Jury system enforces mediocrity and favouritism

Most of the money is flowing to friends and board members

update June 14, 2009

Music PEI continues to pursue wrong-headed business practices with the call for more jurists. The Music PEI jury is supposed to decide on who gets grants in the music community based on a “jury of peers”. That process failed with the PEI Council of Arts and it is failing with Music PEI. Grants have given to friends of Music PEI when they should go to support PEI artists in general without favoritism.

We could be wasting our time: Music PEI could be nothing more than a patronage plumb for Rob Oakie and his buddies who supported Culture Vulture Minister Carolyn Bertram in her last election. They might be the Lion’s Club of music.

Artists have always needed patronage. Only the top few make a living exclusively from music. However, patronage has usually rested with authorities who are less likely to pursue petty jealousy than peers are. Imagine if you went for an energy grant or business loan and your neighbours and competitors could decide if you got help. Islanders love to drag down any of their own who succeed. It is the sport of jealousy.

Music PEI is essentially handing out provincial government grants to help musicians with producing recordings, promotion and touring – helping them build their careers. They should stick to help not criticism of musicians.

The peer jury might work for the Canada Council but there are also thousands of Canadian artists who say the Canada Council juries and biased and follow the whims of popular fads.

On PEI where there are about 200 musicians who know each other it creates resentment and jealousy. For example, how do the 32 musicians who were passed over by the current jury feel? Do they feel it’s fair that 75% of the money goes to musicians who got grants last time? Do they feel that it’s fair for Battery Point and Dennis Ellsworth to get five grants withing two years and they got nothing? Is Battery Point that good or just connected to Oakie and the Board at Music PEI?

Related Story Music PEI latest awards raises questions money and equitable treatment of musicians

That is what happened at the Arts Council. If one group of artists felt slighted, they worked to take control of the board and exclude those who slighted them. Grants flowed to friends of the board.

Last year at Music PEI, board member Lloyd Doyle and his company Sandbar Music got more than half of the grant money, according to Music PEI press releases. If Doyle leaves the Board, the tide may turn to another group of artists. PEI is known for petty jealousy and nothing brings that out more than money.

The jury system does not result in the creation of better music. The result is friends of the board and jurists get the grants.

Can we conceive of a system of arts grants where Pablo Picasso or Vincent Van Gogh had to line up for a grant from their peers? Jazz innovators like Charlie “Bird” Parker, Ornette Coleman and Eric Dolphy would not advance through a jury system. They were too avant-garde in their time while recognized as geniuses today.

Would Antonio Salieri have approved grants for Mozart? “He and his father Leopold wrote in their letters that several “cabals” of Italians led by Salieri were actively putting roadblocks in the way of Mozart obtaining certain posts or of staging his operas.” Wikipedia

Juries encourage mediocrity. New ideas, new ways of doing things are ignored for “cookie cutter” music and failed business ideas. Innovation, which builds enduring music, is brushed aside for “Top 40” hits music.

However, Music PEI is nothing but arrogant. They listen to no counsel other than their own.

They also appear to be rapaciously greedy. A few more years and they will have essentially turned the music community on itself like the Council of the Arts.