It's Music Week and probably the crowning moment of the week took place this morning when MIAB, the Music Industry Association of Belize, opened the doors to its very own resource center. After it's formation in 2002, MIAB has been lobbying and working at getting a home of its own and today finally that materialized. President of MIAB Ivan Duran says the new facilities located on the House of Culture compound will allow for better organization for the production of music.
Ivan Duran, MIAB President
"This day is nothing short of historic for the music industry of Belize. This is beyond MIAB, as far as I can remember we have always wanted a place like this in Belize. Since MIAB was created in 2002, MIAB took the initiative. But this is not only a MIAB initiative, this is something the artists have wanted and have deserved for a long long time. So pioneers like Brother David, Andy Palacio, Pen Cayetano, this is something that was needed 20 years ago. We do have a very beautiful building, a very beautiful space, with enough computers, and a very complete music industry library. Now its another issue to have the artists come in and using it. So the building itself will not mean anything if its not being properly used."
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Culture
"We hope that it provides an opportunity for the Music Industry Association of Belize to really blossom and develop in terms of its own capacity."
Ivan Duran,
"We need a space, we need a space. Until now we had been operating in the streets or different homes and offices and this is now the MIAB home. Apart from the resource center we have a very small office where we going to keep MIAB records and so on and conduct some official business and it's extremely important to have this resource center today."
Francis Fonseca,
"We recognize this as an important initiative and we've contributed financially to this Music Week and we've sponsored Music Week in a meaningful way and we will continue to do that. We of course are providing this resource center free of charge to them, they are not paying us rent, and we are, as you indicated, we signed a memorandum of understanding with them which provides for continued support; the tangible support in terms of resources, tangible support in terms of offices, tangible support in terms of helping them to establish linkages with international organizations. So we are very committed to doing that and I believe despite our limited resources, we are prepared to allocate a portion of our budget to the work of MIAB."
Music Week continues tomorrow with a conference discussing ways in which to promote and sell music as well as with a concert by the Orquesta de La Papaya.
