MusicOntario wants to hear from the Ottawa music community with new Sound Off! initiative
A few months back I had the chance to meet the Executive Director of MusicOntario Scott Honsberger, an organization that is a division of the Canadian Music Industry Association (CIMA). We had a very constructive conversation about the Ottawa music community, and he was genuinely interested in learning more about the people, places, and happenings here in our hometown.
MusicOntario is launching a new outreach campaign called Sound Off! Ontario that is looking to travel the far corners of Ontario to learn more about the needs of specific communities. To find out more, I spoke briefly with Scott about the initiative’s mandate and what will be gained from this venture.
The Sound Off! event will take place Wednesday, May 29, at The Hub (71 Bank St. 6th floor) from 7 PM – 9 PM. Sound Off! is in partnership with the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) and Ryerson University.
What is MusicOntario, and what is the mission of the organization?
MusicOntario is a newly formed non-profit, and our mission is to provide information, professional development, industry education, services, resources and support to the music industry (including artists) within Ontario. Basically, helping artists and industry reach their professional and creative goals. We’re still in our “pre-launch” phase, but hope to fully launch within the next 2-3 months.
What is Sound Off! Ontario? In general, how will it help meet the goals of MusicOntario?
As an organization with a province wide mandate, it’s essential that we provide services and support to communities all across the province. We have SOME ideas for services that we’ll be developing that we think will help, but we know that not every city is the same. So we figured the BEST way to create programs and services that will have the greatest impact at the community level involved a very simple first step: Ask them! That’s what the project is all about. The project is funded in part by the OMDC with additional support from Ryerson University.
Who will the initiative be targeted towards?
Anyone and everyone who’s involved in their local industry… artists, promoters, publicists, labels, manager, venue owners… you name it. If your career involves music and you have ideas, we want to hear from you.
How will outreach and feedback campaign take place?
There’s two parts to the project. One will involve an online survey, in which we’ll be collecting basic data from artists & industry (who you are, what you do, etc), as well as thoughts and ideas in terms of what’s missing in terms of industry knowledge and infrastructure at the local level. The other part will involve holding open forum events in 13 markets across Ontario, where we’re inviting anyone who’s involved in their local scene to gather and tell us about the needs in their community. We had to limit the events to 13 markets due to funding, but the survey itself is open to anyone who lives in Ontario, regardless of their home city.
How will the information gathered be put to good use?
We’ll be using the info we gather to literally create our future programming. For example, if a city tells us that there’s a real need for more artist managers in their region, then we’ll deliver more programing (workshops, panels, networking, etc) that has a focus on developing artist managers in that region. Or if artists tell us that they need help understanding, say, music publishing, then we’ll do more events and provide resources to help them in that area.
We’re also hoping that communities will come up with ideas for programs and services that we hadn’t even thought of! Nothing is off the table, and if it makes sense and we can find funding to deliver a program, we’ll work towards delivering it.
How do I sign up?
To participate in the Ottawa event, you can RSVP here http://bit.ly/ZEICSy. As for the survey, it’ll be up on our temporary website soon at www.music-ontario.ca. To keep in the loop, the best thing is to sign up to our newsletter, follow us on Twitter/Facebook.
