Eric Jensen

As musi­cians we spend as much time as pos­si­ble work­ing with our craft but can strug­gle with the busi­ness side of our careers. I  think of busi­ness as the com­plete chain of events that brings the music out of our imag­i­na­tions into the world. Money is fuel, but is only one piece of the equa­tion. Bring­ing music to life requires the skills and atten­tion of many smart peo­ple; musi­cians, pre­sen­ters, man­agers, agents, mar­keters, labels, pub­lish­ers and fundrais­ers. Com­posers and per­form­ers are musi­cal CEOs, man­ag­ing each step and part­ner­ship along the way. Orga­ni­za­tions like Cham­ber Music Amer­ica (CMA) are mak­ing a huge con­tri­bu­tion to clas­si­cal, jazz, and world music by pro­vid­ing grants and the busi­ness edu­ca­tion that musi­cians need. On Jan­u­ary 24, 2013, Jeanette Vuo­colo, Pro­gram Direc­tor for CMA Jazz led a well-attended work­shop at The Blue Whale jazz club in down­town Los Ange­les. Ms. Vuocolo’s pre­sen­ta­tion focused on the New Jazz Works: Com­mis­sion­ing and Ensem­ble grant appli­ca­tion process and fea­tured pan­elists, Ben­nie Maupin and Remy La Boeuf. The New Jazz Works grant, which is made pos­si­ble by the Doris Duke Char­i­ta­ble Foun­da­tion, pro­vides fund­ing and music busi­ness guid­ance to pro­fes­sional US jazz ensem­bles of 2–10 musi­cians in three phases: 1.  CORE: Cre­ation and Per­for­mance The cre­ation of a new work, the work’s world pre­miere, and one addi­tional per­for­mance. Both per­for­mances must take place within the United States. This phase must be com­pleted within eigh­teen months. 2. Con­tin­ued Life The sec­ond phase sup­ports addi­tional con­certs, tour­ing, open rehearsals, mas­ter classes, clin­ics, school and com­mu­nity vis­its, res­i­den­cies, con­fer­ence show­cas­ing, promotion,…