Last week, I wrote a contentious post which criticised Music Network for how it runs its Music Recording Scheme, because its panel included a member who had ties with a winning applicant and because of the perception of unfair weighting towards the contemporary and classical world in its panel selection.
Music Network have issued a statement promising to review their process, prompted by further pieces in the Sunday Times and the Irish Times in recent days:
“Music Network operates to the highest standards of governance and transparency and takes its responsibility in the disbursement of public funds very seriously.
Where a perceived conflict of interest arises in the Arts Council Music Recording Scheme, we adhere to an agreed protocol that removes the person in question from the decision making process.
However, we acknowledge that there is an issue of perception in this process, and we will review the panel selection procedure to ensure that panel members have no direct associations with applications in the future.
Important issues have been raised that Music Network will reflect on carefully and any operational changes necessary will be made.”
That’s a promising development and exactly the kind of acknowledgement I wanted to see since these issues came to light last week.
Since my first post last week, I’ve had many people contact me privately and anonymously detailing other issues about the awarding of Music Network’s and Arts Council grants in general. These people are afraid to speak publicly for various reasons: the scene is small/ they don’t want to hurt their chances of future funding etc but that’s a different issue. A lot of the correspondence was concerned with how some musicians have been awarded grants multiple times in the past and have been recipients of other awards from Arts Council etc. Go through the list of awardees and you will see the usual suspects pop up time and time again.
Further questions
Personally, I’ve no problem with a musician receiving funding for their projects in multiple years or from different grants. This is a hustle for cash and you can’t blame the musicians for applying. The original reason I wrote about this in the first place was to highlight that such grants exist.
It’s also understandable why those who contacted me were annoyed. It seems that some of those people were previous unsuccessful applicants who have seen the winners and given up assuming it was a closed circle. Going over the last several years of successful applicants, which is publicly available it’s clear why. Eamonn Quinn of Louth Contemporary Music Society received €10,000 each year from 2008 to 2012. Francesco Turrisi has been awarded €28,358 across five successful applications in the Recording Scheme, the Music Capital Scheme and the Performance and Touring Awards Grants. Those are three examples. It’s easy to see why someone might perceive it to be a closed circle.
I’m not saying any of these applicants were corrupt or unprofessional in their dealings. What I’m asking is: why is it the same people who are awarded repeatedly? It’s been suggested that a lot of the applicants outside of the field of contemporary/classical were not good at filling in the forms. Is it a case that these successful applicants are simply the best at filling in the forms by the process? Were there not enough well-worded applications from fresh applicants to receive funding instead, contemporary, classical or otherwise?
If so what can be done to help new applicants in that regard? Generally speaking, those with an academic musical background are more familiar with how to apply for these kinds of grants. As Jim suggested, sometimes, the knowledge of what the panel is looking for is knowledge enough. And if you sit on the panel, then you’ll have an advantageous insight into what the panel and process looks for.
Should there be a limit on how much or how many successful applications one single musician or act can have? Is that something that people would like to see? If you apply and get funding one year, should you be exempt from applying the next? I’d be interested in knowing what people think about that. Of course, art isn’t easy to place into single fund years, lots of these things require funding every year – which is clearly why Louth Contemporary Music Society was applying each year.
That gets us to the larger issue. There must have been non-commercial musical projects deserving of funding who have not filled in the form to the standard expected? What can we do to change that? Is setting up an informational website that gives detailed advice from those more familiar with applying for grants a worthwhile endeavour? What can we do to help potential applicants?
A call for full transparency
I hope that Music Network will apply the same acknowledgements as above about their process needing to change in future to any panel selection for Performance and Touring Award, Recording Scheme and Music Capital Scheme. I also hope that they let people know about these changes.
I would also call for Music Network to source new panellists every year and not just rely on FMC as they stated last week to represent “the indie sector” (FMC have yet to actually have a representative on the panel in any year). Panels need a clearer representation for all genres of music, from all sides of music. Maybe establish a rule that if you’ve been on a panel in the last two years then you must wait three years before appearing on it again or similar?
I’m asking for Music Network to publish the list of panel members for its awards for each year, going forward and in the past.
I’m also asking that Music Network detail the process in full: are applications removed before they get to the panel stage, and if so what is the reasoning? How many applications do the judges deliberate on? How do they define non-commercial music?
In response to the above calls, Music Network says:
As you know, we’ll be reviewing the operation of the Music Recording and similar award schemes. In this regard, we are taking on board the many concerns expressed over the past few days and can assure you that they, along with the questions and suggestions from your email, will be taken into account.
