The Living Music Trust
Living Music Trust: Investing in a Future for Adventurous Music
Ed McKeon, May 2
Resources for living music are limited and diminishing. If we want vibrant opportunities for exploration and experimentation with new music in 20 years, we need to begin now the process of building a resource and a community that will value it. The proposal for a Living Music Trust sets out one approach to this challenge.
Why is funding needed for new music?
New music comes from a cultural need to innovate and to express curiosity and concern for our own times and contexts, rather than to copy or imitate what is already known, or to follow what is conventional or formulaic. This is a disadvantage in a market-based economy, which emphasises familiarity, utility, scale, and established channels of distribution. In particular, those making new work need to develop strategies for cultivating audiences that are open to unfamiliar music, not just to new entrants within existing markets or genres. This work takes considerable care and time. Commercial marketers emphasise familiarity not least because it costs considerably more to create and find consumers for new and less known products. Cultivating audiences open to genuinely new work is an ongoing (but highly rewarding) task.
In short, new music needs support not simply due to market failure – an incapacity to compete – but because of market “success” and its strategic minimisation of risk for profit maximisation. This music requires support not because it doesn’t have an audience but because it is compelled constantly to (re)produce it. Alternative funding sources are needed precisely because market structures are not designed to provide sustainable resources for new work.
Why is a new fund needed now?
The current funding arrangements cannot meet demand, especially from more experimental artists, those whose work has not yet found an audience, and for those early in their careers. Public bodies such as ACE are constrained by limitations on the funds agreed by government, by increasing demand, and by obligations to demonstrate public benefit in the short term. Initiatives that are experimental, challenging for audiences, or novel struggle to compete in staking claims for public benefit when they are unproven by design. Private patronage has evolved considerably and will become more important in the decades ahead, but this suits some artists more than others, such as those with a large network, especially of friends with larger disposable incomes.
In practice, by far the largest resource contributed to risk-taking music is provided by musicians, composers, and artists themselves through the time, energy, in-kind facilities, and cash they find to subsidise their own practices – as well as the rights income generated by their work. Significantly, the Foundations dedicated to supporting new music also depend on this commitment. For example, Help Musicians UK relies heavily on fundraising by musicians. Almost all the others are themselves the beneficiaries and legacy vehicles of composers’ earnings including legacy rights (RVW Trust, Tippett Trust etc), publishing (until recently, the Hinrichsen Foundation), and unallocated royalties (PRS for Music Foundation). These are often time limited – composer copyrights comes to an end – many are constrained by the source of their funds, and all have gatekeepers.
Crucially, it is this important part of the jigsaw that is challenged by shifts in the music field. The notion of an unbroken canon of great composers is no longer credible, so it is highly unlikely that there will be new Trusts created from the legacy rights of individual named composers.
OK, so what is the Living Music Trust proposition?
To address the full breadth of adventurous practices pursued today, this proposal aims to involve a wide range of musicians creating new work as member / owners. It would begin as a pledge for composers, musicians and artists to commit c.5% of their posthumous rights income as a living will. It would “cost” nothing in their own lifetime.
This is necessarily a long-term process. Rights income in the short term would be small. However, the prospect of a significant number of composers, musicians and artists signing up to this venture would create a very powerful case for philanthropic support in the short to medium term, especially as part of other “living wills.” It is estimated that by 2060 there will be an intergenerational transfer of c.£5.5 trillion. A few significant donations would be sufficient to establish the Trust with an initial endowment that would grow over time when composers die and their living wills come into effect.
Who’s backing this?
A Composer Town Hall on 2 April at Club Inégales demonstrated strong support amongst composers. The Hinrichsen Foundation has agreed seed funding to test the proposition’s viability and will seek support from ACE to conduct the necessary research. Claire Mera-Nelson, ACE Head of Music, has expressed support. Others in the sector have also been very encouraging, such as the RVW Trust, PRS for Music Foundation, Boltini Trust, Richard Thomas Foundation, Ivors Academy, Composers Edition, and Sound and Music.
What can you do?
1 spread the word amongst your network of composers and musicians. Get in touch using the email below and we’ll keep you updated with news.
2 encourage them to join the next Town Hall – online, Weds 11th June @ 5.30pm – details will be advertised.
3 act as a sounding board and help as we develop the proposal. The initiative can only benefit from your thoughtful responses.
Get in touch
livingmusictrust@gmail.com
