Our Story
Every summer, the Waterloo Region Contemporary Music Sessions team hosts a workshop in Waterloo, Ontario to help student, emerging, and early career musicians grow and develop their artistic practice and careers. We’ve set up a peer-mentorship program model where early career guest artists mentor emerging and student composers, performers, and improvisers, providing them with coaching, lessons, workshops, and top-notch concerts that expand and inspire.
Our goal: to provide affordable, accessible mentorship and creative space.
It’s tough to find workshops that are both affordable and that contribute so much to artistic and professional development of musicians and music by people who are alive right now. We are proud to be creating an incubator from which both participants and guest artists come away with an enriched sense of community, as well as practical tools they can take with them to spread to their own communities back home.
But we can’t do this alone.
We need your help! Just as it takes a whole village to raise children, it takes a whole community to support each other’s dreams. Please consider contributing to help these artists from around the world put their dreams into action.
Testimonials
“WRCMS expanded my world! I got the opportunity to work on a unique piece written by an adventurous composer and perform outside of my comfort zone. The rehearsals, 1:1 lessons, panels, masterclasses, and workshops all inspired me to push my own boundaries of performance and improvisation. I met incredibly talented and dedicated musicians, and watched and listened to beautiful and heroic performances. I look forward to the collaborations that will follow." - 2017 participant
"WRCMS2017 was amazing in that it created an incredibly collegial atmosphere where everyone helped each other. I didn't feel any hint of competition and keeping knowledge secret to "get ahead" like I have in almost all other festivals. The festival gave me a renewed inspiration to work through my grant writing... and approach it with new tools. I would highly recommend this festival to others!" - 2017 participant
"For me, the heart of WRCMS was the organizers' ability to create an immediate community among the participants and guests.These bonds will undoubtedly develop into lasting personal and professional relationships. This is a 'must' experience for early-career musicians and composers." - 2017 guest artist
Your Impact
If you'd like to know how your contribution will help us, we've broken down our budget below! Participant fees and ticket sales combined account for only about 40% of our revenue. We are in the process of securing additional funding through grants to cover our guest artist fees and venue rentals for our concert series.
We support participants by providing transit support via city bus within Waterloo, food, lodging, and equipment rental - things that maybe aren't part of the music-making itself, but that are nonetheless indispensable to helping facilitate the creative process! Your contribution will help us create this supportive, creative space.
All donors will be acknowledged on our website.
Risks & Challenges
Financing any creative project of this nature is a risk. We are often unsure of whether any given grant will go through, and often need to wait until very late in the game to find out grant results. As a grassroots organization, we count on every dollar of funding we receive from all sources. We received amazing support last year and are so thankful to everyone who helped us make WRCMS happen, but we recognize that risks change each year. We have already secured funding for 45.7% of our budget and are waiting to hear back about or in the process of applying for 46.6%. The remaining 7.7% we are aiming to cover through ticket sales and donations.
Should we not reach our goal, we'll find a way to make WRCMS happen on a tighter budget. However, the circumstances would evidently not be ideal - we need your help!
Other Ways You Can Help
If you aren't able to contribute financially, we understand! Here are some other ways to contribute:
- Share the link to our campaign
- Sign up to volunteer at one of our concerts: email wrcmsessions@gmail.com (we like to thank our volunteers with free entry to events!)
- Come to one of our concerts: wrcms.org/concerts
Thank you for your time and support - we really appreciate it!