Hi everyone,
Just recently, I realized that although I’ve been leading and participating in so many commissioning efforts over the last few years, I haven’t really taken a chance to properly shine a light on these projects, talk about why I do it, answer questions about my commissioning process, or provide updates about those that are currently ongoing. On top of that, there are also some big changes happening in the way that I organize my commissioning consortiums (article forthcoming about this: “Previewing Project Percussion”), so I thought this would be a great time to reflect and write a bit about projects both past and present.
(PAUSE: Commissioning consortiums are groups of people who pay a composer to write a new piece of music, usually led by a single person who organizes the process, which helps lower the cost per person. The price is typically more expensive than simply purchasing the sheet music later, because you are paying for some time period of performance exclusivity, the experience of being involved in a creative project, the composer’s initial investment of time and creativity, etc.
Also, I prefer using “consortiums” instead of “consortia” for the plural form of consortium. If there are any other dictionary nerds out there, it checks out. Please don’t hate me.)
Commissioning new works is incredibly important for so many reasons:
It allows us percussionists to continue growing our fledgling repertoire, which in turn means more programming options and the development of a “standard repertoire” for a very young instrument group (at least, in its current form).
With composer Dave Maric during rehearsals for his new concerto, SPIEL
It allows us to involve others in the process when we opt to organize commissioning consortiums, in particular if the price tag for a composer’s work is steep (and it should be—their time and creativity is worth the big bucks!). Additionally, this means more performances from more people. And sure, sometimes you’d like to keep a work to yourself exclusively for a period of time, before allowing others to perform it. While that’s a smart career move in many ways, I use it sparingly—the more, the merrier!
It allows us to build community and cultivate networks of people interested in common goals, which is as important socially as it is professionally.
It allows us to make strides towards equity, by approaching underrepresented composers with our interest, effort, money, and guarantee of a premiere (or many premieres, in the case of consortiums). I am working to do better on this.
It allows us to contribute new art to the world. Enough said.
For those of you who haven’t seen any of my previous projects, I typically organize commissioning consortiums through Facebook and Instagram, which has proven to be a very successful model relying almost exclusively on follower count (initial impact) and subsequent word of mouth (“spreading the word”). There’s no secret to this—I simply make story posts, timeline/grid posts, and sometimes make some graphics or a promo sheet to better organize information. In fact, much of the initial motivation to build a following on social media was simply to have a higher number of people joining in on commissions. I found myself wondering how to generate the kinds of fees that composers deserve (I didn’t have thousands of dollars to spare), and I settled on the idea of grassroots fundraising for commissioning consortiums via social media followers. It has worked thus far quite successfully, and has allowed me to build a network of people who are regularly interested in these projects, meaning there have now been several repeat offenders between my various commissions.
A graphic (AKA One Sheet or a Flyer) for a recent project with Ivan Trevino
Each piece has a flat rate buy-in fee, exclusivity rights for performers, commissioner names listed in the final score, and some flexibility allowed on the part of the composer for any changes that they deem appropriate throughout the writing process. Then, at the end of the process, the composer is paid most of the money raised (85-90%), and a very small percentage is retained as an “organizer’s fee.” It goes without saying that I’m not leading these projects for the money (ha! how could I be?), so instead of keeping this small percentage of the composer’s fee as profit, I simply use the extra money to commission works from composers individually (or, in some cases, reinvest in a project that had a slightly smaller turnout than expected).
So far, I’ve led 4 consortiums of my own, with another 2 happening right now. Even though these have spanned nearly 4 years, I essentially consider them to still be learning experiences and test runs. I’ve altered buy-in costs, the time between project start and finish dates, the amount and type of promotional strategies used, and anything else you can think of, to figure out where the sweet spot is. I have also intentionally used well-known composers in the percussion community on more than a few occasions, because these people are sure to write great music, meet deadlines, and generate a large number of participants to continue growing the network.
This means that in the future, it will be easier to approach composers who are not well-known in the percussion community, or perhaps earlier in their career. I will have a larger network of regular participants, and hopefully many of them will trust in both the process and pieces that have already been created. And let’s face it—if a particular composer hasn’t built an audience in our community, it is only natural that raising money for those projects becomes more challenging, and it might be impossible to collect the kind of fee that I’d feel good about giving to someone for their time and creativity. It’s a long process!
Just a few quick stats to close out:
Between the 4 previous consortiums that I’ve organized, there have been 146 people involved, and of those 146 people, 143 are percussionists who are able to perform these new works without restriction. That’s a lot of potential performances!
I have individually commissioned 4 solo works, all of which were from composers whose work I believed in, but who did not have a strong foundation in the percussion community. I wrote grants for nearly all of these, and was rejected each time. For all of these projects, I paid out of my own pocket, though I wish I could’ve gotten the composers significantly more money.
I have been able to commission 4 new percussion concertos, two of which are in process now. All of these were funded by outside sources.
I also join in on other people’s consortiums very frequently. Those pieces can be found in the Commissioned Works section of this site, along with the others from above.
And finally, between all of the pieces that I’ve commissioned either individually, with a consortium, or with outside benefactors, I’m proud to say that I’ve raised a total of $42,750 for new works.
A few closing thoughts: generating income for commissions like this is hard work, especially when a majority of the money raised does not come from foundations, grants, or private donors. I believe that composers are wildly underpaid and taken advantage of (and of course, performers are too), and while I am not guiltless, I am doing my very best to course correct by raising the highest possible fees.
(This also means I cannot run projects every 2 months, because as much as I’d love to get new music that often, my network of commissioners would be promotionally and financially exhausted by this, resulting in lower fees for more pieces. And while the composers might still agree to lower numbers just to get their music created and performed, it simply isn’t right!)
So, if you are considering starting a commissioning consortium for a new piece, please please please do not take it lightly. Do not blindly guarantee, or even hint at numbers that you cannot make happen. Or, if you do, be prepared to make up the balance at the end if you are short. Whether that’s $10 or $1000, you owe it to that person for their time. I have been there, shelling out $500+ of my own money on projects that came up short, and while it’s not fun, it’s the right thing to do. Please take this process seriously—our composers and art form depend on it.
Thanks for reading,
Cam
PS - After writing, I realized that I never mentioned a very obvious fact here, which is that often times money never comes into play with certain commissions. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this — if you and the composer are both 100% on the same page about the mutual benefit of pursuing a commission without money involved, then go for it! I have done this for very large and very small works, particularly with people who are at similar stages in their careers.