With assistance from our board, we have identified four issues which will provide the focus for a series of public forums to be presented during the week of August 15 - 22, 2008.

These meetings will engage the public, professional musicians and members of the music industry in exploring the huge changes in the way music is created, taught, recorded, performed and broadcast, brought about by new digital technologies. Our aim will be to develop a vision and specific policies to ensure the continuation of musical creativity, generate better economic support for musicians and protect important musical traditions as they move into the future.

The forums will focus on these key issues:

1. How will musicians protect their rights and obtain income in the digital age?
2. How will live performance survive and change in the future?
3. How will new technology affect music education and creativity?
4. How can the AFM best support and assist musicians as music changes?

Each forum will open with two speakers, whose presentations will provoke discussion. A trained facilitator will lead all those attending in an exploration of the topic, to generate specific recommendations which will be reported to the delegates at Canadian Conference and published in a printed form.

The forums will be unusual in that they will be (a) open to musicians, non-musicians, professionals and amateurs of all ages and backgrounds, (b) visionary and open-ended in examining the challenges faced by musicians and (c) serious in considering and transmitting solutions and ideas generated by the participants. We see the Canadian Conference and the events leading up to it as a major turning point for the AFM and a seedbed for public policies in our province to more effectively support musical creativity and music education.

Musicians rarely have a time and place to come together to explore these issues in depth. We aim to provide that opportunity.