Austin is known as the Live Music Capital of the World, and one nonprofit group is bound to keep it that way.
The Austin Music Foundation helps local musicians by treating them as a business – with a product to sell.
News 8 Austin’s Paul Brown spoke with AMF executive director Nikki Rowling.
Q: Tell us how the group got started. How long ago and why?
A: The Austin Music Foundation was co-founded four years ago by myself and another Austinite who is like myself – a loyal music fan although not a musician. Both of us had many friends in the music industry and got to see up-close what those challenges are like to make it in the music business here.
Q: How many musicians come to you and what are they looking for?
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Austin Music Foundation
Watch the complete interview with Nikki Rowling.
 
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A: Really, what the musicians in Austin need these days are tools to help develop their business. And that’s what we provide. Everything we do is centered around professional development and education. We have a membership base now of about 3,500. There’s a demand for what we do and we offer a lot of programs that speak to that need.
Q: Speaking of that, tell us about the Austin Music Incubator.
A: The Music Incubator is a really unique program designed to select the best unsigned artists and provide them with the opportunity for funding to record, mentorship from industry professionals and training from the Austin Music Foundation to develop a business and marketing plan. We currently have three artists – Kissinger, Rachel Loy and KJAE. Our graduating class consists of a band called Wide Awake, as well as Tucker Livingston and Overlord.
Q: What’s this new thing you’re launching?
A: We discovered not very long in our existence that we became a go-to place for questions from the artist community about everything, from how to develop a business plan to how to release a CD. So we are starting, officially, a program called Solo Sessions. We take one-on-one appointments as well as email and phone inquiries to do business consulting for artists.
Q: As a nonprofit, how can the public help?
A: It’s the Austin community that keeps us alive and we always need assistance with time, talent and resources. We have a membership that supports us financially. We also always need volunteers and right now we have a fundraiser series going on at the Paramount called Austin Winter Nights.
