from prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing in the tar­get sec­tors indi­cates that the Hub is respon­sive to the depth and range of PCM activ­i­ties. Prac­ti­tion­ers respond­ed with excite­ment about the rel­e­vance and exis­tence of such a resource and the poten­tial for strength­en­ing vis­i­bil­i­ty and the prac­tice as a result. 

Hub activ­i­ties in 2020–21 sea­son included:

·       15 Pilot Projects & 6 Tips & Tools arti­cles com­plet­ed and released

·       +125 com­mu­ni­ty consultations

·       17 con­sul­tants hired to pro­vide expert advice 

·       8 suc­cess­ful Open Call projects com­plet­ed by RECAA Choir, Piece of Mind Col­lec­tive, Thais Mon­ta­nari, Paramorph Col­lec­tive, Geremia Loren­zo Lodi, Dina Cin­dric, Guil­laume Jab­bour and Deirdre Potash

·       First steps in dis­sem­i­na­tion in the fields of edu­ca­tion and music therapy

We’re thrilled to announce that we have been award­ed sub­stan­tial funds from the Cana­da Council’s Dig­i­tal Strat­e­gy Fund to con­tin­ue expand­ing and dis­sem­i­nat­ing the Hub.

This sea­son, we will con­tin­ue to con­duct com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tions in order to cre­ate a respon­sive and use­ful resource for prac­ti­tion­ers, and best posi­tion the Hub for use by var­i­ous stake­hold­ers. If you or any­one you know is inter­est­ed in being part of the Hub, or poten­tial con­tacts for dis­sem­i­na­tion please let us know!

For more infor­ma­tion, and to share your expe­ri­ences, please con­tact Louise Camp­bell.

Sep­tem­ber 17, 2020 at 1 pm EST

Agenda

1. Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of Quo­rum and open­ing of meeting
2. Approve the Agen­da (vote)
3. Approve min­utes from last AGM, of Sep­tem­ber 24, 2019 (vote)
4. Receive the President’s Report — Juli­et Palmer reviews the 2019–20 sea­son as CNMN president
5. Receive the Work­ing Group reports of the 2019–2020 season
6. Receive the Finan­cial State­ments  for the year end­ed 30 June 2020
7. Appoint the audi­tor for the finan­cial year 2020–2021 (nom­i­na­tion and vote)
8. Present the new Board Mem­bers (Rob Thomson & ?)
9. Oth­er business
10. Adjourn­ment

President’s Report

Report by Juli­et Palmer, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2020

This year has been like no other.

The glob­al pan­dem­ic has brought home the inter­con­nec­tions between all liv­ing beings. Suf­fer­ing and vio­lence stem­ming from sys­temic injus­tice, racism, and colo­nial­ism have been laid bare in ways that chal­lenge those with priv­i­lege to exam­ine how we might remake the world to ensure a just and secure future for all. What is the role of cul­tur­al orga­ni­za­tions in per­pet­u­at­ing priv­i­lege? How do we har­ness cre­ative imag­i­na­tion in ser­vice of soci­etal change? These are some of the ques­tions we face as a net­work ded­i­cat­ed to con­nec­tion, learn­ing and advocacy.

The pan­dem­ic brought our plans for FORUM to a sud­den halt. This year’s event in Regi­na promised an inspir­ing and chal­leng­ing mix of inter­na­tion­al, Cana­di­an and local per­spec­tives, thought­ful­ly curat­ed by Ter­ri, in part­ner­ship with the plan­ning com­mit­tee — Helen Prid­more, Po Yeh and Megu­mi Masa­ki. Luke Nick­el, Ian Crutch­ley – and pro­duc­er Jeff Mor­ton. Lis­ten Up was to be a cel­e­bra­tion of the spir­it of activism and inclu­sion through five themes: Access, Com­mu­ni­ty, Indige­nous Resur­gence, Land and Technology-Innovation.

That spir­it of inclu­sive inno­va­tion found new expres­sion in the months that fol­lowed, as CNMN rapid­ly piv­ot­ed to sup­port new ways of con­nect­ing. A series of online com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tions sup­port­ed com­pas­sion­ate and thought-pro­vok­ing com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions. Guest speak­ers informed and engaged, shed­ding light on issues rel­e­vant to this moment, and also to the future. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers met from around the coun­try in break-out rooms, to dis­cuss the chal­lenges fac­ing both the artis­tic and broad­er Cana­di­an cul­ture, con­sid­er­ing pos­si­ble futures that avoid a return to an unjust and unsus­tain­able “nor­mal”.

With pan­dem­ic restric­tions to in-per­son gath­er­ings pre­dict­ed to wax and wane through­out the com­ing year, CNMN is com­mit­ted to grow­ing our online pres­ence and deep­en­ing our lev­el of engage­ment with the community.

