New Music Virtual Town Hall Meeting: State of the Field

The new music community has taken a huge financial and emotional hit due to COVID-19. As a performing arts non-profit organization that employs many freelance musicians and navigates relationships between individual and institutional funders, the International Contemporary Ensemble would like to take a moment to gather together with our community and discuss the state of our field. How can we build coalitions to advocate for the arts sector nationwide? How can we all be resources for each other? How do artists shift from a live stage to a virtual one?

Please join us on Monday, March 30, 5pm EDT for an online town hall. We’re thrilled to welcome Ruby Lopez Harper, Senior Director of Local Arts Advancement at Americans for the Arts, to kick off the call by sharing what she’s seeing from a national perspective and to offer guidance on ways we can respond individually, institutionally, and collectively to support our arts ecosystem.

This will also be a chance for us to share what’s coming up creatively that’s promising from this COVID time, to share resources that we’re all reading about that could lift up the whole community, and to share some ideas for how the International Contemporary Ensemble can be more of a resource to the new music community.

We will send out a list of resources to review prior to the town hall meeting. Zoom call-in info will be provided on Sunday, March 29, 12pm EDT and one hour prior to the meeting.

About Ruby Lopez Harper

Mexican, Mother, Wife, Dancer, Photographer, Poet and Social Justice Warrior.

Ruby is the Senior Director of Local Arts Advancement for Americans for the Arts. Her portfolio includes leading field education efforts, leadership development, local arts advancement, disaster preparedness and planning and cohort building for the local arts agency field, arts and culture administrators, and arts marketers. She is the chief architect of the National Arts Marketing Project Conference, leads the Arts and Culture Leaders of Color Network and the Leadership Forum program that produces affinity-based leadership development programs. She was recently selected as a 2019 Arizona State University Practices for Change Fellow. She was recognized as a 2019 Inspirational Woman (Arts Advocate) by “And I Thought” Women in Literature. She is a steering committee member for the National Coalition on Arts Preparedness and Emergency Response, serves as Chair of the Gard Foundation, serves on the board for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (Grants Committee/Advocacy Committee) and serves on the WETA Community Advisory Council.

Ruby’s work has focused on equitable access, grantmaking, supporting individual artists, community development, economic development, cultural tourism, marketing and public art. She draws on a varied background that includes corporate affairs, community relations, volunteerism, employee engagement, marketing and communications, and business administration. She served on the Emerging Leaders Council for Americans for the Arts, was the primary contact for the Arts and Economic Impact Study for Central Ohio and recently served as a mentor with Arts Administrators of Color DMV. She is a 2017 National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures Advocacy Leadership Institute Fellow, Class of 2017 American Express Leadership Academy Alum and Class of 2010 Next Generation of Leaders Fellowship program.