Mission
The Live Music Project connects people with live classical music experiences in a way that strengthens community, celebrates listener agency, and amplifies local arts resources.
Vision
Our purpose is to ensure that lack of resources is not a barrier to audience – either being in the audience, or having an audience.
Values
- Information = access. Access to the arts begins with access to information about the arts.
- Be community-centered. Acting with the community’s needs in mind, and working to foster community, is why the LMP works.
- Build community. Strengthening the sense of community among local ensembles, building new ties among volunteers and listeners, audience cross-pollination, outward presentation of Seattle as a strong community of creative performance and musical genesis.
- Build awareness. Tell the story of how the music we hear is made and produced, shed light on the collaborative aspects of music-making (eg, open rehearsals, documenting backstage logistics, behind-the-scenes orchestra coverage). Reach audiences, fill seats.
- Honor listener agency. Respect the listener’s aesthetic preferences. Don’t feed the listener a culture vitamin, but rather respect their musical interests – composer, period, instrument, ensemble – by giving them a way to pursue those interests specifically.
- Encourage an atmosphere of resource-sharing within the community. LMP activities support an economy of resource-sharing, rather than competition. Resources may include information, instruments, rehearsal space, free tickets, etc.
- Support arts organizations, amplify community music resources. We extend arts organizations’ existing resources by providing a platform for composers, performers, and performing arts organizations to promote and sustain their work, increase their visibility in the community, and improve audience access to live music. We will provide educational resources to help musicians and orchestra staff use tools to accomplish day-to-day tasks like volunteer management, search engine optimization, and event planning as efficiently as possible.
- Egalitarian display of and access to information. Concert information is displayed with clarity and dignity, regardless of ensemble’s budget or knowledge of technology, design, and marketing.
- Mission-driven tech. The technology serves the mission, and will adapt to it as needed.
- General values. For us to succeed, we AND our community need to embrace these values:
- Sharing (information, other resources)
- Collaborative (not competitive)
- Helpful (go the extra mile)
- Useful
- Actionable
- Unbiased
- Egalitarian
Public Benefit
The Live Music Project is available to all for free.
We amplify the resources of our music community – and therefore their own public benefit – by providing a platform for composers, performers, and performing arts organizations to promote and sustain their work, increase their visibility in the community, and tell the story of their craft.
On the audience side, LMP lowers barriers to entry. People cannot discover what they cannot find; the first step to attending a concert is finding information about it. Information accessibility leads to audience accessibility, especially when it comes to finding free or family-friendly concerts.
Our audience has also described the LMP as welcoming, an opportunity to explore – unfettered, without pressure or agenda – that differs from many classical music experiences. An audience member recently told us, “When you see a trailhead, you can’t help but explore. The Live Music Project is the trailhead, the overture of the musical experience.”