The Con­ver­sa­tion series con­tin­ues with a focus on Decol­o­niza­tion. Cul­ti­vat­ing new con­ver­sa­tions and oppor­tu­ni­ties for mutu­al learn­ing, guest cura­tors include: Olivia Shortt, Cur­tis Left­hand, Parmela Attari­wala, and Remy Siu.

A huge range of par­tic­i­pa­to­ry cre­ative music projects have been doc­u­ment­ed under the ener­getic lead­er­ship of Louise Camp­bell for the PCM Hub. Over the com­ing year work­shops and show­cas­es will raise the pro­file of this resource and the poten­tial to spark the cre­ativ­i­ty of all mem­bers of our soci­ety —includ­ing those in schools, hos­pi­tals, pris­ons and long-term care.

As we shift gears and glimpse an unfa­mil­iar future, many of us in the cre­ative sec­tor are seek­ing guid­ance and men­tor­ship. CNM­N’s Con­nex­ions pilot pro­gram was con­ceived in pre-Covid times, but is prov­ing to be a par­tic­u­lar­ly use­ful offer­ing for peo­ple embark­ing on new ven­tures. The response to the pro­gram has been pos­i­tive, with more demand than we have the funds to sup­port. Online men­tor­ships are under­way and about to lift off!

The CNMN Board con­tin­ues to be engaged and active: from the FORUM, Strate­gic Plan, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty, and Men­tor­ship Advi­so­ry com­mit­tees, to those offer­ing feed­back on the nev­er-end­ing round of grants that Ter­ri so capa­bly writes. The board­’s sup­port, ener­gy and valu­able skills are deeply appre­ci­at­ed and we look for­ward to anoth­er year work­ing together.

Dur­ing the year we were thrilled to wel­comed Rob Thom­son to the board. Rob brings valu­able expe­ri­ence in arts man­age­ment, cura­tion and per­for­mance through his work at Full Cir­cle and Talk­ing Stick Fes­ti­val. This year we farewell Pierre-Olivi­er Roy after two year on the board and thank him in par­tic­u­lar for his work on the Strate­gic Plan. Clemens Merkel stepped down from the board dur­ing the year and we thank him for his con­tri­bu­tion over the years to CNMN, espe­cial­ly to dis­cus­sions of tour­ing and mentorship.

It has been a plea­sure to work close­ly this year with Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Ter­ri Hron, whose intel­li­gence and com­pas­sion have ensured that CNMN has been ready to face a time of tremen­dous upheaval with cre­ativ­i­ty and insight. I look for­ward to work­ing with the Board and staff, along with our fund­ing and part­ner orga­ni­za­tions to strength­en CNM­N’s role as an acti­va­tor of ideas, a home for learn­ing and exchange, and as a cat­a­lyst for trans­for­ma­tion­al change.

Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

Report by Ter­ri Hron, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2020

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: Juli­et Palmer, Megu­mi Masa­ki, Rob Thom­son, André Cormi­er, Julie Richard.

The EDI group’s work this past year main­ly focused on the cre­ation of an EDI pol­i­cy doc­u­ment that was adopt­ed by the board and will be avail­able in both lan­guages on our web­site by the end of Sep­tem­ber 2020. This doc­u­ment was large­ly writ­ten by past-pres­i­dent Jen­nifer War­ing and board mem­ber Megu­mi Masa­ki – we thank them for their hard work on this!

Forum Planning

Report by Ter­ri Hron, Sep­tem­ber 14, 2020

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: Ian Crutch­ley, ED, Dar­ren Miller, Megu­mi Masa­ki, Jeff Mor­ton, Luke Nick­el, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Pridmore

The Forum Plan­ning com­mit­tee worked hard to curate an excit­ing edi­tion of Forum around activism and advo­ca­cy with the theme Lis­ten Up and the top­ics Access, Com­mu­ni­ty, Indige­nous Resur­gence, Land and Tech­nol­o­gy-Inno­va­tion. 32 invit­ed pre­sen­ters includ­ing 5 keynotes, 4 inter­na­tion­al guests, and 12 suc­cess­ful open call appli­ca­tions make up a pro­gram that was to take place at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Regi­na, First Nations Uni­ver­si­ty of Cana­da and down­town venues in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Cathe­dral Vil­lage Arts Fes­ti­val. All infor­ma­tion is avail­able on the FORUM Web­page. 

For the first time, CNMN was able to offer trav­el and par­tic­i­pa­tion sup­port, and was just about to allo­cate funds to appli­cants when COVID-19 hit.

