Jazz.NEXT seeks to combine technology with jazz

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation presents Jazz.NEXT. Applications for grants up to $25,000 will be awarded to plans that implement “Social networking sites, digital downloading, web podcasting, virtual concerts, and other technological applications” for “audience development, communications, distribution, marketing, and network building.” Read more below, and visit Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for more information and […]

June 17, 2009; 3:53 PM • by Dean Christesen

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation presents Jazz.NEXT. Applications for grants up to $25,000 will be awarded to plans that implement “Social networking sites, digital downloading, web podcasting, virtual concerts, and other technological applications” for “audience development, communications, distribution, marketing, and network building.” Read more below, and visit Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation for more information and guidelines.

From MAAF:

Jazz.NEXT is a national jazz initiative designed to encourage the application of technology in substantive and innovative approaches to broaden and deepen relationships with new and existing audiences, promote enhanced communications with the public, more effectively market and distribute the work of jazz artists, and build links that create a more informed and cohesive jazz community better equipped to meet the challenges of a fast-changing marketplace. The program is intended to foster creative thinking that can result in the development of new models to help shape future operating practice for jazz artists, organizations, and presenters across the United States.

In recent years the cultural landscape, especially in music, has begun to be transformed by technology. Social networking sites, digital downloading, web podcasting, virtual concerts, and other technological applications have begun to influence the way artists and arts organizations have developed and maintained audiences, created and distributed work, and planned for the future. Technology holds the potential to have a dramatic, long-term impact for a more sustainable and healthy jazz environment.

Jazz.NEXT will support project planning and the implementation of fully developed plans that incorporate innovative uses of new technologies towards audience development, communications, distribution, marketing, and network building. Grants may support plans and projects that are new to the grantees or clearly represent taking their current technology efforts to the next levels of development. The program will also convene annual meetings among grant recipients to foster dialogue and share information on planning and project development. Findings that emerge from the program will be disseminated through selected case studies to a broad array of jazz stakeholders, including artists, presenters, service organizations, and funders.

Jazz.NEXT is made possible through the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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