'A Crisis For Performers': Musicians Brace For Quiet Holiday Season
BOSTON (CBS) - This time of the year is normally a busy one for musicians, with Victoria Garcia sharing, "You have concert after concert, you're always running from one event to another, everyone's always in a festive mood."
Musician Hans Bohn added, "If you think Boston at the holidays- we have the Nutcracker, we have White Christmas at the Boch Center, we have the Pops going and music services hundreds of thousands people during the holiday season."
Of course, this year due to the pandemic, things will be different. Many musicians are bracing for the financial impact.
Hazel Davis is one of the founders of the New England Musicians Relied Fund. "It's truly a crisis for performers," Davis said. "We worry that the crisis is actually deepening, as we head into the holidays, unemployment is drying up and the holidays are when musicians make a good portion of their income."
Bohn added, "It's the busiest time of the year for musicians and I want to say a lot of musicians, it's probably a quarter of their income, maybe more for some."
Will Dailey is a singer/songwriter who detailed the financial hardships he, like many of his peers, is facing, "I make my money from clubs, being on the road, being in the studio. And all of those things are impossible to do."
The New England Musicians Relief Fund is hoping to help, providing grant money to professional musicians in New England and New York's Upper Hudson Valley.
Dailey explained, "For any musician right now to get that extra relief, to get that extra help, gets you through one more week maybe. Maybe it's the month, maybe it's an event that you need to get through, a bill."
The organization hopes to distribute $200,000 to musicians in need by the end of the year.
For more information on the relief fund and to find out how to donate or apply, visit: www.nemrf.org