The CNMN board has decid­ed to post­pone the event until spring 2021. Arrange­ments for hous­ing, trav­el and reg­is­tra­tions were also under­way, and we were luck­i­ly able to make the nec­es­sary changes with­out losses. 

Stay tuned for take two!

Communications & Membership

Report by Juli­et Palmer, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2020

Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: ED, PR, Juli­et Palmer, Lin­da Bouchard

Activ­i­ties:

Sup­port­ing Ter­ri as she imple­ments the Mem­bee sys­tem for the mem­ber­ship data­base, includ­ing: review­ing orga­ni­za­tions in the exist­ing data­base to ensure the list­ing is rel­e­vant and up to date; and resolv­ing issues around how to deal with unpaid dues and lapsed mem­ber­ships, cre­at­ing a cat­e­go­ry for receiv­ing news updates only.

Sup­port­ing Ter­ri and Aurore (our PR per­son) in out­reach and com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Over the year this includ­ed help­ing pub­li­cize oppor­tu­ni­ties for par­tic­i­pa­tion in the FORUM through the Open Call, access­ing the Trav­el sub­sidy fund, shar­ing news about the Con­ver­sa­tions series and build­ing inter­est in the pilot Men­tor­ship pro­gram CONNEXIONS. 

The cre­ation of the PR posi­tion and a coher­ent social media strat­e­gy has been a huge boon over this past year. We look for­ward to sup­port­ing the grow­ing aware­ness of CNMN’s activ­i­ties in an engag­ing and inclu­sive way over the com­ing year. 

Mentorship

Report by Helen Prid­more, Sep­tem­ber 12, 2020

Com­mit­tee: Nor­man Adams, Müge Büyükçe­len, Ter­ri Hron, Juli­et Palmer, Helen Pridmore

In June 2020, CNMN launched a new men­tor­ship pro­gram.  Enti­tled Con­neX­ions, this pro­gram is intend­ed to sup­port and guide artists and arts work­ers in dif­fer­ent areas of cre­ative music and sound prac­tice.  The pro­gram match­es artists who have a project in mind, with an expe­ri­enced mentor/coach to guide and offer advice on the project.  Between one and four meet­ings will be sched­uled between men­tor and mentee. 

Appli­ca­tions were accept­ed on a rolling basis through­out the sum­mer, from June until the end of August.  17 appli­ca­tions have been received, and to date four have been con­firmed with men­tors cho­sen and accept­ed.  One appli­ca­tion has been post­poned until next year.  The remain­ing appli­ca­tions are in process:  either men­tors are being select­ed, approached and con­firmed; or the appli­ca­tions them­selves are still in the delib­er­a­tion process by the committee.

It has been excit­ing to read the incom­ing appli­ca­tions and see the won­der­ful vari­ety of music and sound projects under­way in Cana­da, con­nect­ed to CNMN.

Conversations

Report by Juli­et Palmer, Sep­tem­ber 11, 2020

Com­mit­tee: Ter­ri Hron, Matthew Fava (CMC), Ian Crutchley/Sophie Dupuis (CLC), Juli­et Palmer, Aurore Blondet

CNMN’s Con­ver­sa­tion series active­ly engages with CNMN’s mem­ber­ship and beyond. Begin­ning with the Rolling Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tions on Diver­si­ty (2017, Hal­i­fax, Mon­tréal and Vic­to­ria), the series con­tin­ued through 2019 in Vic­to­ria (Sus­tain­abil­i­ty) and Win­nipeg (Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty). In 2019–20 we moved to an online for­mat in response to the pan­dem­ic and to ensure wider access to mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ties across Cana­da. The themes evolve in response to changes in our cul­tur­al land­scape and wider soci­etal upheavals. 

• April 22: Earth Day with Andrew Bal­four, Tere­sa Marie Con­nors, Hel­ga Jakob­son, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Tina Pear­son, Jen­ni Schine and mod­er­a­tor Ellen Waterman
• May 6: New Nor­mal with Cur­tis Left­hand, Keiko Devaux, Andrew Reed Miller and Ilana Waniuk and mod­er­a­tor Stacey Brown
• June 4: Mul­ti-Arts post­poned to July 2 in sol­i­dar­i­ty with Black Lives Matter. 
• June 18: Fund­ing and Pol­i­cy with host Jeff Mor­ton, and fea­tured speak­ers / En com­pag­nie de notre mod­éra­teur Jeff Mor­ton et avec pour con­férenciers vedettes : Jes­sa Agi­lo (Art­sPond), James Mis­sen (Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts | Con­seil des arts du Cana­da), Charles C. Smith (Cul­tur­al Plu­ral­ism in the Arts Move­ment Ontario (CPAMO), Michael Trent (Met­calf Foun­da­tion), Stephen Williams (Edmon­ton Arts Coun­cil), & Po Yeh (Prairie Debut)
• July 2 Mul­ti-Arts Mod­er­a­tor / L’an­i­ma­trice Nik­ki Shaf­feeu­lah with fea­tured speak­ers / avec pour con­férenciers vedettes : Neema Bick­er­steth, Col Cseke (Inside Out The­atre), Lind­say Dob­bin, & Ger­ry Mori­ta (Mile Zero Dance)