The only way to face this criticism is to be as transparent as possible. It’s best for the artists, the judges, the organisations, the taxpayers and the music.
Editorial Note:
This article was edited, upon request, on November 28th to remove the name of a successful awardee who took issue with their name being mentioned.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005 . He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Cara Magazine, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, founder of Lumo Club, club promoter, event curator and producer of gigs, listening parties & events in Dublin.
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Great work publicizing all this! I fully agree that there needs to be some education in relation to filling the forms and Music Network could easily put on a Webinar that goes through the Do’s and Don’ts for all. If they cannot explain the criteria then who can?
There must be plenty of qualified volunteers with interests in the different genres out there who will willingly sit on their panel for a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit and who are prepared to do their bit to put something back into the arts!
It would be good if they were asked to publish a few successful applications from previous years as examples. I know that the arts council won’t do this in relation to its grants and I have often thought that an FOI application might be the way to go…
I suspect that the arts council wouldn’t do it when asked because it might be hard to tell what made one particular project stand out for funding over others…
I’ve been watching this unfold with much fascination. It’s always a surprise to me when debate actually results in real action, and at the least MN need to change the panel system which it seems will happen. Hooray for discussion! It’s so important to question these processes, but also for perspective to realise that it’s a privilege to live in a country that offers such awards.
I applied this year and didn’t get the award. So of course anything I say can be chalked up to being a sore loser, in fact that’s why I refrained from commenting thus far. I have talked to musicians about this in the last week, and, it’s true that most are afraid to say what they think for fear of being ‘marked’, and with good cause as musicians here can be a protective bunch.
Having applied for multiple awards over the past few years (unsuccessfully) and by following the winners of these awards, I feel that Music Network are a conservative organisation (when it comes to programming and funding) that apply a corporate model to funding. The people who stick it out, who have the most experience of being within the small pool of previously successful applicants, and who apply regularly, tend to get the funding. In a sense this is fair, however, their guidelines for this award are vague while being so specific at the same time that only a few applicants tend to understand what it is they want to hear.
MN don’t want to make the ‘wrong’ choice, I get this, but which must be very easy to confuse with the ‘risky’ choice. I think all of the funded projects this year are worthy of being funded (I’d listen to each one of the funded CDs), and of course I think mine was also worthy, but an award for a group like mine and presumably others’, would propel us to a position where we could quite possibly have an opportunities to play overseas, one that eludes us from not having a high quality recording. I’m not convinced that this recording award really wants my band to do that well, as previous comments have referenced re: commerciality. Isn’t all music un-commercial if it is not primarily created to finance itself? Of course we want some level of commerciality as otherwise we will have 1000CDs sitting at home, as it often goes with the benefactors of this award. But of course I would say that. I will say that it is an unenviable position to be in to have to make the call to award and reject such applications, and yet a privilege.
More importantly, I have since been privately advised by someone who has served on another similar panel that my application had very little chance without either containing a:
a) musician who has been previously funded by MN
or
b) reference from said individual
Now, this may be chalked off as hearsay, but it is consistent with more than one other anecdote which I have heard, without going into excessive detail or potential slander. Obviously, nowhere in the guidelines is this referred to. I’d love to hear from any previous panelists about how many successful applications contain references from those who are not directly involved in the application. This totally contradicts the concept of having an impartial panel and such a practice should be discouraged. It was argued to me by this person that “well, it’s such a small scene that if we don’t know the applicant then it’s hard to trust them”…very frustrating to hear that as both the artistic merit and the potential feasibility should be apparent in the application without the need for personal experience. Perhaps this was an isolated event as it was for a different type of award, but I doubt it as it betrays a certain arrogance that would come with being chosen as a panelist.
Furthermore, the criteria to be on the artistic half of the panel, if you are a musician, appears to be that you should have won a few previous awards from said organisation… seems to be asking for trouble. The overall impression is the MN don’t look very far afield, perhaps they don’t know where to look or what to look for. Probably they want others to tell them what that is, but if so these people should not be part of the applications.
In fact the board is never totally impartial as it is human nature to help out your buddies and those who you admire, whether they are in the room or not, but this is public money we are talking about. Like many musicians here I’m a fan of both Ellis & Clarke, and their reputations should never have been allowed the opportunity to be questioned, MN should have stood up for/excused them in their statement as they were put in an unfair position. Why not get someone from the UK or oversees who has the expertise and experience to choose the winners on a completely unbiased artistic basis, and the admin people from MN/otherwise can focus on the potential feasibility of the projects?
