< ![CDATA[By Laura Jean Grant
Cape Breton Post
SYDNEY — A new co-operative is hoping to fill some obvious gaps in the local music industry, which will help both established and aspiring Cape Breton musicians build successful careers here and abroad.
A group of music industry professionals have come together to support the work of island musicians by forming the Cape Breton Music Industry Co-operative.
Doug Lionais, a professor at Cape Breton University’s School of Business who has worked with the local musical industry as an adviser over the years, is a member of the co-operative’s interim board and said they’re eager to move forward with several projects.
“We want to pull in more members, get more ideas flowing, get people involved and, once we have a membership base established, then we’ll be holding our first official meeting and electing the permanent board going forth,” he said. “So we’re hoping people will come together and see this as an opportunity to help work toward building the industry here.”
Lionais said the island’s music industry has a really solid base from which to grow, including the most necessary ingredient — great musicians and singers.
“Obviously we have the talent in spades and we have the recording studios and some of the production and engineering processes here. What’s lacking is some of those other industry supports,” he said.
Davis pointed to marketing, sales, distribution and artist management facilities as examples of some of the areas which need to be further developed on the island.
“We have part of the value chain. We’re just trying to add to that value chain a little bit more.”
One of the group’s first initiatives is the Cape Breton Music Export Marketing Program, aimed at providing export-ready musicians and music groups the necessary funding to expand market opportunities outside of Canada, to increase earned revenue potential and to increase the sale of local music products to international markets.
In order to do that, the music co-operative has partnered with Enterprise Cape Breton Corp., which has provided $50,000 in funding this year. That funding has already gone to good use, assisting Cape Breton musicians who participated in official showcases at the East Coast Music Awards in Fredericton, N.B., in February and Canadian Music Week in Toronto in March.
Artists that benefited included Stephanie Hardy, Chrissy Crowley, Jason Roach, Colin Grant, the Tom Fun Orchestra, Slowcoaster, Carmen Townsend and the Barra MacNeils.
“The idea is that they’re going to broker deals, to search for business opportunities and export markets,” explained Davis.
As a new organization, Davis said other project ideas are only in the introductory stage but they will begin addressing specific issues quickly, including a need identified by local bands for more practice space in the area.
Membership in the music co-operative is open to Cape Breton residents involved in the music industry for a $10 annual membership fee that provides access to the co-operative’s funding programs, through an application process.
For more information, the co-operative will have a website set up in the next few days at http://www.cbmic.ca.>