[Microsound-announce] Fwd: plea from Ed Baxter at Resonance FM

[CEC jef chippewa]

>Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:04:02 +0000
>From: mailinglist at resonancefm.com
>Subject: plea from Ed Baxter at Resonance FM
>
>Dear friends,
>
>Another seasonal begging letter. I apologise for 
>troubling you but hope you can take one minute 
>to help us with a problem that will ONLY be 
>resolved with your help.
>
>As you may be aware, Resonance FM was 
>established by London Musicians' Collective. 
>LMC's remit has been, for thirty years now, to 
>support avant-garde music, that supposedly 
>"difficult" stuff that gets lampooned as elitist 
>noise in the popular press and on the "Today" 
>programme. The list of its achievements would 
>take up many pages (a tiny fraction is at 
>www.l-m-c.org.uk). Suffice to say, Resonance FM 
>was entirely the creation of the LMC Board and 
>emerged directly from its work. No other 
>organisation would have realised such a project: 
>no other organisation did.
>
>LMC's grant from Arts Council England's Music 
>Department has now been entirely cut. The radio 
>station is not immediately threatened, as it is 
>financed directly by the Visual Arts department 
>(Music having never expressed interest in 
>Resonance whatsoever). But to have one without 
>the other is, as you can imagine, a little 
>pointless to those of us who set up Resonance FM.
>
>This year, ACE has managed to find £1.7million 
>to underwrite the launch of a new music umbrella 
>body, "The New Organisation." LMC was excluded 
>from the discussions about this quango, the 
>stated ambitions of which sound remarkably like 
>what we have been realising on a daily basis for 
>the last five years: the maintenance of a hub 
>which encourages, nourishes and broadcasts the 
>work of musicians of every stripe from our 
>locale and beyond, etc etc (only couched in the 
>language of marketing consultants and apparently 
>to be manned by people devoid of originality or 
>vision). Meantime, too, the sequel to LMC's best 
>selling CD, Peter Cusack's "Your Favourite 
>London Sounds" plays in ACE's lobby as a 
>permanent audio exhibit!
>
>I wonder if you would help me by writing a short 
>email to the people at ACE Music, expressing 
>your support for LMC? And ask for an 
>acknowledgment of your email. If they receive 
>five or six thousand emails, maybe they will be 
>prepared to reconsider this crisis of their own 
>making.
>
>Please address your email to the following persons:
>
>graham.knight at artscouncil.org.uk (Assistant Officer, Music, London)
>helen.sprott at artscouncil.org.uk (Head of Music, London)
>moira.sinclair at artscouncil.org.uk (Director, London)
>peter.hewitt at artscouncil.org.uk (Chief Executive, National)
>
>Please make the subject "From " rather than 
>something generic that can be easily ignored. 
>Bear in mind, these are public servants: they 
>work for us and you can, I think, insist on a 
>response. Don't be surprised to receive an Out 
>of Office automatic reply initially: of course 
>everyone responsible will be heading to the 
>hills!
>
>Please cc it to "plea at resonancefm.com" so we 
>have a copy on file. All emails sent to this 
>address will be treated in strict confidence.
>
>The second way you can help is of course 
>financially, by becoming a member of LMC and 
>expressing your support with your hard-earned 
>cash. At this time of year, such a request must 
>appear vulgar and inapposite. And it is 
>something we have never pushed in the past, 
>because the radio station was set up with a 
>sense of social purpose, in a spirit of frank 
>and open hospitality. So don't send us any 
>money, just another email with the subject 
>"Potential Member," no more than that: we'll 
>only get back to you IF we manage to crawl out 
>of this particular hole.
>
>I find this really mortifying. Every other email 
>from me seems to be asking our supporters for 
>money: and this year we raised over £17,000 from 
>individual donations, so I'd hoped that we were 
>in the clear for a while. But, cocooned in the 
>overwhelmingly positive and intelligent 
>environment provided by Resonance, perhaps I 
>underestimated the cynicism of these times.
>
>Sincerely
>Ed Baxter
>programming director
>Resonance104.4fm
>144 Borough High Street
>London SE1 1LB
>020 7407 1210

-- 

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