Today marks the closure of the Open Project Fund for Individuals (OPFI) from Creative Scotland due to Scottish Government budget cuts, or to be precise the non-delivery of promised money that Creative Scotland had budgeted for the Individuals fund. This non-delivery has resulted in Creative Scotland closing the fund. To me, the blame is placed with Scottish Government not delivering on their promises, not with Creative Scotland making a difficult decision to close the fund.
There are many stories in the press about how OPFI is a way to develop projects and ideas into something bigger but there are few examples of anyone talking about how they have benefited from OPFI and where it has led. So that is exactly what I am going to do here.
I have been awarded 10 OPFI awards since 2015 totalling £92,456. One of these was through the previous iteration of the fund but have included it for completeness as this outlines all of my individual funding received from Creative Scotland and this amount was rarely for the full cost of the project which had to be raised from elsewhere. Most of this money went to pay other people and expenses to do with the projects. Despite being called the Fund for Individuals, over 9 years I have been paid for my work less than a quarter of what has been awarded to me. In total I employed people in at least 77 roles throughout the 10 projects and have benefited numerous more. In addition, I hired venues, equipment, CD printing and various other costs that are around buying a service or product rather than hiring people. I’m going to outline the projects, what was involved in them and the future benefit of them past the initial project.
Dichroic Light (2014/15) – £12,000
The summary of this project was to write a new piece, record and release an album and tour the new piece as an album launch tour.
The new piece for Emma Lloyd that resulted in my Solo for Viola D’amore and Electronics. This piece has now been performed around 15 times by both Emma and by Garth Knox and is cited in both Emma’s PHD and Rachael Durkin’s book “The Viola d’Amore, Its History and Development”.
The album that resulted was Dichroic Light which was essentially the best of my chamber work to date. That resulted in the employment of 21 people including musicians (Red Note, Aurea Quartet, Joanna Nicholson, Emma Lloyd and Abby Haywood), Timothy Cooper recording mixing and mastering, Dominika Mayovich designing the cover and Hlavi doing the cover layout and formatting.
Tracks from the album have been streamed over fifty thousand times. Two tracks were used in the soundtrack to The Macbeths from Citz Theatre (both the stage play from 2017 and then the film made over lockdown) and one of the tracks was used in David Graham Scott’s documentary The End of the Game.
Having this CD as a calling card also lead to scoring Michael Palin’s Quest for Artemisia for BBC 4.
- People employed: 21
- New works Created: 1
- Album released: 1
Attending Rarescale and Concert Programming (2015) – £3,440
This was to attend Rarescale summer school, to write a new piece for Carla Reese for contrabass flute and electronics, programme three concerts to premiere the work and to buy a pair of Genelec speakers. Anyone who knows speakers knows how good Genelec’s are. I still use them to this day (August 2024) for concerts, mixing and composition work. They have been used in around 60 concerts since. It would cost around £60 a day to hire. They cost c. £1200 so that is a saving on hire charges of c. £2400 let alone the value as a composer being able to edit and mix on a daily basis.
- People employed: 3
- New works created: 1
New Music Club Night (2015) – £4,000
This was the first iteration of what became The Night With…. The first season featured three concerts in Glasgow with performances from Red Note Ensemble, Joanna Nicholson and Tom Poulson, Danielle Price and Timothy Cooper. The first season employed 10 people. The season featured three premieres.
- People employed: 10
- Premieres: 3
The Night With… 2017 Season (2016) – £12,000
Expanded on the club night to include concerts in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Featured the Aurea Quartet, Joanna Nicholson, Emma Lloyd, and Red Note. 10 people employed over four concerts. It also featured a call for scores and commissions for new work. Five composers were selected for a workshop and had their expenses covered to attend. Nina Whiteman and myself were both commissioned to write new pieces for Jo and Emma.
- Premieres: 3
- Commissions: 2
- People employed: 10
CPD – Attending Atelier for Young Festival and Cultural Managers (2017) – £2,820
This was a 10 day training scheme run by the European Festival Association. It was a really valuable experience and networking opportunity in helping me develop my thinking as a presenter and for The Night With…. I am still in touch with people I met and have worked with them since. I am also now a member of the European Festival Association Alumni group and so am invited to the yearly meetups of European festival directors.
The Night With… 2018 (2018) – £30,500
Further expansion on the previous years to feature 9 concerts. Four in Glasgow, four Edinburgh and one in Aberdeen. The concerts were from Wooden Elephant, James Turnbull, Turning the Elements and Juice Vocal Ensemble. I commissioned Claire McCue to write for Juice Vocal Ensemble and I wrote a new piece for Juice Vocal Ensemble. Five composers also had a workshop with Juice Vocal Ensemble and two of those pieces were chosen for the touring concert. Claire’s piece was also featured in ISCM World Music Days.
- Premieres: 8
- Commissions: 2
- People employed: 14
String Quartet Album (2018) – £11,401
This was to record and release an album based around my Quartet No. 4 (Entangled) with the Aurea Quartet. The album was called Entangled and as part of this I wrote two new string quartets and two electronic remixes to the other works on the album. The album was released in 2019 and was premiered at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in February 2020. We had planned a larger tour but the pandemic got in the way.
