ASK, the Artist Support Keystone, offers support for musicians at various stages of their career including tailored advice on:

· Project promotion, funding and development
· Marketing
· Showcasing and live opportunity
· Career enhancement
· Fees and contracts

We're proud to have the support of PPL and PRS Foundation who have been instrumental in helping us provide this support to musicians.

Our surgery operates bi-monthly with a limited number of 30 minute sessions available upon request by filling out the contact form.


Terms & Conditions
Our initiative is specifically targeting to support the needs of active musicians resident in Northern Ireland. As a result, our surgeries are only open to musicians - applications by managers, promoters, publishers, record labels, agents, or any other music business practitioners will be rejected upon that basis.

If you are an artist manager, promoter, publisher, producer, record label, agent, or any other music business practitioner please reach out to the following organisations to gather information and support:

Mentors

  • Charlene Hegarty

    Charlene’s music industry career began in gusto at the age of 17; she performed roles in publicity and tour management, working campaigns for Tom Waits (Anti), Presidents of the United States of America (Columbia), Frank Turner (Interscope), Fighting With Wire (Atlantic) and Devotchka (Anti).

    In 2011, Charlene set up Smalltown America Music (STAM), a dynamic young full service-publishing wing of Smalltown America Records, a DIY punk rock record label. During Charlene’s tenure, STAM internationally serviced the copyrights for 26 individual music projects and her natural flare for developing talent and creating business opportunity is evidenced in the global licensing contracts she brokered with MTV, Toyota, Vodafone, O2 and Emmy nominated Netflix series 'Puffin Rock' which was a first of its kind collaboration with the Ulster Orchestra.

    Today, Charlene heads up talent development at the Oh Yeah Music Centre supported by the PRS Foundation. She also serves as the first NI director of the Futures Group via UK Music advocating for better for the Northern Irish music community.

  • Paul Kane

    Paul has been a musician for 45 years. He has toured & played extensively across the UK, Ireland and Toronto. He produced three solo albums to date with two additional albums with his band for charity. He has been a manager, Producer and Session Musician. He Co-wrote a 1940s based Musical called ‘Let’s Rip it Up!’

    He established OTH Music Collective aimed at mature musicians. They have released 5 albums to critical acclaim, had radio play and interviews. He has worked at Oh Yeah for the past 13 years in Outreach and is Music and Older People’s Manager, during that time has partnered with many other Third Sector Organisations. He has worked with Caring Kind in New York and Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He has worked with a range of older people including people with a diagnosis of later stage Dementia. Paul has also written many articles and reviews of albums.

    He is a Member of PRS, The Songwriters Guild, and an Associate Member of the Folk Alliance International.