“New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) is investing $500,000 in grants to local female musicians, an effort to support music made by and for women in a male-dominated industry,” reports Tatiana Cirisano in Wednessday’s (6/5) Billboard.com. “The finances are part of the office’s NYC Women’s Film, TV and Theatre Fund—now renamed the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre, as music is brought under its umbrella … Currently in its second run, the program has already awarded $1.5 million to 63 film, TV, theatre and digital media projects made by women-identifying creatives. Newly-appointed MOME commissioner Anne del Castillo … says the funding was motivated in part by the results of a widely-discussed recent report from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative that found just 10% of Grammy nominees from 2013–2019 were female…. Shira Gans, senior executive director of policy and programs at MOME, adds that it was important for the fund to support not just women artists, but all female music creators, from sound engineers to producers—sectors where gender inequality is often amplified…. The fund application will open in July to NYC-based, female-identifying producers, composers, engineers, solo musicians, ensemble bands and orchestras.”
Posted June 10, 2019
