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Contact: David Johnston, davidj@nycPASpaces.org.
 

New York Musicians and Their Workspace:
Asking Questions, Finding Solutions

Ground-breaking study asks how workspace-related factors affect New York musicians' ability to reach audiences.

October 24, 2006
 

(New York, N.Y.) — A new research study entitled "Where Can We Work?", conducted by nonprofit NYC Performing Arts Spaces, seeks to answer this question in ways that will have lasting benefit to the New York music community. The study focuses on musicians' workspace needs and space availability throughout New York State, and is supported by a generous grant from The New York State Music Fund.

NYC Performing Arts Spaces is the only nonprofit that has data on supply and demand of musicians' NYC workspace, including what rental rates musicians are seeking. Now the organization wants a more comprehensive view. This study will broadly survey individual professional musicians in New York State — composers, conductors, instrumentalists, vocalists and music educators — asking them how workspace factors (economic, geographic, etc.) foster or impede their rehearsing, composing and performing more often or more widely. Several thousand individual musicians are expected to participate in the study, which will be completed in mid-2007.

NYC Performing Arts Spaces expects its findings to guide its free online workspace resource, www.nycMusicSpaces.org, as it expands and serves changing music community needs. The study's findings will also be a catalyst for public and private sector support for musicians' workspace, a more focused arts policy, and a networked music community.

The Research Center for Arts and Culture at Columbia University's Teachers College (RCAC), founded and directed by Prof. Joan Jeffri, is the project consultant. The RCAC has spent 20 years studying individual artists on local, state, national and international platforms.

The New York State Music Fund was created when the New York State Attorney General's Office resolved investigations against major record companies that had violated state and federal laws prohibiting "pay for play" (also called "payola"). The settlement agreement stipulated that funds paid by music businesses would support music education and appreciation for the benefit of New York State residents. The Attorney General's Office enlisted the services of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, one of the nation's largest and most experienced philanthropy services, to develop and manage the grant program.

If you are a professional musician and would like your voice to be heard in the "Where Can We Work?" study, please email info@nycPASpaces.org or call 212-886-2503.

For more information about NYC Music Spaces, contact David Johnston at davidj@nycPASpaces.org.

NYC MUSIC SPACES: Where Musicians Find Their Space

This project is generously supported by The New York State Music Fund, the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, and Amphion Foundation. The NYC Music Spaces program is funded in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York State Council on the Arts; the Amphion, AOH, Christian A. Johnson Endeavor, Avery and Janet Fisher, DJ McManus, and George L. Shields Foundations, and individuals.

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