“I think it is all

good news for

our industry.”

Non-Music Companies Join Cause
continued from page 16

“Texaco is a classic example,” Lamond says. “From a corporate standpoint, they start foundations to do good deeds, but they also know that it has to come back and help the company. They know this helps shape customer thinking.”

“Corporations are held to higher and higher standards by the public in general for their social responsibility and accountability,” says Mary Luehrsen, Music Program Officer for the Texaco Foundation. “We need to produce profits, but we need to produce them responsibly with consciousness and values in the communities where we live and operate. Our corporate contribution efforts seek to impact where community and business needs intersect; through our involvement in music education, we hope to impact education reform by helping to advance the re-instatement of music education in our schools, which we believe will impact on the expertise of a future workforce.”

This wave of corporate support is coming just when it’s needed. In September 2000, the International Foundation for Music Research (IFMR), which, like AMC, is sponsored by NAMM-International Music Products Association, hosted more than 20 corporations and foundations at an unprecedented summit. Participants learned about the latest developments in music-brain research, and IFMR invited them to get involved.

At the time of the IFMR conference, it was revealed that 23 research projects costing about $3.5 million were going unfounded. NAMM, the sole funder of IFMR since its inception in 1998, had more than $2 million invested in 12 projects.

According to Luehrsen, the private sector’s support for music promises some long-term benefits for the corporations themselves. After all, the children who are nurtured and enriched by music making today will form the workforce of the future.

“We were convinced and compelled by the latest news that there was real impact from music in the lives and achievement of children,” Luehrsen says. “Texaco's support for music education combines our legacy of supporting music with a long-term goal to support the development of a future creative and inspired workforce. And, helping to make sure that all children have equal opportunity to a quality education that includes music education, well, it's simply music to our ears.”