- People employed: 10
- New works created: 4
- Albums created: 1
From this project my Quartet No. 6 has been performed about 8 times. I’ve also arranged it for string orchestra which has had two further performances. Meeting Julian Azkoul (who was a new member of the quartet) also resulted in the programme that the United Strings of Europe performed at The Night With… Festival in 2023 which included Emptiness for soprano and string orchestra (Emily Thorner and United Strings of Europe) which we are planning a European tour. I am also in discussion with United Strings of Europe about two other projects.
Composition Residency – Australia and New York (2019) – £7,000
This project was meant to take place in 2020 and involved composition residency in New York to work on a new piece for violin and electronics with Pauline Kim Harris, work with Ensemble Offspring on Rama and to record it, and attend the Australia touring premiere of Rama. This all fell apart because of the pandemic. The New York residency did happen in 2022 and Pauline premiered Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought in 2024. She is planning to include it in an upcoming album release.
For Rama the concerts were totally cancelled and weren’t rebooked. I did a remote recording session with Ensemble Offspring to be able to record it and release it as a single.
- People employed: 7
- New works created: 1
- Recordings made: 1
Remix Album (2021) – £7,434
This was a lockdown project to remix some of my previously released music and release it as an album. A way to sustain my practice through the pandemic.
- People employed: 2
- New works created: 7
- Albums released: 1
Attend the LA Sync Mission (2022) – £1,861
This was a professional development opportunity to go on the BPI LA Sync Mission to learn about Sync in film, network with music supervisors and try and get my music placed in film and TV on a more regular basis and promote the use of Scottish contemporary music more widely for Sync. The LA Sync Mission usually includes a reception at the Consoler General’s residence but this year because the Queen died, so the reception was cancelled due to official mourning.
Sync can be a lucrative earner for the rightsholders and performers involved with the largest sync I’ve heard of being for almost £200,000 (though this is split between all the various rights holders). I have now started working with Naomi Belshaw as Whitebll Sync on this to promote contemporary and classical music from the UK. We have the rights to pitch a catalogue of around 25,000 tracks including my music, the music from TNW Music, five other record labels, one publisher and numerous independent composers.
This is the summary of all the projects:
Total employed – 77
Works created – 19 (9 by me, 10 by other people)
Albums released – 3
All the above list the direct outcomes and further developments from those projects. However, each project has allowed me to develop my practice, skills, and networks in ways I wouldn’t have been able to without them.
When the pandemic hit I started sharing my experience and knowledge of recording and releasing music- by this point I had released three albums, and three singles (with thanks to the OPFI). Initially offered as private sessions over Zoom, they quickly sold out so I kept offering them, a real lifeline at a time when performing music was impossible. The Musicians Union approached me to give the talk, then the Ivors Academy and numerous other Universities. As of 2024 I’ve given my workshop on how to self-release your music around 50 times to about 1000 people.
In 2022 I decided to write a book on it, going into more detail than the talks could. After a successful crowdfunding campaign I self-published The Guidebook to Self-Releasing Your Music. The crowdfunding campaign was matched by Creative Scotland and this matching allowed me to employ and editor. The book as been really well received with numerous positive reviews. I’ve sold over 500 copies as well!
This deep understanding of how releasing works and the streaming system payment system has led me to start lobbying to change the payout methods to a fairer system. Initially this was through a motion to the Musicians’ Union at the biannual conference but this has since morphed (through people with more influence!) into the #fixstreaming and #brokenrecord campaigns, the Parliamentary Inquiry into Streaming Renumeration and Kevin Brennan’s proposed legislation for Equitable Renumeration.
In 2018 I morphed The Night With… into a SCIO to remove it from my self-employed work and allow access to other trusts that only fund organisations. Since 2016 I have presented 76 concerts to over 2,000 people across Scotland, Northern Ireland and France to date, including premiering 67 pieces and commissioning 20 new works, as well as releasing 8 (soon to be 10) albums under the label TNW Music. In 2023 we presented a two-day festival with 15 concerts employing around 70 people, having international delegates, some of which I met through EFFA, from Croatia, Belgium and Ireland, and running professional development and networking sessions.
None of this would have been possible without the initial investment and support from OPFI.
This is an incomplete list of businesses or venues I have used throughout these projects: Hug and Pint, Fruitmarket Gallery, Dry Gate, Brew Dog Aberdeen, Belmont Filmhouse, Birnam CD, Summerhall, The Drum Shop, The Warehouse, Travelodge, Scotrail, Printbox, Discwizards, British Airways, Facebook, Music Glue, Scottish Music Centre, CD baby, Stereo, The Caves, Enterprise, Chem 19, Airtight Studios.
To summarise, the funding for an individual can go a long way in developing them, their work and the sector as a whole. No one working within the arts is an island. We need the Scottish Government to enable Creative Scotland to reinstate OPFI so that others can develop exciting new work, projects, and learning that benefit us all. Magnify this out to the 3,006 grants to 2,166 people totalling £36.5million and you will get a proper sense of the impact of this work.
There is no art without artists.