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Electronic music and contemporary arts nonprofit S1 announced a name change yesterday. Setting aside the minimal, but obscure, name of S1, the organization will hence operate under the more literal title of Synth Library Portland.
It also announced its intention to reopen its synth library, which has been shuttered since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Synth Library lending program will be accessible to all and will prioritize access to QTBIPOC and others who have been underrepresented in the electronic music community,” the social media release read.
The nonprofit moved out of its physical space in the Roseway neighborhood at the end of 2020, so it plans to allow people to take instruments and other production equipment home with them, via a gear lending program.
This attitude of radical resource sharing is not uncommon for the nonprofit. In a 2018 interview with Willamette Week, S1 co-founder and then-executive director Felisha Ledesma asked, “Why shouldn’t everybody get to have access to the tools?”
Its first paid staff person, Alessandra Genovese, will coordinate the lending program—which will begin in August—as well as a fall artists in residence program.
Synth Library Portland’s Roseway space was not only a place to house its synthesizer library, but also a site for music education, technology classes and all-ages shows. Though the release stated that in-person teaching and workshops were a goal for the organization, it didn’t mention any desire to return as a venue space.
Read the whole release here.