NMG has two announcements for 2025!

Announcement #1: 

Fast Friends online events

In the past we’ve had in-person “composer performer speed dating” events which turned into online events we called “New Friends,” where we hosted a Zoom with breakout rooms for people to chat in small groups and connect to share their different interests, expertises, curiosities, and visions. This year we’re planning to host a series of themed events in a similar vein that we’re calling FAST FRIENDS. FAST FRIENDS events will use the accessibility of Zoom to invite as many people as want to join to come and meet and share and scheme up new ways of musicking!  We’ve always treasured the fact that people who meet at NMG go on to collaborate on all sorts of things: new commissions, new ensembles, new collectives - and just the general exchange of ideas and info.  As awesome as the concerts and talks and panels have been at NMG events (and they are awesome), this basic community-building is what we’re in it for. 

THE FIRST TWO FAST FRIENDS ZOOM EVENTS WILL BE:

SATURDAY, JANUARY 24th at 3PM ET 

(free signup form here!)

Theme: VENUES FOR MUSICKING!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19th at 8PM ET 

Theme: TBD... by you!

Announcement #2: 

A DIY Event Production Resource folder

When we started NMG we had no blueprint for how it should work, and over the years we’ve built ways of making it happen that help us plan and present the in-person events we all know and love.  We strongly believe that we are not special and that ANYBODY can start a version of NMG where they live (some already have!).  To help as much as we can in a complicated 2025, we’re putting together a set of docs and tools that might help you (yes, you!) go and start your own version of NMG.  We NMG organizers have produced a lot of events and programs at this point for NMG (and other music organizations), and we’re going to try our best to put all our collective knowledge in one place for others to peruse as a potential resource.

Included in this folder is a link to our 

NEW NMG COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD!

We have set up an old fashioned community bulletin board (via the free online Padlet platform) so y’all can chat it out and have a meta-community as you’re busy hatching plans to support your own individual respective musicking communities. You all have made so many cool music events happen all over the place already, and maybe there are folks in the same city/town/spot as you who you have yet to meet?? Maybe you’ll find them on this goofy NMG bulletin and pool your different expertises and experiences to make the sweet noises sound even louder and funner near you! 

NOTE NOTE NOTE: this will be an unmoderated space! (but we OG-NMGers will poke our heads in to say hi periodically. HAVE FUN and HAPPY MUSICKING!)

Why are we making this change? 

In 2025, NMG finds itself still broke, still volunteer-run, and in the context of increasingly confusing times in the US. While travel is more uncertain and funding is scarcer now than when we started, we want to continue to support and promote music community antics! We are trying out this decentralized suggestion to see if our support can be spread wider and weirder and funner than ever before. NMG may still happen in its more familiar form someday soon, but we wanted to think of other ways to keep helping to connect the communities we all love in the meantime.