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.
Happy hour at The Independent in January 2025 following the first day of the RMA International Conference.
Members from RMA-NY and Musicians for Musicians joined up in December 2024 for an evening of cocktails, conversations, and great views in midtown.
Wildfire Relief
for L.A. Musicians
Our hearts are with Los Angeles musicians who have experienced unfathomable loss during the wildfires.
New Yorkers can help our L.A. colleagues and friends begin the road to recovery by donating to one or more of the following reputable organizations:
Live TV/Videotape Negotiation
3rd round of bargaining resuming at end of February
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
Sonny Kompanek
Chris Parker
Dan Willis
Conway Kuo