Fol­low­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with the invit­ed guests and mod­er­a­tor, we meet in small­er break-out groups to dig in deep­er. Our dis­cus­sions have ranged from mutu­al­ly sup­port­ive and inti­mate shar­ing around strate­gies for men­tal health and com­mu­ni­ty-build­ing to gal­va­niz­ing calls for fund­ing and pol­i­cy changes to address con­tin­ued and sys­temic inequity expe­ri­enced by Black and Indige­nous artists. 

We have increased our fees for cura­tors and speak­ers to adhere to CARFAC guide­lines and are seek­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing to sup­port this much-need­ed boost. We are so pleased to have both CMC and CLC as part­ners for our upcom­ing sea­son – this marks the first joint project between the three ASOs.

Our Fall 2020 series focus­es on decoloni­sa­tion series and is curat­ed by:

Octo­ber 22: Dylan Robin­son & Mitch Renaud
Novem­ber 12: Parmela Attari­wala
Decem­ber 2: Olivia Shortt
Jan­u­ary 14: Remy Siu
Feb­ru­ary 11: Cur­tis Left­hand
March 11: fran­coph­o­ne pan­el, cura­tor still TBA

Participation/Engagement

Report by Louise Camp­bell, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2020

The Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music Hub is a 2.5‑year ini­tia­tive to research, cre­ate, imple­ment and dis­sem­i­nate an on-line resource for Par­tic­i­pa­to­ry Cre­ative Music with the goals of shar­ing resources and build­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty. 2020–21 rep­re­sents the first year of the project, and has advanced by leaps and bounds over the course of the past year. 

Mar­ket research and com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tions showed a field full of prac­ti­tion­ers work­ing with great pas­sion in a wide vari­ety of venues, sec­tors and peo­ple. Over the course of the year, we have engaged pilot project con­sul­tants to share their exper­tise to help us cre­ate an online plat­form that responds to the wide range inher­ent in the prac­tice, and the needs and inter­ests of the com­mu­ni­ty. Work­ing in a vari­ety of sec­tors from edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty asso­ci­a­tions, social ser­vices, cor­rec­tions to health care, these con­sul­tants include: 

Bev Foster, Chelsea Jones, Chris Brown, Daniel Oore, Germaine Liu, Guillaume Jabbour, Helen Pridmore, Jeff Morton, Jodi Proznick, Kathryn Cobbler, Meredith Bates, Michel Frigon, MariEve Lauzon, Moe Clark, Nikola Tosic, Opéra de Montréal, Ruth Eliason, Ruth Howard, Steve Wright

Stay tuned for the Hub launch com­ing up soon!

Emi­ly Doolit­tle and Sarah Albu were appoint­ed to the Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee in Decem­ber 2016, and formed the sev­en-mem­ber com­mit­tee in win­ter 2017.

There was one com­mit­tee meet­ing in the 2016–17 sea­son (April 3, 2017) where we looked at how the com­mit­tee can best realise its man­date to strength­en pub­lic engage­ment for Cana­di­an new music.

The com­mit­tee brain­stormed many dif­fer­ent ideas. The strongest com­mon­al­i­ty behind all of them was the need to focus on mak­ing Pub­lic Engage­ment not only an inte­gral ele­ment in all oth­er CNMN projects (forums, pub­lic dis­cus­sions, etc.), but to focus on pro­vid­ing resources to help mem­bers of the net­work to do the same in their projects as well (con­certs, etc.).

Louise Camp­bell sug­gest­ed a project (pos­si­bly called Super Son­ic) that builds on the cur­rent online list of CNMN music edu­ca­tion resources, and becomes a hub for pub­lic engage­ment activ­i­ties that are already hap­pen­ing across the coun­try. This would allow peo­ple to share resources and learn from each oth­er, as well as to share and archive the results of per­for­mances and activ­i­ties. The com­mit­tee decid­ed to sup­port this ini­tia­tive, and ear­ly-stage work pro­gressed late in the 2016–2017 sea­son with the under­stand­ing that this is a more long-term project that will even­tu­al­ly involve CNMN staff, as the work entailed is too much to be done entire­ly on a vol­un­tary basis.

Don’t hes­i­tate to get in touch, we want to hear from you! Please con­tact Emi­ly Doolit­tle –  or Sarah Albu.

Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: Sarah Albu (co-chair), Emi­ly Doolit­tle (co-chair), Louise Camp­bell, Jason Doell, Kathy Kennedy, Tawnie Olson, Jer­ry Pergolesi.

Sub­mit­ted by Emi­ly Doolit­tle, Octo­ber 2017.

Past reports from this committee

Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report – June 2017
Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report – Octo­ber 2016
Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report– Octo­ber 2015
Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report– May 2015
Pub­lic Engage­ment Com­mit­tee Report  – Decem­ber 2014

Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

Marc-Olivi­er Lam­on­tagne: There has been no meet­ing or com­mu­ni­ca­tion between mem­bers of the Lan­guage ​​Com­mit­tee since the last changes in its com­po­si­tion. The com­mit­tee plans to meet lat­er to facil­i­tate bilin­gual­ism in the next major CNMN projects and to ensure that all mem­bers can receive news and/or par­tic­i­pate in CNMN activ­i­ties in the offi­cial lan­guage of their choice.

Jérôme Blais: There were few activ­i­ties for the Lan­guage Com­mit­tee for the first half of 2017. In June 2017, the Com­mit­tee revised French trans­la­tion of the Sur­vey and the call for the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. The Com­mit­tee has now passed to a sin­gle mem­ber, and we must be sure to build it up again so that the Com­mit­tee can con­tin­ue to ful­fill its role as soon as possible.

Why join the CNMN lan­guage com­mit­tee? Here is what one of our com­mit­tee mem­bers, Jérôme Blais, responds: “Bilin­gual­ism is impor­tant for Cana­di­an orga­ni­za­tions that aim at a being tru­ly nation­al, and CNMN has always tak­en this very seri­ous­ly. Despite lim­it­ed means, but with ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers, I believe we suc­ceed in this mis­sion and it makes me very proud. What I also like about this com­mit­tee is the dis­cus­sions it trig­gers. In order to find the right trans­la­tion for a giv­en text, we often need to reflect on its true mean­ing, which I find quite stimulating.”

Ques­tions? Think­ing about get­ting involved in the Lan­guage Com­mit­tee? We’d love to hear your ideas! Please con­tact Jérôme Blais.

Sub­mit­ted by Marc-Olivi­er Lam­on­tagne and Jérôme Blais, Octo­ber 2017.

Past reports from this committee

The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – Octo­ber 2016
The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – June 2016
The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – Octo­ber 2015
The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report – May 2015
The Lan­guage Com­mit­tee Report  – Decem­ber 2014

Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

The Tour­ing Net­work Com­mit­tee met once dur­ing 2016–17, begin­ning the process of devel­op­ing a mis­sion for the com­mit­tee. To this end we strived to answer ques­tions posed by the board such as: How can we devel­op a nation­al audi­ence for con­tem­po­rary music? How can we cre­ate and ensure the man­age­ment of a new music tour­ing infor­ma­tion resource? And, how can we sup­port a tour­ing cir­cuit of new music that is built around project exchanges and reci­procity instead of just “mak­ing the rounds”?

The com­mit­tee dis­cussed the need for fur­ther mis­sion devel­op­ment such as sur­vey­ing both pre­sen­ters and artists to learn what their needs are, and how CNMN can play a role in mak­ing tour­ing of con­tem­po­rary music in Cana­da eas­i­er for all parties.

This will be an inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion that needs input from the whole range of Cana­di­an new music prac­ti­tion­ers. We hope that some of you would like to join in! Con­tact Norm Adams.

Com­mit­tee Mem­bers: Norm Adams (chair), Kathryn Ladano, Clemens Merkel

Sub­mit­ted by Norm Adams, Octo­ber 2017

Past reports from this committee

Tour­ing Net­work Com­mit­tee Report — June 2017

Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

Plan­ning is under­way for the upcom­ing 2018 FORUM. The focus is on Inter-Arts and the event will take place in two loca­tions: Vic­to­ri­av­ille and Montréal.

The dates have been confirmed:

May 17 & 18, Victoriaville

May 19 & 20, Montréal

Our part­ners are the Fes­ti­val Inter­na­tion­al de Musique Actuelle de Vic­to­ri­av­ille (FIMAV), Groupe Le Vivi­er and the Depart­ment of Music at Con­cor­dia University.

The call for pro­pos­als is open with a dead­line of Jan­u­ary 3rd 2018.

