Music Canada Live executive director Erin Benjamin is the definition of cool. Photo courtesy of Erin Benjamin
Over the last 25 years working in the Canadian music business, first as a performer and currently as the executive director of Music Canada Live, Benjamin has made a positive difference in the lives of working musicians coast-to-coast. The Ottawa-based Music Canada Live is a national advocacy group for live music.
In the past year, the association more than doubled its membership to nearly 100 organizations, with members ranging from independent concert promoters and small club owners, to festival organizers and agents who represent artists.
Benjamin is also a co-chair of the 2017 Conference at Canadian Music Week, as well as vice-chair of the Host Committee for the 2017 Juno Awards in Ottawa.
While she has brought her brand of showbiz street smarts into the boardroom, to her two kids, aged 8 and 11, she is just “Mom.”
“Do they think I’m cool?” Benjamin ask rhetorically. “I drag them to shows all the time, but now that they’re a bit older, they’re like, ‘Oh mother!’ So I don’t think there’s a cool factor!”
Concordia time
It all began for Benjamin when she moved to Montreal to study theatre at Concordia.
“I wanted to become an actor when I graduated, move home to Toronto and start my career. But I also played guitar and wrote songs while I was at Concordia,” say Benjamin.
Her time at Concordia helped shape her career and work ethic. “It was defining,” Benjamin says.
“Coming to Montreal and going to Concordia gave me the opportunity to become a songwriter. And I learned the art of practice. I applied that to my work in the theatre program, and as a songwriter, and it gave me the discipline I still apply in my career to this day.”
After graduating she ended up moving to Sudbury, Ont., where her parents had relocated.
Benjamin would record and perform professionally for the next decade. “While my friends were into punk rock, I tried to emulate artists like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell,” she says. “I did several recordings and played at many festivals.”
Like so many other musicians, especially in small-town Canada, it was a struggle. “I won a songwriting contest in 1996 that the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals sponsored, so I showed up at their conference and got to know the people and organizers,” Benjamin says.
“I still lived in Sudbury, but was frustrated with the lack of resources for local artists, so I ended up on their board. Once I got a taste of being on the board, I started to understand the potential of the industry beyond my own career, and started to identify our challenges. My administrative chops really started to shine and I discovered that I loved building things.”
In 2001 Benjamin became the executive director of the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals (today called Folk Music Ontario), then executive director of the Canadian Arts Presenting Association (CAPACOA) in 2008. In 2014 she was hired as the first-ever executive director of Music Canada Live.
New industry realties
There has been a paradigm shift in the music business since Benjamin moved offstage and behind the scenes: concerts used to be about selling records; now new records are about selling concert tickets.
In other words, the economic engine of the music industry has flipped, and is now live music. Which means, for Music Canada Live, the stakes are much higher.
Whether commissioning studies, advocating for funding and legislation, fostering partnerships or convening municipal music offices, Music Canada Live is spearheading growth and change for live music in Canada.
In its inaugural year, Music Canada Live worked closely with Music Canada on the groundbreaking study Live Music Measures Up: An Economic Impact Analysis of Live Music in Canada.
Priorities for 2017 include championing federal policy strategies that support and include the live music industry, developing a national tourism strategy that leverages the power of live music and launching a national live-music economic-impact study.
“There are lots of issues right now, like illegal secondary ticketing — something we are very preoccupied with,” Benjamin says. “The issues we deal with have a major impact on people’s bottom lines, which also impacts artists.”
She adds a healthy touring market in Canada “enables artists to connect with fans, develop their craft and ultimately export to international markets.”
In the coming months Benjamin will also be extra busy. She’s co-chair of the 2017 Conference at Canadian Music Week. “This gives me a direct opportunity to help influence content and programming, especially for the live touring summit which will take place over one day during the conference,” she explains.
Benjamin is also vice-chair of the Host Committee for the 2017 Juno Awards in Ottawa. “In two years, five years and 10 years from now, I want to look back and say, ‘This is what the 2017 Junos did for local musicians in Ottawa,’” she says.
Bucking the boys club
Over the past quarter-century, Benjamin has honed her music-industry chops. Does she find the reputed boys-club music biz still tougher for women? “The answer is yes, to a certain degree,” she says.
“I recently started the Ottawa Women in the Music Industry Networking Group and we meet every couple of months because I think we need to build a space where women can talk. It’s very hard to address negative situations for fear of losing reputations and jobs,” Benjamin reports.
“I’ve witnessed this, though I feel lucky the way that I have been able to navigate my own career. I have many, many incredible male colleagues who work with me to address challenges. Things get better, sometimes slowly, but there is progress,” she says.
“There was a time when I was afraid to say that something was inappropriate. I think that is part of the problem: we have to name it and say it. So the more connected women in the music industry are, the more we have each other’s backs and the more we all work together men and women, the more we influence positive change,” Benjamin adds.
“It’s an amazing industry. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
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Related links
- Department of Theatre
- Music Canada Live
- Canadian Music Week
- The JUNO Awards
- Follow Erin Benjamin on Twitter