So, MN in short; please make the rules extremely clear, the panel size larger and more varied, aim for complete transparency, and aim to widen the potential net of awardees even though it might seem like a risk.
as it often goes with the *beneficiaries* of this award
Well done Nialler! Bringing stuff like this to light really does help. Keep it up!
The MN statement seems to indicate at least a partial dropping of the penny in relation to perceptions of bias and lack of transparency in their adjudication/ selection processes for grant awards…a positive development….
The Irish psyche is an odd one is it not?
Maybe its some psychological residue from our colonial days, or the country is just too small, but when we are shafted by ‘foreigners’ we are up in arms but by our own….we tend to bend over. This issue of Arts grants funding cronyism that has been exposed is a microcosm of the banking/developer/politican swindles of the Celtic Tiger era. Its the same peasant mindset, we don’t protest, we sigh and say ah thats the way it is.
If you look at the various Arts Council board members going back to the early noughties, you will see a direct correlation between family connections and those receiving funding. Not just music network but across all bodies that receive funding for music and arts. Seems that husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, friends and lovers have all been at it, and are all benefiting from their various connections.A brass neck and an insiders whisper as to what you need to put on the application form usually swings it. Aosdana, is another entity that should be closely looked at, if a visual artist gains access they are awarded a stipend from the state for life.
Call me old fashioned or maybe naive, but whatever happened to meritocracy, talented people actually getting a financial leg up to help with their art. Is the Minister for Arts not mortified about this, is the president off Ireland, a strong and vocal supporter of the arts not appalled?
And what happens…absolutely nothing, a statement is issued, and it all chugs along as if nothing has happened, no one is accountable as usual, the buck passed. The bodies mentioned to be at fault waiting for the next hand out of tax payers money.
What are the wages these people in the Arts council and the bodies they give grant money to, paying themselves? And have the recipients of these awards properly accounted for what they have spent the money on over the years, or is it a new car and holiday homes abroad?
Surely a tighter overseeing of the money would mean the difference between some musicians becoming disillusioned and giving up applying for funding entirely, and then gradually giving up their art.
Whatever pans out, 2014 will doubtless see hundreds more musicians applying for these music schemes they were not even previously aware of.
Good luck with that.
I’m delighted to hear Music Network is taking some action around their panel selection. I must admit, I had resigned myself to the fact that funding was only available to a few people who repeatedly get the awards year after year. Hopefully the new panel selection will remove any bias that there may be. Also on the subject of application forms; as it has been mentioned many times throughout this discussion, funds are awarded based on a strong application. Music Network has run professional development courses in the past. Perhaps they could run a course on writing applications. Surely that is also ‘professional development’. It would go a long way in demystifying the process. Not all musicians / artist have a strong academic background and I think the current system leaves such people at a disadvantage. Surely the system should be accessible for all, and a clear out line of how to write a successful application would certainly make things fairer.
Nice to see journalism put to good use. Please keep us up to date on the results of this ‘review’ they speak of. Can’t help being skeptical of the old ‘review’ fob. It’s like, don’t worry, we’ll have a tribunal, it’ll be grand. Anyway, just wanted to say that it might be worth recommending that they compare their application process, in particular their guidelines, to other funding bodies. The application guidelines for Enterprise Ireland applications for example are far more instructive. World’s apart. You actually get the feeling that they want everyone to send in as good an application as possible.They also run workshops on simply preparing applications. This sends a message to applicants that they are genuinely interested in maximising the number of applications that can be seriously considered. A workshop or two would level the playing field a bit in terms of giving those who aren’t in the know a better chance.
I was hoping that Nialler9 would have learned not to name-drop randomly and indirectly accuse people with information taken out of context…but here we go again…a bit more name dropping in this article here.
As I strange coincidence I had posted something in defense of the integrity of the accused in the previous blog…and here I am…next target in line.
I can see I am also in very good company:
Accused number 1: Someone who runs an amazing concert series outside of the big city and manages to bring over some incredible musicians and composers (kronos quartet, john zorn, rabih abou khalil to name a few) with 10k arts council money every year. Well spotted!! No doubt a thief
Accused number 2: (This one really impresses me the most)
The jazz double bass player who got some funding to tour and record in the same year with the great NY saxophonist David Binney…in other words a great chance to hear an American master play in Ireland and a great chance for an all Irish band to be in the international jazz scene with a cd.
seriously? really?…jazz is overfunded in this country? I must have missed that…after having jazz reviews completely axed in the Irish Times, then the listings removed from the ticket and the only dedicated jazz club night in the country terminated…
But coming back to me. You are all very welcome to come and check my website http://www.francescoturrisi.com, so you might be able to follow what I do with all of the money I have been given in the past…and also to see all the projects I do without any funding.