2016–17 pre­lim­i­nary plan­ning dis­cus­sions touched on the fol­low­ing areas of interest:

• com­bin­ing music with oth­er artis­tic prac­tices – considerations/challenges/rewards
• com­bin­ing music with oth­er non-artis­tic dis­ci­plines – considerations/challenges/rewards
• mov­ing out­side your own music/sound prac­tice, inte­grat­ing new skills
• mar­ket­ing advan­tages and myths
• fund­ing inter-arts projects
• devel­op­ing inter-arts projects
• chal­lenge to the audi­ence – the brain’s abil­i­ty to process visu­al and audi­to­ry input simultaneously

Want to help, got ideas, have ques­tions? Con­tact Jen­nifer War­ing.

Project team mem­bers: Jen­nifer War­ing (chair), Tim Brady, Po Yeh, Juli­et Palmer, Pier­rette Gin­gras, Sandeep Bhagwati

Sub­mit­ted by Jen­nifer War­ing, Octo­ber 2017

Past reports from this committee

FORUM 2018 Steer­ing Com­mit­tee Report – June 2017
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

The new­ly-formed Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty Com­mit­tee took up the major project dur­ing this off-forum year: the Rolling Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tion on diver­si­ty. Fund­ed by CNMN’s gen­er­al oper­at­ing bud­get, a spe­cial grant from FACTOR, and local pre­sent­ing part­ners, the Con­ver­sa­tions began in Hal­i­fax (Jan­u­ary. 9), moved on to Vic­to­ria (March 26), and wound up in Mon­tre­al (May 1). There was also a live stream­ing com­po­nent so that the larg­er com­mu­ni­ty could be part of the local events. This diver­si­ty road trip was inspired by con­ver­sa­tions – both pro­grammed and spon­ta­neous – that took place at FORUM 2016 in Ottawa, with addi­tion­al prac­ti­cal impe­tus pro­vid­ed by the Cana­da Council’s new poli­cies. One of the prin­ci­ples in part­ner­ing with local pre­sen­ters was to allow dis­cus­sion to be shaped by local pre­oc­cu­pa­tions and real­i­ties.  Each ses­sion dis­played the per­son­al­i­ty of the host community.

It was an extreme­ly valu­able project, allow­ing for intense dis­cus­sion on a huge range of diver­si­ty con­cerns. We heard the voic­es of under-rep­re­sent­ed artists and prac­ti­tion­ers; and his­tor­i­cal­ly priv­i­leged or estab­lished prac­ti­tion­ers began to under­stand that, while inclu­sion is a fine con­cept and some­times appro­pri­ate, at times it is nec­es­sary just to step aside and make room. The sub­stan­tial post-ses­sion mate­ri­als pub­lished on our web­site are a valu­able and essen­tial part of the project that allow mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty to ben­e­fit from the ses­sions, help­ing them to fur­ther their own work.

For their help in real­iz­ing this project we thank: Eve­lyn Cream (FACTOR), Lukas Pearse and Gay Osler (Upstream Music Asso­ci­a­tion, Hal­i­fax), Norm Adams (Sud­den­lyLIS­TEN, Hal­i­fax), Christo­pher Reiche Bouch­er (Open Space, Vic­to­ria), Isak Gold­schnei­der and Nick Hor­vat (Inno­va­tions en con­cert, Mon­tre­al), all the pan­elists, mod­er­a­tors, note-tak­ers and cir­cle exer­cise lead­ers, and all the par­tic­i­pants who attend­ed, in per­son or online.

Also, on behalf of CNMN and its Equi­ty & Diver­si­ty Com­mit­tee, Jen­nifer War­ing attend­ed a meet­ing called by Dylan Robin­son and mem­bers of the Nisga’a and Metis com­mu­ni­ty to dis­cuss aspects of the opera Louis Riel.

Com­mit­tee mem­bers: Jen­nifer War­ing (chair), Jen­nifer But­ler, Juli­et Palmer, Norm Adams, Lukas Pearse, Isak Gold­schnei­der and Chris Reiche.

Sub­mit­ted by Jen­nifer War­ing, Octo­ber 2017

Read past bulletin entries from this committee

Equi­ty & Diver­si­ty Com­mit­tee Report – June 2017

Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

July, 1 2016 to June 30 2017 was spent build­ing the net­work of part­ners who have now joined the Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive. Sev­er­al meet­ings were orga­nized in both Toron­to and Mon­tréal to present and dis­cuss the project with a range of com­pa­nies. In the end, the project has three offi­cial part­ners: the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre, the Cana­di­an New Music Net­work and Le Vivier.

In addi­tion, we also have nine mem­bers of our offi­cial Advi­so­ry Com­mit­tee: CBC Radio 2, StingRay Music, Orches­tras Cana­da, Opera.ca, le Con­seil québé­cois de la musique, the Cana­di­an Fed­er­a­tion of Musi­cians, Jazz Fes­ti­vals Cana­da, the Orchestre sym­phonique de Mon­tréal and Music on Main. These nine sup­port­ers are impor­tant o diver­si­fy­ing our reach, and adding large-scale cred­i­bil­i­ty to the project.

