DALLAS — Dallas recently launched its own music office to support and promote local musicians.
It started with efforts to get Dallas designated a music-friendly community by the Texas Music Office. Dallas got the designation in 2021.
The Dallas Music Office, an extension of Visit Dallas and the Texas Music Office, will serve as a hub for artists, venues, and music enthusiasts for education, collaboration and growth of the Dallas music scene. Dallas’ music office is run by Kristina Kirkenaer-Hart, the director of cultural tourism for Visit Dallas, and Jonathan McNary, who worked as a producer and partner at Creatives Factory, a Dallas-based artist development company and recording label.
“I’m really excited. I feel like it’s been a long time coming,” said Kirkenaer-Hart, Director of Cultural Tourism and the Dallas Music Office. “We have a massive amount of talent and in any genre you can possibly come up with, but the downside is that very few people know it unless you’re within the scene and efforts are siloed, so people are reinventing the wheel left and right and there’s no aggregate space for information, education, collaboration -- that’s what we want to do.”
“That’s my biggest goal is for [artists] to feel supported and use us a resource," she added.
She said in the short term, the Dallas Music Office has been focused on building local partnerships including with KXT radio, Dallas Love Field to support featuring local musicians on the Love Field stage, the Dallas Entertainment Awards (scheduled for early 2025) to recognize local talent, and more.
The Dallas Music Office will also use social media (you can find them on Facebook, X and Instagram as @dallas_sounds) for networking, partnerships, sharing facts about the Dallas music scene and highlighting local artists.
Other initiatives in the works include partnering with Downtown Dallas Inc. and Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) to bring live local music across the city in a project inspired by New York City’s Music Under New York program.
“To me, it makes sense that we’re not going to be known as a music city unless you hear music as you are going about,” said Kirkenaer-Hart.
This fall, she says they plan to launch a pilot program with a goal of holding auditions in January, then a roster of artists than runs March through December.
Longer-term, Kirkenaer-Hart says she’d like to see access expanded to affordable healthcare for artists.
“To me, artists need to be able to survive and thrive within our city and the more we can do to help with the little things to make a big impact for them is the goal of the office,” she said. “We’ll never be a music city if we lose our musicians to other major cities.”
To help with their initiatives, the Dallas Music Office formed the Dallas Music Office Committee, including artists, music managers, venue owners and more.
Here’s who’s on the committee:
- Amy Miller of KXT Radio
- Arlington Jones, jazz program director at the Sammons Center for the Arts
- Benji McPhail of KXT Radio
- Brian Plinck with the city of Dallas
- Carlos Alvarez of Azteca Music Group
- Catherine Cueller with the city of Dallas
- Crystal Perry who works in artist branding with Top Ten Records
- Entertainment attorney David Small
- Diana Cox, director of operations at Kessler Presents
- Edwin Cabaniss of the Kessler Theater
- Jonathan Camacho and Christian Chavarria of the Creatives Factory
- Maureen Womack of Rabbit Hat Promotions
- Tami Thomsen
- Tre Nagella a Grammy-winning producer with Luminous Sound
- Local musician Dezman Lehman, known as Dezi 5.
The Music Friendly Community Program, created in 2016, is the only one of its kind in the U.S. There are now about 60 communities designated as music-friendly communities. The designation requires applicants to create a music office or liaison within a division of city government and an advisory board made up of local music community industry stakeholders, according to the Texas Music Office website.
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