Earlier this morning, in an announcement held at Toronto’s The Drake Hotel, Minister Michael Coteau of Tourism, Culture and Sports confirmed his government’s support of Ontario’s music community through the release of the full list of 2013-2014 Ontario Music Fund recipients. We were treated to remarks by Min. Coteau, who re-affirmed his commitment to strengthening Ontario’s music industry, Steve Kane of Warner Music Canada/Music Canada, Steven Jordan of the Polaris Music Prize as well as Coalition Music’s Eric Lawrence, a CIMA member. By way of musical entertainment, we were treated to fantastic emceeing from Kardinal Offishal and a brilliant performance from Divine Brown.
As a quick refresher, the Ontario Music Fund is a 3-year, $45 million fund created in 2013. Administered by the Ontario Music Office via the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the fund is “designed to drive activity and investment and to support Ontario’s music companies and organizations in expanding their economic and cultural footprints within Canada and around the world.”
This year, the fund provided 108 grants to artists and music organizations, including CIMA as well as many, many, many of our members and affiliates. If you’ll recall, we posted a detailed analysis of their 2013-2014 year in review, which gives you an idea of the breadth of this important support for the industry. You can check the OMDC’s work at a glance here.
You can consult the full list of recipients, as well as the amounts granted to them, by clicking here.
Besides the formal announcement of the funding received through the 2013-2014 Ontario Music Fund, there was another key piece of information at this event: it marked the official launch of the Ontario Live Music portal! It’s a great resource, so check it out here: http://ontariolivemusic.ca/.
On behalf of CIMA and it’s members (many of which were awarded funding through this competitive process), we would like to thank the Government of Ontario, Ministers Coteau and Chan and their respective staff/ministries at Tourism, Culture and Sport as well as the people at the OMDC and OMO for helping Ontario’s independent music industry continue to grow, develop and succeed.
Check out the Ontario Government’s official release here.
We were tweeting from the event over at @_CIMAmusic, as well as posting a couple of pictures over on our Instagram at @Canadian_Blast! Check ’em out and follow!