A Brief History of the Music Performance Fund

Music Performance Fund (MPF) was created in 1948 as a part of an agreement negotiated with the recording industry as an answer to the reduced amount of live music performance caused by the introduction of the LP phonograph. In its first year, MPF received $270,000 from phonograph profits to fund live performance. Some of the artists who have performed on MPF concerts include Gene Krupa, Cab Calloway, Dean Martin, and Frank Sinatra, jr., and some of the cosponsors have included AT&T, the Archdiocese of Chicago, Harvard, General Electric, and the Salvation Army. In 2004, MPF sponsored 11,000 performances throughout the United States, totaling $10 million in wages to musicians ($124,000 in Florida).

• 1958: MPF partners with Young Audiences, Inc. to expose children to live music performance.
• 1967: MPF partners with the Smithsonian Institution for the American Folklife Festival.
• 1981: MPF showcases veterans by cosponsoring the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival.
• 1983: MPF creates Music in the Schools program.
• 1994: MPF cosponsors the Metropolitan Opera in Central Park.
• 1996: MPF creates a scholarship program.
• 2002: MPF partners with the Jazz Foundation of America to bring jazz into the schools.