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Association of Music Offices Launches With 14 Founding Members to Push Local Music Ecosystems
The Association of Music Offices launches at Music Biz with 14 founding members and a plan to support local music economies.
The Association of Music Offices officially launched Monday, May 11, at the Music Biz conference in Atlanta, bringing together 14 government music offices, community organizations and industry partners under a new national trade group focused on local music ecosystems.
The new organization, called AMO, is built around a fairly practical idea: cities and states already use music as an economic and cultural engine, but the work often happens in isolation. The group says it will pool resources, share best practices and help local music offices speak with a more unified voice as they try to support creative economies across the country.
Its founding government members include the Dallas Music Office, the Huntsville Music Office, the Louisiana Office of Cultural Development, the New Orleans Mayor’s Office of Nighttime Economy, the North Carolina Music Office, the Oklahoma Film + Music Office, the Tennessee Entertainment Commission, the Texas Music Office and the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture. The roster also includes Georgia Music Partners and Music Export Memphis, along with the Recording Academy, Pace Public Relations and Marauder, which works with music communities on marketing and development, according to the release.
“Every city has a music scene, but most overlook it as an economic and quality of life driver,” said Matt Mandrella, the music officer for Huntsville, Ala. and, as the release notes, the country’s first municipal Music Officer. “As the country’s first municipal Music Officer, I’m so excited about the team we have launching AMO and even more thrilled to see other regions follow our lead in the future. Together, we have the opportunity to significantly amplify the power of music ecosystems nationwide.”
That framing is central to what AMO says it wants to become. The group describes itself as a collective voice for music office leadership and says it aims to help reshape how local governments and organizations invest in and sustain their creative economies, while also chasing long-term economic impact and cultural vitality nationwide.
Reid Wick, the Recording Academy’s director of regional advocacy and member engagement, pointed to the organization’s policy roots in his statement. “It’s exciting to see the Association of Music Offices grow from organic discussions about policy into an organization that has the potential to transform how we support music at the state and local level,” he said.
For now, AMO’s first-year work will be more structural than symbolic. The release says the organization will focus on setting governance and membership rules, developing data and measurement frameworks to quantify music’s local impact, building community engagement models for diverse and inclusive music ecosystems, and creating a central hub with a resource library for toolkits, funding mechanisms, education and other programs.
The announcement closes by directing music offices and allied organizations to learn more about taking part in AMO’s first year at www.musicoffices.org.
