WHAT IS WEATHERVANE?
Weathervane Music is a new organization, building a non-profit community whose sole purpose is to support and advance the careers of amazing independent musicians. We work with a small selection of artists each year, and we intend to do it every year, for many to come.

WHAT WE DO
Our efforts revolve around a program called Shaking Through, a curated series of audio and video recordings featuring great independent artists, their music and artfully produced video of the actual recording sessions that went into making that music. Shaking Through combines the music and video production resources of Weathervane Music with the radio and online distribution and marketing reach of WXPN, the nationally recognized, non-commercial, member-supported radio service of the University of Pennsylvania.

For each project, the artists’ vision and various details of the production process are the primary subject matter of the music and video productions presented on our website. We hope that over time this will become a powerful spotlight, providing great exposure for the artists, studio crew, and all the creative video artists, and other participants in the series. Beyond all else, Shaking Through should enlighten the public about the hard work, the planning, creative processes and techniques that go into great works of art in music.

WHY WE DO THIS
Today, there is a profound need for all of us to Actively Support the Music we LOVE. The Weathervane Community sees what it does as a cultural investment, and a model for how other organizations can do the same. If we don’t make this investment, careers in music will become limited to a privileged class of the independently wealthy, rather than the most sophisticated artists.

It is nearly impossible for artists to sustain a living from sales of their recordings the way they once did. Labels take on fewer projects that challenge the mold in favor of “safe” acts that are more likely to sell to the public. The vast majority of truly sophisticated musical groups and solo artists are therefore left to their own devices, forced to scale back on production and many of the other necessities of their art and craft.

Shaking Through exists to celebrate and enable great works in independent music. Every great musician should experience the magic that comes from collaboration with a great producer in an equally great studio. This is simply too vital to let slip away.

Shaking Through is an ongoing experiment to create a new model for funding, producing and promoting great independent music: one that thrives on unique and sophisticated music, one in which the artists themselves can be compensated and remain the primary beneficiaries of their work, one that will promote long lasting, sustainable careers in music, one that embraces all modern channels of distribution, and one that, through public participation and support, re-grows and repairs the long standing relationship between the people who MAKE music and people who LOVE music.

We hope that over time an invitation to participate in Shaking Through will be a prestigious honor for all involved, that our efforts will invigorate and transform these artists’ careers and lives, and that this groundbreaking series will produce a sophisticated lineage of music and great new artists for our culture for decades to come.