Member-based advocacy group Music Publishers Canada (MPC) is doing its part to help right the staggering inequity non-males face in trying to get ahead as music producers, with its bespoke program, the Women in the Studio National Accelerator.
What started in 2019 as a networking opportunity for Ontario-based producer-songwriters has expanded to curated workshops, skills development, and networking opportunities over a six-month period each year. The career advancement opportunity, which runs from June to December, is offered to just six producer-songwriters whose careers are already rolling.
“It’s not a beginner program. It’s always been for producers who are already starting to produce for others,” says MPC CEO Margaret McGuffin, noting that the producer participants must also be songwriters or beat-makers. “We want to make sure that we’re able to personalize the program to the needs of the producer. It’s not meant to be cookie-cutter.”
Margaret McGuffin
In addition to technical skills and songwriting opportunities, topics range from financial literacy, to operating a small business, to branding.
The producer-songwriters must commit to attending two-hour online meetings twice a month for six months, and a week-long in-person residency. The 2024 participants are Alysha Brilla (Toronto), Cat Hiltz (Vancouver). Charmie (Toronto), Jinting Zhao (Edmonton), Samantha Selci (Toronto), and JoJo Worthington (Montréal).
“This initiative not only provides invaluable resources for female and gender non-conforming producers, but also fosters a strong sense of community and collaborative mentorship,” says Brilla. “By supporting and learning from each other, we’re breaking barriers, and creating a healthier recording ecosystem for producers, audio engineers, and artists.”
She says so far, the group has been learning from Amandine Pras, a producer, engineer, researcher, and educator, who previously served as a senior lecturer at England’s University of York, and as a lecturer of digital audio arts in the music department at the University of Lethbridge from 2017 to 2021.
“We’ve been diving into specific recording and mixing techniques with Amandine. She has an incredible wealth of knowledge, and has written research on the relationship between gender and audio/music,” explains Brilla, a three-time JUNO nominee, who in 2013 was one of the first women in JUNO history to receive a nomination for a self-produced record.
According to a 2023 USC Annenberg study that used a sample of 1,200 top songs released between 2012 and 2023, only 6.5 percent were produced by female producers. Though that percentage has increased over the past several years, there’s still a 30-to-one ratio of men to women producers across 900 top songs. While no such producer-oriented research has been done in Canada yet, a recently released study of gender representation on Canadian radio (2013 to 2023), Share The Air, showed an embarrassing lack of female representation on radio.
McGuffin, who joined MPC eight years ago as Executive Director, and became CEO in 2021, tells Words & Music that the professional development program came out of discussions with the Board of Directors when they noted a lack of opportunities for women, non-binary, and gender-fluid producer-songwriters.
“Our members are very interested in signing in that space, and developing producer-songwriters.” says McGuffin, “The numbers were shocking in 2018 with the Annenberg study coming out stating that just over two percent of the Billboard hit songs you heard were produced by women. That made us have discussions with our publishers – especially our women publishers – about how we needed to be taking an active role. We had a corporate responsibility to be a leader in this space.”
The resulting Women in the Studio National Accelerator has morphed dramatically over six years. In the first year, 2019, it was a networking event for producers at the JUNO Awards (held that year in London, Ontario) and Canadian Music Week (always in Toronto). Ontario Creates was the first partner, because it was Ontario-focused. “It was about bringing the group together to build community,” says McGuffin. “We had [noted American songwriter and producer] Linda Perry that year.”
In the second year, 2020, MPC was about to launch the accelerator nationally – thanks to FACTOR funding – when COVID hit. They monitored the pandemic for a month, then took it online that March, and ran the program for two years on Zoom. Amid the uncertainty and slowdown of the industry, McGuffin says, “we found we could do so much more” online.
Sylvia Massy
“We could bring in [top U.S. producer] Sylvia Massy [who’s worked with Prince, Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin, Tool], who may not be able to come to Canada, but she was available to the group,” she says. “And we could cover so many more topics, and have so many more mentors. That really moved us into year three. We realized everybody still wanted that in-person networking and learning opportunity. But in our fourth year [2022], we were able to expand the program to six months, having that deeper curriculum that we developed over Zoom, but then putting in that residency week.”
In addition to the aforementioned partners/funders, the residency week and six-month online program (now in its third year) is currently supported by RBC Foundation, with additional sponsorship from Cassels and Compass Rose.
“We’re getting more than 100 applicants, and the quality of the applicants keeps increasing every year, as they hear about the program,” says McGuffin. “We go through a process of vetting the applications, making sure they have experience, and then doing interviews of 10 or 15 producers before we go down to our final six.”
Songwriting is also a focus in 2024, with Liz Rodrigues (who’s co-written songs for Celine Dion and Eminem) running that component of the accelerator. “We’re strengthening the songwriting skill side of things,” says McGuffin. “We’re going to be looking at writing for different genres: K-Pop, country, pop. Often the producer will come from an artist background, with or without technical training, and their brand as producers is different than their brand as an artist. So, we help them on those skills.”
At press time, in August of 2024, the residency was underway in Toronto, and included visits to Warner Chappell Music Publishing and Sony Music Publishing (led by Creative Director Mishelle Pack, for the second consecutive year); a day at Kilometre Music Group, and a day at Noble Street Studios; and a session with producer-songwriter Karen Kosowski.
“We do the residency week, and then we do a mid-year review with them one-on-one, because people’s understanding of what they want to do with their careers often changes,” says McGuffin. “We keep the last part of our programming each year open, so we can customize it to the producer.”
When the accelerator ends, MPC doesn’t close the door. While there’s nothing formal in place, McGuffin says, “Ultimately, we want to support this group after they leave the program. They form a community, and they’re connected to the alumni. We still see the WhatsApp chats blowing up, as they compare notes and look for advice. We want this to last beyond the six months.”