Keeping the Blues Alive

Sometimes the best approach to solving a problem is to leverage your strengths and focus your effort. Mark Epstein is an accomplished musician, songwriter and producer who has worked with numerous major artists, film and television studios. When he grew tired of the hard life of touring, he needed to find a way to make a living in Austin. The Austin Blues Revue, a project of a fiscally-sponsored fund at Austin Community Foundation, helped Epstein turn his skills into a valued corporate team-building workshop.

Fiscal sponsorship is a proven way the Foundation helps to address community-wide problems. Project leaders can focus on implementing mission-based programs and services while the Foundation team takes care of the management functions of finance, legal compliance, and risk management.

The mission of the Austin Musicians Scholarship Fund at the Foundation is to create, advocate and demonstrate new business models for live music in Austin and to connect professional musicians and venue operators with the business community to create their own Fair Play Live Music Model.

Epstein’s experience as a producer made him particularly well-versed in working with teams to attain specific outcomes. This experience translated into Mark hosting unique corporate workshops where he helps teams write and professionally record an original song in one day. Specifically designed for people with no musical background or experience, the BuildSong Session workshop shows teams they are capable of doing things far beyond their perceived abilities in a way only Austin can deliver.

Epstein still plays the jazz and blues music he loves in the city he calls home. As bassist and lead producer of the Austin Blues Revue and several other artists, he also is working with local companies and producing impressive original music crafted by corporate teams across Austin.