Real Estate Development and Adaptive Re-Use Taking Away Musicians’ Rehearsal and Performance Space

PRLog (Press Release) – Jan 29, 2008 – “Where Can We Work?”, a study by NYC Performing Arts Spaces (http://www.nycPASpaces.org), a non-profit arts-service organization, details a situation that both threatens the cultural life of the city and hobbles an industry that adds hundreds of millions of dollars to the city’s economy every year.

The report -- available at http://www.nycpaspaces.org/wcww/ -- is the first of its kind to analyze statistics about what musicians earn, where their work takes place, and how they function as small businesses.

Major non-profit music groups and venues, such as Lincoln Center and The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), generate more than $600 million in revenues every year. But that number doesn’t include revenue generated by the more than 15,000 professional instrumentalists and singers who perform in small groups throughout the five boroughs and whose performances bring customers to local restaurants, bars, and cafes

“Making music is a major part of our great city’s cultural life,” said Eugenie C. Cowan, the organization’s director. “This study shows that without support New York, a magnet for musical talent since its founding, will lose its luster and drive away talented young students and performers.”

Several planned development and adaptive re-use projects will house some arts-oriented uses. None, however, would meet most musicians’ needs. Rehearsal space, for example, generally must be soundproof, equipped with a piano, and be affordable. Performance spaces, including clubs, are claimed by development pressure, and remaining spaces have become too expensive for most musicians and small groups to rent.

In 2006, of the professional musicians surveyed who work in the city, 63% earned less than $50,000, with nearly a third of those living on less than $20,000 a year. Meanwhile, Ms. Cowan says, the lure of smaller hospitable cities and other countries increasingly threatens to drain the city of talent and important cultural energy. The report concludes that without support such as the City’s tax incentives given to television and film production, there will be steadily fewer opportunities for musicians to play and to be paid equitably.

But the problem can be fixed.  In “Where Can We Work?” NYC Performing Arts Spaces details five strategic recommendations for grantors, policy makers and the business community to work together to support musicians, thereby increasing the effectiveness of their contribution to the city’s cultural life.

“Where Can We Work?” is based on focus groups and Internet-based surveys to determine how the availability of rehearsal and performance spaces in the New York City area affects musicians’ work patterns. The report was funded by the New York State
Music Fund, the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and the Amphion Foundation and is available at http://www.nycpaspaces.org/wcww/.