Most musicians never go to galas unless they’re working for the caterer or off in the corner playing in the jazz combo.  The Artists’ Other Gala is a one night musical celebration that puts a hand full of well known Toronto musicians, Justin Rutledge, Andy Maize and Josh Finlayson from The Skydiggers,  Andrew Cash from the Cash Brothers, and Bill Prittle, formerly of Treble Charger, together with emerging singer songwriters Corrina Keeling, Colin Wray Crawford, Blake Preston and others to draw attention to both the success of arts funding of Canadian musicians and the importance of this support to the next generation of Canadian artists.

Date: Friday October 10, 2998
Location: The Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Ave (3 blocks west of Spadina)
(416 923-8137)
Admission: pay what you’d like—proceeds going to  Sketch- Toronto Art Studio For Street Youth

Did Prime Minister Stephen Harper really mean to suggest that Canadians don’t care about the art that gets public grants?  Oops.   Check out the iPods of the nation. They’re chock a block with Canadian artists.  Arts funding especially through FACTOR,  the mainly federal government funded program that assists the work of Canadian music artists,  has played a pivotal role in the unprecedented success Canadian  musicians enjoy  today both domestically  and internationally..

The careers of many beloved Canadian artists, from Blue Rodeo, to Feist to Hawksley Workman as well as many acts performing at this event were nurtured  by FACTOR grants. Indeed since its inception in 1982 through to 2007 the federal government invested $87 million in Canadian artists through the FACTOR program. Not a huge expenditure over 25 years but it’s come with a whopping pay back.  FACTOR supported sound recordings have sold over 31 million copies worldwide generating retail sales in excess of $705 million.

Arts funding of music in Canada has paid off culturally and economically. Musicians live and work in every community in this country. Whether they are playing an open mic at the local pub or arenas around the world musicians play a unique role in the country’s cultural life—and, oh yeah, they generate a lot of economic activity too.

For further information contact Andrew Cash at  ac@andrewcash.net or Jeff Davidson at falgarwood@hotmail.com

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 10:50 am and is filed under All Blog Posts, Andrew's Music, Canadian, General, Now Magazine, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.