Education, community building among ‘start small’ goals for city’s push for music hubs

The push to establish creative and music hubs in the city’s three ethnic cultural centers could begin with small educational and community-building workshops before a possible bond vote in 2026 to raise money for construction and equipment for the facilities.

Feedback from three open houses held in September – one each for the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center and the Asian American Resource Center – showed strong support for the creative hubs, which would be overseen by the Parks and Recreation Department. The primary goal of the hubs would be to provide free studio and rehearsal space for musicians, along with other career-building resources and meeting space to encourage collaboration.

More than 100 people attended the three sessions, which will be followed by focus group sessions for each community center. EQ Austin, the nonprofit group that conducted the open houses for the city, will deliver its recommendations from those sessions to PARD by the end of the year.

Nagavalli Medicharla, chair of EQ Austin as well as the Music Commission, said participants expressed support for having the hubs serve older and younger musicians and being open to all while also reflecting the cultural communities of each community center.

“It’s been a long-standing aspiration and need within these different BIPOC communities and the diverse diaspora in Austin around having resources available that can serve as a portal of networking and entry maybe even into the mainstream music industry,” she said. “There’s an aspiration to have a hub that will serve multiple generations, not only the current generation of professionals and folks who are wanting to get into the field … but also support our emerging artists or younger folks creatives within our communities.”

Medicharla said there was strong support for a “start small” approach using existing facilities in the community centers to offer education and networking opportunities. The goal of those offerings would be to cultivate audiences and career advancement for artists who have historically had less access to the components of the music industry operating in Austin.

Creative and music hubs are not a new concept in Austin, with organizations such as the now-idled Austin Music Foundation offering an assortment of music-making and production tools on workstations at its free Creative Media Center. In East Austin, the Mosaic Sound Collective was a privately funded hub that had expected to receive city creative space bond funding but closed last year when its lease expired.

Looking ahead, the Central Austin Management Group development company announced plans last year for a 21-acre project off U.S. Highway 183 that would be anchored by office space for creative businesses along with a mix of affordable and market-rate housing.

Medicharla said EQ Austin’s recommendations to PARD will include an analysis of other hub concepts in Austin and elsewhere, but having the city owning the facilities will provide more stability than those run by nonprofits or private interests.

Anastasia Smith, an Austin rapper who performs under the name Anastasia Hera, said young musicians still learning how to navigate the business side of the industry could see significant benefits from the creative hubs.

“There are lots of people who want to pursue the arts, maybe not as a career, but maybe as a hobby or a creative outlet, but don’t know where to start,” she said. “They don’t know how do you find that circle of artists that will welcome you in and teach you, show you the ropes and point you to the resources? The idea that I like about it is that you can start from zero and go in and get some assistance.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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