Women to Know
Pianist Patricia Prattis Jennings became the first African-American woman ever to have a contract with a major American orchestra when she became the principal keyboardist of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1966. A Steinway piano artist, she remained in that position for 40 years until her retirement in 2006. Also a writer, Patricia edited and published Symphonium for over 10 years, a newsletter dedicated to covering the stories of African-American symphony musicians.
Read her work in her 2013 published collection of essays, In One Era and Out the Other: Essays on Contemporary Life.
Funding for Live and Streaming Performances
The Music Performance Trust Fund financially supports admission-free, live, quality music, performed by professional musicians for the public throughout the United States and Canada. They have announced new guidelines due to the Covid-19 pandemic and there are increased funding opportunites for live performances — including for live streaming.
Click here for more information.
Members of Local 802 may email Marisa Friedman at [email protected] .
Not in New York? Find your local AFM office here to get assistance applying for these grants.
Created by the Broadway Advocacy Coaltion to support artist-activists using their tools to have an impact on the world around them. The inaugural year of the Fellowship will specifically support Black women, cisgender and transgender, who are artist-activists focused on issues related to systemic racism and criminal justice reform and using narrative or stories in their work. Applications are due September 22, 2020. Learn more and apply here.
Are you interested in becoming a mentor? MAESTRA provides support, visibilty, and community for the womxn who make the music in the musical theater industry. Now they are connecting their directory of music industry professionals to the next generation with the Student Maestra Mentorship program. This is the first step in building mentor-mentee pairings. Follow the link if you’d like to be a mentor. Complete this survey to express your interest .
Organizations to Know
Composers Diversity Collective: A collective of composers whose core membership is from culturally diverse backgrounds who work in the film and television industry, seeking to eliminate that industry’s “challenge” to find culturally diverse music creators, music supervisors, sound engineers, and musicians, to increase awareness of each other among those music creators, and to dispel misconceptions about the stylistic range of composers from diverse cultural backgrounds. Learn more and/or join this collective here.
Protestra: A coalition of activist musicians who use their art to speak out against injustice and use music to expand social consiousness and raise awareness about pressing societal issues. Learn more here.
Election day is 8 weeks away! Here are a few shortcuts to helpful links, from checking your voter registration status to locating your polling place. Election day is Tuesday, November 3, 2020!
Check your voter registration status here.
FAQs about vote by mail answered here.
Early voting information, by state here.
Request an absentee ballot here.
Find your polling place, by state here.
This content is curated by Monica Davis. New to the Newsletter? Add your email address here to receive future correspondence!