We also began work­ing with con­sul­tant Kathy Sper­berg (Vucavu), to help us struc­ture our busi­ness devel­op­ment mod­el, and our upcom­ing grants. We also began very pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions with the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts con­cern­ing their Dig­i­tal Strat­e­gy Fund.

The part­ner­ship sub­mit­ted a very large Strate­gic Ini­tia­tive grant to the Depart­ment of Cana­di­an Her­itage on April 15, 2017. Results will not be known for many months, but should we get this grant, the project will be well underway.

Please con­tact Tim Brady for more information.

Sub­mit­ted by Tim Brady, Octo­ber 2017

Read past bulletin entries from this committee

Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report — June 2017 (n° 24)
DCI Annu­al and Fall Report – Octo­ber 2016 (n° 23)
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – June 2016 (n° 22)
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Octo­ber 2015 (n° 21)
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – May 2015 (n° 20)
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Study: The Ben­e­fits of Musi­cal Cre­ation (n° 20)
Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive (DCI) Report – Dec 2014 (n° 19)
Spe­cialised Music Dig­i­tal Con­tent Cre­ation Project (n° 18)
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

In the fall of 2016 CNMN ini­ti­at­ed its first for­mal study: how peo­ple in Cana­da come to the prac­tice of new music, focus­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly, but not exclu­sive­ly on com­posers. Work­ing in col­lab­o­ra­tion with experts in musi­col­o­gy, soci­ol­o­gy (sur­vey tak­ing) and data visu­al­iza­tion, we fash­ioned what promis­es to be a reveal­ing study, the pre­lim­i­nary results of which have been pre­sent­ed at ISCM’s World New Music Days in Van­cou­ver, Novem­ber 2017. Once the full analy­sis is com­plete, results and inter­ac­tive graphs will be shared on CNMN’s web­site; we are also inves­ti­gat­ing jour­nal pub­li­ca­tion. The report below describes work car­ried out only to year-end, June 30, 3017.

The expert col­lab­o­ra­tors include: Mary Ingra­ham, Prof. of Musi­col­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Alber­ta (U of A); Gillian Stevens, Prof. of Soci­ol­o­gy, U of A; Dean­na Yerichuk, post-doc­tor­al Fel­low, U of A; soci­ol­o­gy grad­u­ate stu­dent Aleena Hafez Amjad; Ross War­ing (PhD USC), spe­cial­ist in data visualization.

Dis­cus­sion among this group, as well as com­mu­ni­ty part­ners Cana­di­an League of Com­posers, the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre and ECM+’s Gen­er­a­tion project, refined the thrust of the study: how the path­ways to a life in new music may have changed over the past num­ber of decades; gen­der and diver­si­ty; region­al vari­a­tions; and any changes in the impor­tance of tra­di­tion­al musi­cal lit­er­a­cy. The study also iden­ti­fies events, per­cep­tions, and expe­ri­ences that pro­pel some peo­ple into com­po­si­tion rather than some oth­er musi­cal occupation.

Work began in earnest in Jan­u­ary with a series of inter­views that test­ed the inves­ti­ga­tors’ assump­tions of how peo­ple come to new music, and revealed what kind of range we might encounter. Over the ensu­ing months, ques­tions were pro­posed and refined by the work­ing group of Mary Ingra­ham, Gillian Stevens, Jen­nifer War­ing, with Dean­na Yerichuk and Aleena Hafez Amjad con­tribut­ing crit­i­cal­ly towards the end.

This takes us to June 30. Next steps include CNM­N’s sub­scrip­tion to a Cana­di­an sur­vey ser­vice, which, though slight­ly more expen­sive than the usu­al Sur­vey Mon­key, is not sub­ject to Amer­i­can pri­va­cy leg­is­la­tion – an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion. In addi­tion to CNMN’s mem­ber­ship list, we have access to those of com­mu­ni­ty part­ners CLC and CMC, and also, through Cana­di­an Insti­tute for Crit­i­cal Stud­ies, to the impro­vis­ing com­mu­ni­ty. Stay tuned for the excit­ing and impor­tant con­clu­sion to Path­ways to a Life in New Music.

