MusicOregon Awards $57,000 in Grants to 18 Portland- and Vancouver-Area Musicians

Blair Borax awarded “Echo Fund” grant to support the making of her sophomore album ‘Tender Lately.’

“Musicians must be able to make ends meet in Portland, where disappearing revenue streams—sales of recorded music have dried up thanks to streaming platforms like Spotify that pay very little—make it increasingly difficult to afford the city’s rising cost of living.

“Musicians were considered too commercial to receive arts and culture grants, but they’re also considered too creative to get business grants, even though they are, in fact, creative entrepreneurs,” she explained. “So they’ve been left in the middle.”

“So we created MusicOregon to support creative empowerment in a way that says, ‘These are culture creators and they are important. They needed to be sustained or … they will stop what they’re doing or they’ll move away to find a creative life somewhere else.’”

Read the whole article in the Portland Mercury here: https://www.portlandmercury.com/music/2023/11/27/46895613/musicoregon-awards-57000-in-grants-to-18-portland-and-vancouver-area-musicians