Dear Friends of BNMI,

On Sunday, April 29, The Boston New Music Initiative will participate in the 9th Annual Walk for Music and Arts for our third consecutive year. In our first two years, we were able to raise nearly $6,000 for BNMI, while the Walk has collectively raised over $250,000 in since its inception, with 100% of donations going directly to the participating arts and music organizations throughout greater Boston. BNMI met its goal of $4,000 last year, and our sights are set on raising $5,000 this year–an ambitious goal but one we’re confident we can achieve with your help!

This year marked a moment of significant development for BNMI. With increasing support from audiences and donors, we are actively accomplishing and expanding all four aspects of our mission:

• Networking and Professional Development:We held our first public roundtable discussion in February 2012 to discuss with composers the Calls for Scores process and other means of getting one’s works reviewed and programmed. We have also hosted several social events, which are great opportunities for our members to meet each other, develop potential artistic partnerships, and tighten the new music network in the region and beyond. We plan to host networking and professional development events every six to eight weeks for the remainder of this season and maintain this as a key activity in future seasons. Our next event will be held on April 29 (immediately after the Walk), so for those who will be in the Boston area, please mark your calendars and we hope to see you then!
• Commissioning: We were pleased to announce Panayiotis Kokoras as the winner of our first annual Composition Competition. Dr. Kokoras was selected by an external panel of judges following an anonymous international Call for Scores, and he will compose a work for chamber orchestra to be premiered during our next concert season. Plans are well underway to hold multiple competitions next season, and we will announce the details as these plans become finalized.
• Collaboration: BNMI works with many outstanding performers and chamber ensembles from the region throughout our concert season, as collaboration is a vital part of our mission. We will next perform on April 28, 2012 in a joint concert with The Seraphim Singers. Works selected from BNMI’s previous Calls for Scores will be performed by Seraphim under the direction of Jennifer Lester, and Music Director Nathan Lofton will lead the BNMI ensemble in instrumental works. The groups will combine forces to present James Woodman’s A Midwife’s Tale.
• Programming: Currently in our third concert season, we have performed the works of over 65 different living composers. This season, we have been able to provide our performers with travel stipends for their exceptional work on our concerts. One of our top goals is to compensate these highly talented and dedicated musicians with rates closer to industry-standard, but we consider it a tremendous achievement to begin offering even a modest stipend at this young stage in our organization’s history.

Our ambitious plans for next season are entirely dependent upon our success with fundraising events such as the Walk for Music, and we need as much help as we can get! If you would like to help us meet our goal, you may mail a check to the address below. We also gladly accept online donations on our website.

The Boston New Music Initiative, Inc.
P.O. Box 380285
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238

Sincerely,

Tim Davis
CEO and Founder, The Boston New Music Initiative, Inc.

UPCOMING EVENTS

    2011-12 Season

CALLING ALL FREELANCERS!
Special Ad Sale – April 6–8

March 24, 2012 – 3-5 pm

Bowling with BNMI!
Show off your mad skills (or lack thereof) and come roll
with other new music and Lebowski enthusiasts.
King’s Back Bay
50 Dalton St.
Boston, MA

March 11, 2012 – 4 pm – midnight

Join us at The 3rd Annual New Music Bake Sale
Admission and 1 raffle ticket: $10
Roulette
509 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn, NY Read more…

CALLS FOR SCORES:
A Detailed Discussion of the Submission and Evaluation Process

Saturday, February 4 at 1:30 pm

Boston Public Library
Mezzanine Conference Room
700 Boylston St.

BNMI WINTER SOCIAL

Saturday, January 21 from 12:00-7:00 pm

Cambridge, MA

12:00 pm – brunch at Tommy Doyle‘s (96 Winthrop St.)
2:00 pm – Grafton Street (1230 Mass. Ave)
3:30 pm – People’s Republik (878 Mass. Ave)
5:00 pm – The Asgard (350 Mass. Ave)

Get to know fellow new music lovers and make new friends as we tour some of the fine establishments between Harvard Square and Central Square. Check Facebook or Twitter for updates and join in when you can!

Bring some cash to cover your food and drink purchases and don’t forget to treat your servers well. We look forward to getting to know you better!

RSVP 

Thrilled to announce that Brooklyn Brewery has committed to donating some of their fine product for our sampling pleasure on Saturday!  We’ve got a pretty nice lineup shaping up here, and we’re excited to see the final turnout – if you haven’t bought your tickets yet, please DO SO TODAY!