Sub­mit­ted by Jen­nifer War­ing, Octo­ber 2017

Project team mem­bers: Jen­nifer War­ing (chair), Mary Ingra­ham, Gillian Stevens, Dean­na Yerichuk, Aleena Amjad Hafeez, Ross Waring

 
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018

2016–17 was busy with off-forum year pro­grammes; it was also a year of impor­tant orga­ni­za­tion­al growth and com­mu­ni­ty development.
Pro­pelled by the con­cerns and ener­gy of FORUM 2016, CNMN launched the Rolling Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tion on Diver­si­ty, with ses­sions in Hal­i­fax, Vic­to­ria and Mon­tre­al. (See Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty report for details.) It has had a gal­va­niz­ing effect in local com­mu­ni­ties where fol­low-up gath­er­ings are planned; and it has equipped CNMN with a keen­er sense of con­cerns and prob­lems, which we have tak­en to dis­cus­sions with sis­ter orga­ni­za­tions Opera.ca, Orches­tras Cana­da, the Cana­di­an Music Cen­tre and the Cana­di­an League of Com­posers. There is much more work to be done and plans are afoot.

CNMN also embarked on its first for­mal sur­vey: Path­way to a Life in New Music. Work began in the fall of 2016, and by the end of June we were ready to launch the sur­vey. (See Sur­vey report for details.) It has been an eye-open­ing intro­duc­tion to the world of sam­pling and data analy­sis; the find­ings of this study and the strong pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships we have estab­lished argue for more stud­ies in the future.

There were three new addi­tions to CNMN’s com­mit­tees: Equi­ty and Diver­si­ty, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and Tour­ing Net­work; oth­ers –Pub­lic Engage­ment, Dig­i­tal Con­tent Ini­tia­tive, and Lan­guage – were busy through the year with issues in their areas and project devel­op­ment. The FORUM 2018 Steer­ing com­mit­tee was formed in the spring.

As to CNMN’s admin­is­tra­tion, the Admin­is­tra­tive Direc­tor Emi­ly Hall attend­ed ably in with mem­bers through e‑blasts and bul­letins, main­tain­ing the web site and mem­ber­ship infor­ma­tion, keep­ing the board on track, sup­port­ing projects, and plan­ning for grant appli­ca­tions, among oth­er things. Book­keep­er Cléo Pala­tio-Quintin pro­vid­ed time­ly book­keep­ing; and Anan­da Sud­dath assist­ed with event pro­duc­tion. Dur­ing the year Cléo announced her inten­tion to step down as of June 30 and rec­om­mend­ed Math­ieu Leclair, who has been installed as her suc­ces­sor bookkeeper.

Over the course of the year CNMN went through an impor­tant inter­nal assess­ment. The board exec­u­tive – Jen­nifer War­ing, Juli­et Palmer, Po Yeh and Sean Clarke – in con­sul­ta­tion with Christi­na Loewen, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Opera.ca, and oth­er experts in the com­mu­ni­ty, exam­ined the struc­tur­al and admin­is­tra­tive needs of the orga­ni­za­tion, con­clud­ing that it would be bet­ter served by the lead­er­ship of an Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. CNM­N’s finances allow for a part-time posi­tion, with addi­tion­al sup­port for event pro­duc­tion. The plan was approved by the board at its meet­ing in May 2017, a time­line fixed (com­ple­tion in Nov 2017) and a search com­mit­tee struck.

2016–17 saw sig­nif­i­cant turnover in board mem­bers. Stacey Brown, Louise Camp­bell, Jim Mont­gomery, Hei­di Ouel­lette and Kyle Bren­ders all stepped down, some after long ser­vice. Replac­ing them, and also fill­ing new posi­tions cre­at­ed by a change in the By-laws that increased the board from 12 to 15 mem­bers, were: Sarah Albu, Jen­nifer But­ler, Sean Clarke, Emi­ly Doolit­tle, Kathryn Ladano, Marc-Olivi­er Lam­on­tagne, Megu­mi Masa­ki, and Juli­et Palmer. Over the course of the year, Alain Per­ron stepped down and was replaced by Bren­da Cle­niuk (Saskatchewan); and momen­tous­ly Tim Brady stepped down, to be replaced by Clemens Merkel (Que­bec).

CNMN received fund­ing for the past year from: the Cana­da Coun­cil for the Arts (our first core fund­ing — $17,000); the SOCAN Foun­da­tion (an increase from $13,500 to $17,000); and FACTOR ($8,000 for the Rolling Nation­al Con­ver­sa­tions on Diver­si­ty). These are all good results, but being accept into the core fund­ing stream at the Cana­da Coun­cil was par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant as it made us eli­gi­ble for a much high­er lev­el of fund­ing under the new struc­tures at the CCA.

We look for­ward to 2017–18 with excite­ment. It’s a year fea­tur­ing not just anoth­er FORUM, but a forum in two places; and CNMN wel­comes its first Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Ter­ri Hron. CNMN has tak­en a big step.

sub­mit­ted by Jen­nifer War­ing, president

 
Return to full Bul­letin – March 2018