In fact I will tell you exactly what I did with 28.358€ myself:
in 2010 I received 3,420€ as a performance award to organize a concert series called “Alone together” (3 concerts) that featured great trad, jazz and classical Irish musicians. This project you can hear here was developed for this series. It’s with the amazing sean nos singer Roisin Elsafty:
https://soundcloud.com/francesco-turrisi/eleanor-a-run-trad-irish-arr-f
in 2009 I received 4,040€ as a performance award to organize a big once-off concert as part of the dublin Big Bang festival that featured an amazing Brazilian percussionist called Sergio Krakowski (flying in from Rio) and many great Irish jazz musicians. Unfortunately i don’t have any audio documentation for this one.
In 2007 and 2010 I received recording awards to produce and record 2 cds (about 10,000€ each):
“grigio” and “si dolce e’ il tormento”
you can hear the albums here and read some review quotes:
http://shop.diatribe.ie/album/grigio
http://shop.diatribe.ie/album/si-dolce-il-tormento
As I have mentioned previously in the other blog 10,000€ is not very much to produce and record an album, so in both cases I overspent out of my pocket(1,000€ and nearly 2,000€ in the other one)…and of course I didn’t get paid at all.
in 2010 I also received a capital scheme award to purchase a new Fender Rhodes and a Fender valve amp (they gave me 50% of the price). With this instrument I have been performing in many venues that don’t have pianos (99% in Ireland). I also use the instrument to practice with headphones at night when my 2 years old daughter is asleep.
Another note for all the people questioning the use of the money received.
When you apply to the arts council you have to put in a budget, exact to the cent, explaining how you are going to use the money. This is the first thing that gets judged. If you make a mistake, pay yourself too much etc…you are immediately out of the competition.
At the end of the process you need to provide un updated budget explaining exactly how you did actually spend the money, otherwise you don’t get the rest of the funding. The last time i got the touring award I had to get a paper signed from an accountant certifying all the expenses I had for the tour.
And guess what…I always end up spending more than budgeted (that’s normal when organizing gigs) and, being my project, I am always the one that pays for it…
So as a matter of fact I always got payed LESS than everybody else involved, even though I worked 20 times more…
For example I would have earned a fee of something like 300 for 3 concerts, out of 3,420 received for the Alone Together series.
so no new cars or holiday houses for me I’m afraid (as suggested by Brendan in this blog)
But yes I certainly did receive a lot of funding over the years
How did I do it?
As I have explained in my previous looong comment…I moved here in 2006 and when I ecstatically discovered about all of the public funding available in this country, I started religiously applying to everything. What Nialler9 doesn’t know and doesn’t mention is all of the funding I didn’t get…so say that I got it 5 or 6 times…I didn’t get it for about 20 other times. That’s part of the game I’m afraid. The problem I see here is that a lot of people try a couple of times and don’t get it, so they take it personally, never apply again and are bitter about it for the rest of their days…i’m afraid it needs a bit more dedication than that.
By the way…the arts council has usually a meeting with the public where they explain how all of these processes work, at least for the touring award. And MN have run over the years some very good music business courses that explain all of that as well. I also have given a lot of form-filling advice to people applying and please feel free to contact me personally if you want any.
What makes me really sad about all of this is the fact that good music being funded doesn’t really come into the conversation at all. If I got these fundings over the last 6 years, there must be something dodgy about it…
It’s never contemplated for a moment that panels might have voted winning projects because they were interesting, high quality and because the applications were good.
I understand that Nialler9 is not interested and probably doesn’t know much about the kind of music I am involved in (mostly world music and jazz)…but he’s responsible of creating a public (uninformed) opinion about these issues with his blog.
I actually believe in all the constructive points of his crusade, but it makes me sad to see that he has to keep dragging names of people in for no apparent reason.
It’s also sad to see how everybody is ready to jump on the ship and attack whoever…without even taking time to look at these musicians, their dedication and integrity, all the hard work they have put into their music and their projects, and how they (just about) survive doing what they are doing, and without investigating wether they think their projects are worthy or not…It’s immediately the “they are partying on our taxpayers money!”.
