MAKING MUSIC MATTER: INDIE RECORD LABEL ACTS ON CONSCIENCE Falling Mountain Puts Profits Behind Community and Causes

Independent record label Falling Mountain Music is unveiling a new program designed to donate a portion of its profits to various social and environmental causes. The program, called "Making Music Matter", will dedicate one dollar from every CD sold on their website to a different non-profit organization, selected quarterly. The label has gone beyond a typical single CD release to raise money for a particular project, instead committing its entire catalogue of acoustic music recordings to the cause.

WINCHESTER, VA (PRWEB) July 17, 2004 -- Independent record label Falling Mountain Music is unveiling a new program designed to donate a portion of its profits to various social and environmental causes. The program, called "Making Music Matter", will dedicate one dollar from every CD sold on their website to a different non-profit organization, selected quarterly. The label has gone beyond a typical single CD release to raise money for a particular project, instead committing its entire catalogue of acoustic music recordings to the cause.

Falling Mountain founder, guitarist and composer Michael DeLalla, envisions "Making Music Matter" as a natural extension of the label1s long-held core philosophy that artists have a social responsibility to the communities in which they live. Now in its 13th year, the Shenandoah Valley-based record label has consistently turned away from the bottom-line driven, mass-market approach of commercial music conglomerates, instead cultivating one-to-one relationships directly with music fans through concerts and tours, their website, and support of non-commercial radio. The label1s roster includes a diversity of traditional and contemporary folk and world music artists, many of who incorporate community service and their passion for particular causes into their performing and touring schedules. DeLalla says, "We thought that the label could serve as an engine to help support our artists1 efforts, and collectively focus those efforts to make a bigger impact in our greater community".

One of those artists, singer/songwriter Andrew McKnight, has long been active on the environmental and social justice fronts, performing several times a year to benefit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and the Sierra Clubs Inner City Outings program. He has long championed the connections between art, commerce and social responsibility, and sees "Making Music Matter" as a way to further harness the collective efforts of the individual artists to benefit important causes. "I am a firm believer that being an artist is a great responsibility as well as a great privilege. While my own financial ability to contribute to worthy causes directly is limited, my music offers a way to gather more energy and attention to those causes while raising more significant funding as well, " says McKnight.

Falling Mountain Music recently released a CD called Moving Mountains: Voices of Appalachia Rise Up Against Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining, featuring artists inspired by the people and places of rural southern Appalachia being devastated by mountaintop removal coal mining. The recording also features interviews with coalfield residents who tell their stories in the most heartbreaking and honest terms. The proceeds go directly to organizations providing assistance to communities dislocated or threatened by mountaintop mining projects as well as organizations who are mounting the legislative and political fight to end MTR.

The initial donations from "Making Music Matter" for the 3rd quarter 2004 are earmarked for the non-profit group Appalachian Voices, whose mission is protecting and restoring the ecological integrity, economic vitality, and cultural heritage of the central and southern Appalachian Mountain region.

For more about independent record label Falling Mountain Music and their "Making Music Matter" program, please visit www.fallingmountain.com or call 540/877-2505.

Contact: BTM Communications, Mary Sue Twohy, 202-483-1105 or
buildthemountain@aol.com
Falling Mountain Music, 540/877-2505, www.fallingmountain.com
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