Recording Musicians Association New York
founded in 1969
Music is our passion
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Our voice is our power
We are instrumentalists, orchestrators, copyists, and librarians who collaborate on film, television, and studio album projects. We are a Player Conference to the American Federation of Musicians. We promote the welfare and livelihood of recording musicians and counsel the AFM on matters affecting our group.
2024 Membership Drive
RMA-New York Secretary Joanna Maurer and Treasurer Rachel Drehmann attended the final two days of the first round of negotiations held January 22-31. It was a great week of solidarity with colleagues in the negotiation room as well as catching up at dinner with RMA LA 1st Vice President, Lara Wickes, and Treasurer Martin McClellan.
Tentative Agreement Reached
A tentative agreement was reached between the AFM and the AMPTP in the early morning hours of February 23rd following two long days back at the bargaining table negotiating the film/tv contracts.
Details will remain confidential until ratified.
Who We Are
Welcome to the New York Chapter of the Recording Musicians Association. We are part of the RMA-International: a national organization and the American Federation of Musician’s only recognized Player Conference for recording work and thus authorized to attend negotiations on behalf of recording musicians. If you record a jingle, record date, film date, or play on a live TV show, you are working under a national recording agreement which eventually needs to be renegotiated. The RMA has been an invaluable resource for the AFM at the table; we are the ones who really know what goes on in the recording studio and we bring that knowledge to the table at every negotiation. Our AFM negotiating team benefits from this knowledge and we see the results of our in input in our agreements.
RMA-NY was founded in 1969 by and for New York recording musicians in an effort to insure that their needs would be addressed by the AFM. Musicians wanted to have a say in how the contracts that they worked under were negotiated and it was important for them to maintain an independent voice from the Local and the Federation. In 1983, other cities such as Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago, and Toronto joined with New York to form the Recording Musicians Association of the United States and Canada. Finally in 1990, the AFM formally recognized the RMA, along with the other Player Conferences, ICSOM and ROPA, as official representatives of working musicians.
We believe that it is crucial for musicians that the AFM agreements be protected, particularly for those who work under the agreements for minimum scale. These agreements have within them, numerous choices for producers and signatories when planning their budgets and booking sessions.Wages, pension, health and welfare and cartage are vital to musicians and their livelihoods and must be protected. In addition, the Special Payments Fund for Phono, the Secondary Markets Fund for Film, residuals for commercials, re-use for TV appearances, and all other forms of residuals and royalties must be preserved.
RMA New York Board:
Roger Blanc, President
Joanna Maurer, Secretary
Rachel Drehmann, Treasurer
Bettina Covo
Sonny Kompanek
Chris Parker
Dan Willis