Impact and Programs
Accomplishments
In the most recent fiscal year, MMC served 464 artist participants, who were engaged through paid performance opportunities, conference and workshop attendees, or by receiving mentorships. An additional 8,390 participated as audience members.
Caravan du Nord brought 27 musical acts and 17 music business workshops to Alexandria, Austin, Worthington, Mankato, Faribault, Detroit Lakes, Duluth, Hibbing, and Red Wing during the fall of 2021.
The 2022 MN Music Summit was three days full of activities for the music community. Concerts featured a variety of MN musicians. With a theme of "Building Forward Together", 35 industry experts led workshops, discussion panels, and clinics on an array of valuable topics. By offering a sliding scale for registration, 40% of attendees were able to attend for free.
MMC booked 314 paid performances for 15 businesses, organizations, and civic groups during the recent fiscal year.
MMC held six web workshops on a variety of topics throughout the year. Most are archived on the MMC youtube channel. MMC held several online networking gatherings for statewide musicians. In March, MMC launched a monthly Open Mic & Networking gathering.
MMC was the fiscal sponsor to three music community projects.
23 businesses offered discounts for MMC members to help alleviate business expenses for artists.
A new website was developed to refresh our web resource for the music industry, including public musician profiles, business and funding resource lists, event calendar, and music classifieds.
Current Goals
Build new networks of musicians, venues, educational partners, and businesses, region by region throughout Minnesota. Create ongoing opportunities for connection through mentorship, networking events, social media, Caravan, and the Summit. Expand the reach of our Caravan du Nord tour and MN Music Summit, building upon the mentorship program pipeline, building vendor discount relationships, monthly workshops, and networking gatherings.
Continue to build awareness and connection across kindred organizations, such as arts service organizations, regional arts councils, and music industry businesses. Work with art service partners to develop collective resources related to resource-sharing and performance promotion.
Determine new support offerings for music industry partners, established musicians, and marginalized communities. Who isn't using our current program offerings and why? What do they need?
Continue to promote our booking program across the state, building relationships in new areas. Expand booking offerings for music of all genres and stipend budgets that are sufficient for bands/ensembles.
Support new or emerging projects or initiatives that are created by or for musicians from marginalized communities, through fiscal sponsorship, promotional partnership, or an incubator pilot program.
Grow our membership program, and increase utilization by musicians and music industry members of our new website resources. Continue to review the membership structure/scale and recruitment efforts with a lens of equity and inclusion.
Community or Constituency Served
We are a statewide network for independent musicians who care about creating and sustaining a vibrant popular music community and who seek to define themselves as artists, not just entertainers. MMC serves musicians of all ages, genres/styles, skill levels, and backgrounds from urban, rural, suburban, and remote parts of Minnesota, as well as the music industry businesses that exist in abroad music ecosystem.
Geographic Area Served
Minnesota
