About
The Portland Music Foundation exists to organize, nurture, and promote the unique and emerging music industry of Portland, Maine. We are an all-volunteer organization of some of the city's top music industry leaders. We aim to cultivate Portland's music industry as a viable economic engine by providing musicians, music businesses and music FANS with information, resources and opportunities for growth and independence.
The PMF is bringing together musicians, businesses, government and FANS to place Portland's music industry firmly on the road to success. At our core the PMF believes that Portland has the unique potential to be one of our country's great music cities and if properly supported, music can make a substantial contribution to growing the city's economy.
We serve musicians through music business related educational programs, networking events, live performance & publishing opportunities and by gathering & distributing resources that individual musicians might not otherwise have access to.
We serve music related businesses by promoting the Portland music industry's potential to be one of the strongest economic engines in the city. We act as an information clearinghouse to help music related businesses grow locally & nationally while fostering the important symbiotic relationship these businesses have with local musicians.
We serve Portland! To brand our city more than lobsters & lighthouses. We aim to increase city & state support of our music industry, and protect our industry from neglect or haphazard regulation. Portland will be a destination music city for musicians, music related businesses and FANS.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
Adam Ayan - Grammy Award, 3x Latin Grammy Award, and TEC award winning mastering engineer Adam Ayan works at Gateway Mastering & DVD in Portland, Maine. Adam's diverse list of credits includes projects for such artists as Madonna, Nirvana, the Rolling Stones, the Foo Fighters, Keith Urban, Pearl Jam, Sarah McLachlan, and Rascal Flatts; as well as Portland artists such as Rustic Overtones, Pete Kilpatrick & The Wrecking. Adam has mastered several Grammy Award winning recordings (in the double digits!), and has over 70 Gold, Platinum or Multi-Platinum projects to his credit to date. Many of the recording industry's best producers, engineers, and artists rely on Adam's ears and expertise to fully realize their artistic vision. Adam believes in the musical talent in Portland, Maine, and has been involved in the local music community for several years, most importantly acting as the catalyst that created the PMF in 2006 and leading the PMF as president of the organization for its first years of existence.
James Begley graduated from UMass Lowell in 1996, with a degree in Sound Recording Technology. Since then he has been working as a freelance Engineer and Producer in Southern Maine. Jim's highest concentration of work has been at The Studio, in Portland, where he has worked with dozens of local artists of every style and genre, as well as produced hundreds of local and national, radio and television commercials. In addition to his studio work, Jim is an active live-sound Engineer, working in clubs throughout New England, and weekly, here in Portland, at Port City Music Hall. He is also a member of the team at local production company, AV Technik.
Chris Brown - In his role as head of finance and marketing at Bull Moose, Chris Brown has overseen sales of more than 3000 locally-produced CDs, records, and DVDs. Chris reviews music and movies for WCSH-6 TV. You can catch him playing piano at contra dances with The City Chickens.
Mark Curdo - Mark has been deeply involved in the music industry since the late 1980's. He has worked in almost every area of music. Retail, Radio, Music Video Host on TV in Boston, Artist Management, Former Music Artist and VP of a successful independent record label from 1997-2002. Mark now works for WCYY and runs his own record label, Labor Day Records based in Portland, Maine
William Ethridge - The first song Will ever heard from a Portland band was "The Ding" by Cerberus Shoal. He was living outside Chicago at the time, and it woke him up from a dream and seemed to go on for ever. It was the best song he ever heard. It also turned out to be a prophecy.Three later he was living in Portland. Six months after that he started The Tower of Song concert series. Six months after that he started the Eternal Otter Records music label. Nine months after that he released the final unreleased recordings of Cerberus Shoal on vinyl. Nine months after that he joined the board of the Portland Music Foundation. He continues to look forward to the ever-changing future, and all the music that is yet to come.
Herb Ivy - "The Captain" maintains his post at Maine’s premiere rock morning show as well as the long-time Program Director and Operations Manager for both WBLM & WCYY. In 2007 Herb was inducted into the Maine Association of Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame. Herb believes that true local radio must embrace local music with real airplay and exposure.
Mark Lourie is Vice President of Skyline Music, an international booking agency with offices in Nashville, Atlanta, Florida, New Hampshire and here in Portland, ME. A Portland native, he is the mountain, west coast, and Canadian territorial agent for Skyline and is the responsible agent for such acts as: Taylor Dayne, Paula Cole, Zoe Keating B-Side Players, MarchFourth Marching Band, Hot Buttered Rum, Gaelic Storm, and Head For The Hills. In his free time you can find him trying to fix his drive or shedding the newest licks on his strat. BTW he also ran live sound for many years and can talk your ear off about hi-fi stereos.
Patrick May/President - Patrick first picked up the bass to fill an empty seat in the Brunswick High School Jazz Band but he quickly realized he was born to ROCK. Eventually he started booking the bands he was performing in out of sheer necessity and was able to diversify his understanding of the industry as manager & talent buyer for Halvorson's Upstreet Café,(Burlington, VT)where he was responsible for booking, promoting & producing concerts. A future as a booking agent was cemented while volunteering at www.bigheavyworld.com (VT organization dedicated to promoting and archiving Vermont music). Patrick landed himself at Skyline Music in 2002 where he books the Northeast region.
Amanda Stewart/Treasurer - Amanda's deep passion for the local music scene started after seeing Rustic Overtones play a New Year's Eve show back in 1995. Seemed like it would be fun to put on shows like that. In college she booked acts for the University of Maine Farmington and later the University of Southern Maine. Since then, she's been an avid concert goer and music supporter and has gained extensive experience in putting on events that draw as many as 20,000 people (they're not exactly concerts, but still...).
Lisa van Oosterum - CEO of Omnirox Entertainment, a management company with a record label and publishing division that was recently moved from Boston to Portland. Her career started on the stage where she was a performer for the first 20 years of her life.
Lauren Wayne is the General Manager, Talent Buyer and Marketing Director of the historic State Theatre in Portland, Maine. Former marketing director of Live Nation New England, Lauren has booked and promoted shows in and around Portland for over eight years.