I am so grateful to Ireland for the amazing opportunities I have been given over the last 6 years. I would have never got anything like it in Italy where I come from.
I truly and modestly hope I have been supported by Irish people and funded by the arts council because of the quality of my projects and because I have brought something personal and a bit different here…
Francesco, you’re taking your name being mentioned personally. If you read the piece, I mentioned those names and yours as examples of why people PERCEIVE the award to be a closed circle. I’m not saying you did something dodgy to get that money as you already explained in the last post. I’m not calling any of you thieves, get that straight.
All I’m saying is that the same names have received funding and I’m asking why that is? Is it good applications? The culture? Why didn’t Music Network actually use this high-profile opportunity to plug their music business courses they put on or the Arts Council one?
“It’s never contemplated for a moment that panels might have voted winning projects because they were interesting, high quality and because the applications were good.”
It is but Music Network’s lack of transparency opens up the question that something similar may have happened in the past with conflict of interest. They need to publish the list of judges for previous years. The assumption is not that every project awarded since it started is shady but that there is no transparency to ascertain either way.
You clearly persisted in applying for the grants which you should be applauded for but your name was used in the perception of how it looks to potential applicants – which is what this whole Music Network thing is about. Thanks for your transparent replies. Music Network could learn something from you.
Nialler, I appreciate your comment and the fact that you are not attacking me personally, but I don’t think you realize that most people who will read your blog will not be interested in doing their own research about it. They will have no idea of who I am as the blog mostly discusses music unrelated to what I do. They will probably read bits and pieces of your article, maybe one or two short comments…and what they will bring home is something like “Francesco Turrisi 28k of taxpayers money! Jaysus that’s more than a year’s salary”. You must agree that doesn’t put me in a very good light.
That’s pretty much what happened with your previous blog and it probably explains all the hate-comments…even though you didn’t directly accuse anybody.
You should let people that are interested go and look for themselves, since the information is out there on the link you provide. Using names and numbers in this way is a form of sensationalism, and not good journalism.
There’s a risk that anyone who has ever been turned down by Music Network may now feel that their rejection was due to some systemic flaw, and I’m about to run that risk by detailing my only application to the scheme to date: this was last year, when I applied for €8k+ towards a Hugh Tinney CD of my piano work *Noctuary* that was to have been released on the Metier label. This application was turned down. When I sought an explanation (as was my right) I was told it was a wonderful application and would have made a great contribution to my 60th birthday “celebrations”, but Music Network has limited funds etc. etc. Nonetheless, as we have seen, applicants were successful who had been funded on several previous occasions and who were looking for more money than I was.
This may relativise the perception that the problems are merely with discrimination in favour of “classical” versus “popular” music. It may also mean that my application was crap, but naturally I don’t think so! The CD has now been recorded for a different label, thanks to Fund It – that is, thanks to members of the public voluntarily contributing to something they, unlike Music Network, thought worth while.
A more constructive piece although I don’t believe it necessary to name former award winners for any reason. People can draw their own conclusions.
You make a couple of very valid points. Firstly, how do you define non commercial music? Arguably, 99% of music being produced in Ireland accross all genres fail to recoup recording costs and as such are non commercial.
Secondly, the form filling excuse is utter bullshit and to be honest I find it insulting that there is an assumption that non “formally” trained musicians are unable to fill out forms as well as those who have formal education. As you rightly suggest the problem here centres around panel selection. A panel made up of administrators, professionals and educators from the classical field only will naturally dismiss applications from applicants with no formal training. Fairness and equality will only occur through appropriate panel selection.
I also agree with you regarding transparency however, I would suggest that a complete overall reform of how all arts council money is spent on music initiatives is required. A network exists in this country of arts centres and local council arts offices who are more equipped and capable to encourage arts development at a local level and should be empowered to do so.
Instead of giving individuals and groups 10 grand a pop to record albums why not give the money to arts centres to purchase recording equipment that anyone can use. Teach a man to fish comes to mind.
I don’t think it’s enough for the Music Network to say “However, we acknowledge that there is an issue of perception in this process, and we will review the panel selection procedure to ensure that panel members have no direct associations with applications in the future.” The decisions benefiting a member of the judging panel should be reversed in the current case. That is the only way to restore confidence in the process. Something corrupt has happened and it should be rectified. It is not fair to those who applied and were rejected to witness awards given unfairly.
This scheme has now been suspended for 2014. Anyone know why? http://www.musicnetwork.ie/musicians/funding/