A new approach for composers

Today I discovered a new site from the American Music Center via their ever-fabulous New Music Box. It’s called Meet the Composer Studio and it’s a fan-funding site along the lines of Kickstarter or ArtistShare. The difference being that (naturally) the projects on the site are all by American serious-music composers. MTC have chosen, in collaboration with performers who will perform the completed works, six composers in three US cities to complete commissions for the projects, which can then be funded by fans – from $5 for a personalised postcard from your composer up to $5000 to be the Lead Commissioner of the new work and everything in between.

I love the idea of fan-funding. I love that composers (and, indeed artists of all types) can move back to a position of interaction with the people who actually listen to their music. That a commission doesn’t have to be down to one person alone, as with historical models – it doesn’t have to be the result of a particular ensemble finding the money to fund a new work, or an individual who has the money to pay for new work finding the composer who needs that funding. I like that even if you don’t have much cash, you can be part of helping to fund new art. Obviously, MTC is in its first iteration and the model is new, but sites like Kickstarter have proven that the model can work, and I think for contemporary classical music it’s a fantastic approach – in recent times too many composers have had to make the incredibly hard decision of whether to compose without financial reward or to wait for a commission, or to not compose at all.

The other aspect I find interesting about Meet The Composer Studio is that the transactions suggested aren’t simple “money = new music” transactions. The model is encouraging the composers to provide bonuses for investors. Most of the composers are offering an option for a signed CD, signed score, a lesson with the composer, some of them offering more social options – dinner with your chosen composer. And the higher the investment amount the more of these bonuses are included. It’s a real expansion of the traditional funding model, and one that’s more in keeping with a world where social networks can enable personal connections even with people you’ve never met. The downside to it is that the composer has to work harder for their money – it’s not as simple as being paid for composition – but it takes advantage of other aspects of the composer which are marketable – the hand-written score, a composer-drawing, personal contact. Self-promotion is by necessity becoming more inventive.

The composers are also providing blog posts, audio and video posts as the project progresses, which should provide a very interesting document of different composers’ creative processes. I can’t wait to see how successful this project is and how feasible this model might become to perhaps replace the day-job as a composer’s main source of income.