Entrepreneurs in Music — and Don’t Forget about Mozart!

Yvonne: Bravo, bravo, Claire! What an inspiring post! My question is for you and for Bridget — can you please tell us in detail HOW you went from the first $605 concert to being a group that knew it would have a season the following year? I think that’s the hard part.

Claire: Slow and steady wins the race. The first ICE concert was ultra low-budget, and the second concert was a tiny step above ultra low-budget, around $780 for nine musicians, three world premieres and a percussion set-up the size of Delaware (do the math). We paid musicians in food and beer initially, which tied everyone over. The moment we had a penny left over beyond our most basic expenses, we started paying artists the maximum amount of that sum. It started with $25. Soon it was $35. Soon thereafter, $50. Six months into the project, the going rate was $100 per player per show. The next season we moved up to $200. The season after that, $300. And so on. $500, $600, and now we’re at about $750. Next season it’ll be $1,000-$1,500. The season after that, we’ll be able to pay our players decent fees for the work they do (but let’s face it, it will have taken nine years to get there). The CSO makes $3,000 a week. Why shouldn’t ICE? This takes determination, of course, but more than determination, it takes patience. Incremental progress can be infuriating, but it’s one of the most essential skills we as musicians learn to cultivate at an early age.

In terms of other types of funding, the slow and steady story was the same: my first year, I wrote 11 grant proposals; I was rejected for all 11. Year two, I wrote 13, and got two. Year three, I wrote 16 and got five. I raised $10,000 our first year; $20,000 the next; $40,000 the next. We just kept doubling, and I want to keep doubling until we reach $1 million in 2010. During the first few years, I supported the group with income from odd jobs – gigs, catering, bar-tending, at one point I was even picking up extra work as a roadie for a swing band. It was never easy, but it was always interesting.

I didn’t know any rich people in 2001, so I launched a mail campaign via contacts of all members of the group (there were 25 of us, so together we came up with quite a list) by which we solicited modest contributions en masse. We got hundreds of $5, $10, $20 and $25 donations that first year, from people from all walks of life, all income brackets, all socio-economic situations. People who were excited about music, people who were excited about young people getting together to do something interesting and new, and just people who, I think, were touched by the idea that their 5 bucks could be tremendously meaningful and have real impact on a group of young artists immediately.

I recruited board members early on who understood, unequivocally, that paying artists was our No. 1 priority. More than 60% of what ICE earns annually goes to straight musician salaries, something I am very proud of. That’s not much money when you’re talking about a $10,000 budget; but it becomes significant when you’re talking about a $500,000 budget. And it will (I hope) become groundbreaking when we reach a $1 million budget.

From the get-go, I wanted to create a career alternative for young musicians who were at the top of their field but wanted to build a career that wasn’t instantly bound to an orchestra, a management company or an academic institution. I wanted to believe that we could, in this country of such wealth, and such incredible creative talent and momentum and individual thinking, create a sustainable space for young artists who want to contribute to their own generation of music-making – nothing wrong with the dead white guys, but we’ve got to make sure that the 21st century cultivates its own Mozarts, too. We don’t have that here in the US, and I think we need it.

So, ICE is my small way of trying to insist on that, and attempting to shift the way that philanthropists and institutions think about new music as a “side project” or a “quota” to fulfill. It’s not a side-project; it’s vital, exciting, thrilling, and absolutely necessary to our shared humanity as a culture.