More than able for music

It is a little-known fact that there are believed to be about 500 full-time composers operating in Ireland, composing away to their hearts' content. They write advertising jingles, songs for successful artistes like Mary Black, songs for artistes who should be consigned to the bottom of the sea in a lead box, themes for TV shows, whatever is required. When they are unemployed, they go to the dole office and tell the man behind the counter that they are composers and the man behind the counter shakes his head at the strange ways of men.

Add to that composers' figure more than 5.000 musical performers, 2,000 people with links to live venues, 1,100 employees in the retail sector and assorted video producers, music publishers and record-company types; the Irish music industry employs in the region of 10,000 people. In total, the music industry here is worth about £245 million annually.

The City Arts Centre in Dublin is now into the third year of its music management and promotion course, a one-year, part-time course designed to help its students develop the skills necessary to work in the music industry. The difference in this year's course is that all the students are people with disabilities. Supported by the National Rehabilitation Board through ESF funding, 14 students are currently learning how to survive in an industry which has earned a cutthroat reputation. If they are successful, they may become a new Jon Landau (manager of Bruce Springsteen and a tough negotiator), a new David Geffen (former manager of Neil Young, and a very tough negotiator) or a new Peter Grant (deceased manager of Led Zeppelin and a negotiator so tough that he carried a gun and used it to threaten slow-paying promotors). If they are unsuccessful, they may become slow-paying promotors and find themselves looking down the barrel of a former classmate's gun.

The course covers opportunities and current and future developments in the industry, information technology, marketing, promotion and event management, all imbued with a strong ethos of disability equality.

The question that might be asked is: why music management for students with disabilities? The answer, probably, is "why not?" "There are already people with disabilities working in the industry, but you don't really hear of them," says course director Alison Rogers.

As Rogers observes, a certain similarity has, in the past, marked courses aimed at people with disabilities. An attraction of the music-industry course for the NRB was the fact that it represented a distinct break from that tradition.

"It's an area that's of interest to a lot of young people in terms of career opportunities," she says. "Young people have a tendency to be interested in the music industry. We find also that people come in because they are interested in music, then find that they are good with computers but would never have approached the course for that reason.

"The course is going to be challenging for ourselves and the participants and even the music industry. It's challenging a lot of people's perceptions." In the future, it is hoped that the centre will expand into the technical side of the industry, including music production and production for radio and television.

Yet difficulties face course participants in the most basic of areas: many music venues and music stores are not accessible to people with disabilities. "When you travel and see how other countries respond, you see how far Ireland still has to go," Rogers says. "There are basic things to be tackled, as well as the larger elements. "I think places like the City Arts Centre are showing the way."

The City Arts Centre already has a strong emphasis on equality issues for people with disabilities. Since 1990, it has been an Irish affiliate organisation for the US-based Very Special Arts, which is dedicated to creating access to the arts for all. In 1996, with ESF funding, it launched the Arts in Community Training programme (ACT 1), a two-year programme which set out to explore ways in which the arts can facilitate the integration of those with and without disabilities. The centre is also home to the Counterbalance Dance Workshop for people with disabilities, and all staff receive comprehensive disability-equality training. Training manager Mary Keogh and education director Peter Kearns are also working on a disability-equality module, which will address the way society imposes its notions of disability and which will allow those involved to explore their own experiences of disability as part of a self-development programme.

"The whole policy of the centre is to make the arts accessible," Rogers says. "That is one of the reasons why an organisation like the NRB would approach us."

However, it is a little ironic, then, that only one of the 14 participants on the music industry course is a woman. It is something of which the course organisers are acutely aware. "Maybe it reflects the industry," Rogers says. "The music industry is very male-dominated." The gender balance may be addressed somewhat by an influx of new participants. There are still vacancies on the course and those interested should apply directly to Mary Keogh or Justin Rami at the City Arts Centre, 23-25 Moss Street, Dublin 2 (tel: (01) 677 0643).