Also, a very sincere thank you to Steve Greenlee for his post about our event in his excellent beer blog 99 Bottles on boston.com a few days ago.

Some more great news about more people joining our party on the 8th!  We’re excited to announce that the Waffle Cabin will be coming down from Vermont to make and sell some tasty waffles at the festival.

Appropriately enough, we’re also thrilled that our friends at Ommegang will be serving up samples of their delicious products for all of our guests (hopefully that means you).

After trying the waffle/beer combo at the Belgian Beer Fest a few weeks ago, I’m especially excited we’ll be able to repeat the opportunity at our own mini-fest!

Hello everyone,

The purpose of this blog is to give all of BNMI’s friends and members the latest news and updates for our upcoming Beer Festival Benefit.  Since this is our first entry, please allow me to inform or remind all of you of the details.  The event will take place on Saturday, October 8 from 6 to 10 pm at the Back Bay Events Center Grand Ballroom (180 Berkeley Street).  Public transportation is easily accessible from the Green, Red, and Orange Lines, so you can come have a great time without having to worry about parking or the drive home.  Tickets will NOT be sold at the door, and while we want to see all of you there, word about this event will hopefully get around and capacity is limited, so please do not wait to buy your tickets.  They are $40 and available now on our website!

As many of you know, beer festivals are popular events throughout the region and breweries have pretty packed schedules, so we’re still waiting to hear who else might be available.  At the same time, some breweries are still getting involved without their staff physically being able to be there, and we are thrilled to have commitments from Dogfish Head, Ipswich Ale, Sierra Nevada, and Narragansett to provide us with a generous and diverse supply of samples of their fine products.  Blue Hills Brewery has committed to the event as well, and we’re just awaiting word to see if they can attend in person.  I’ll keep everyone updated as soon as I know of the others who will hopefully be joining us as well.

We’re working on getting some live music entertainment (of course this event would have music!) to be a part of the show, and we’re happy to announce that the Redline Brass Quintet has agreed to perform for us!  We’ve had the privilege of some of the Redline guys perform in our concert series in the past and we always look forward to their great performances.  Again, as we line up more entertainment (as with the beers we’re featuring, we’re looking for a vast collection of different styles and influences in the music), I’ll be sure to let all of you know right away.

Lastly, it’s now been two years since I founded BNMI in the hopes of strengthening the international network of the people directly responsible for the continued creation and promotion of new classical art music.  We’ve come a long way in that time – from our remarkable success of the concert series (through our first nine concerts, we have performed 66 works by living composers) to expanding to a staff that can help us attain our many ambitious current and future goals (we currently have over 20 volunteers on our staff, though each one of us would probably be lying if we said we weren’t busy enough!).  In that time, we’ve been able to do some things surprisingly well, while other things have taken much longer to get up to speed.  I remember many of you joining when our website was little more than a page on my personal website, and I’ve been encouraged by the fact that our list of interested members continues to grow by the day just as we continue to grow as an organization.

I know we have been promising some upcoming online and in-person networking opportunities that will allow all of our members to become more deeply involved in our operations, and to have a real voice in the direction of this organization in the future.  I know the opportunities for feedback and involvement from you have been limited over the past year, but that is going to change, and soon.  Please consider this fundraiser our first real “networking” opportunity for those of you in the region.  (i.e. Bring your business cards!)  I’ve expressed to some of you who have introduced yourself to me directly the idea of meeting up and grabbing a beer at some point to get to know each other, and here’s a great chance.  I would love to see you on October 8 and I will be happy to get to know you all a little bit, to discuss your ideas and concerns regarding BNMI, and most importantly, what this organization can do for you moving forward.  The success of this event is going to open up many doors for us to hold other networking and professional development events for all of you in the future, as well as give us more flexibility in creating a top-of-the-line online community that will enable our network to be one that is truly global, rather than strictly regional.  And, of course, we look forward to continuing to bring all of you high-quality performances of new music as part of our ongoing concert season.

Please join me and the rest of our staff for this great opportunity on the 8th, the first of many opportunities in the coming years we hope to have a chance to connect and work on fulfilling our new music mission together.

All best,

Tim Davis
President and Founder, the Boston New Music Initiative, Inc.

On Saturday, October 8, the Boston New Music Initiative will host a Beer Festival fundraiser at the Back Bay Grand Ballroom, 180 Berkeley Street. Guests are invited to sample beverages from over ten breweries while enjoying live music and the wares of local food vendors. Proceeds from the tasting benefit will go to support BNMI, the local arts community, and the music of our time. The event runs from 6 pm to 10 pm and tickets are $40.