Date: November 27, 2017
Venue: WeWork Wall Street (NY)
Review by Dawoud Kringle (Photos by Dawoud and Sohrab)
The November 2017 MFM got off to a bang.
I opened the meeting, and explained the origins of MFM. Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi (MFM founder) augmented the presentation of the MFM mission of advocacy of musical professionalism.
There were some new prospects for membership, and a new member. Their presence and contributions made for a very interesting meeting.
Some impassioned discussion over questions of semantics needed to be ironed out. But the problem of musicians needing proper financial remuneration for our work, work that has real value, remains the priority.
There was some discussion about some of the individual artistic goals of the attendees.
Saadat brought up an important point. All whose work contributes to the empowerment of professional musicians have value. Teachers, etc – all have value, all are relevant, and all have indispensable contributions to make.
The question arose of of how members are interacting with each other. Saadat described how MFM is a business league. We need this solidarity to stand toe to toe with the likes of Google, and other such giants as equals.
The finances of MFM were discussed. MFM has operated in the red since its inception. But MFM’s financial investment is bearing fruit. The highly successful events MFM has presented are moving MFM in a very progressive direction. A financial statement will be published.
MFM is working toward building its membership. The importance of this cannot be overstated. The goals of MFM are of vital importance to the musical community. This can only be happen through numbers and solidarity.
People are going to be skeptical about MFM. And they should be: every musician who reads this has horror stories about dealings with shady characters. It’s perfectly understandable to want to carefully examine this organization before deciding to join or not. It’s a new idea; one that few, if any, have ever attempted before. And in this lay it’s greatest promise.
It’s worth taking a look at.
PS: Michael Moss (composer, sax, flute and clarinet) who attended the Orientation for the first time decided to join MFM after this meeting.