Becca grew up in New England is not a musician herself, but rather a lover of all music. With her friends she participated in many different nonprofit events, which sparked her love of giving back to the community. Even though she does not really play any instrument, she has always enjoyed being in the audience. A fair amount of her friends are musicians as well and when one of them passed away, she had the chance to learn a bit about how musicians lived.

After learning about the challenges musicians face, she paired with Paul and Jessica Rogalski. Paul taught her friend and when he passed they had the chance to chat a bit more. They came to the understanding the there was a need in the musical community for something like Music First. Becca spent the next year going through and hosting events, helping bring a name to what we are trying to do. Working with local venues to book musicians on the regular.

Note from Becca - I’ve never been a musician, I am an accountant. Working in such a reliable field, I have never really struggled for work. This work also typically came with insurance, as well as the decent pay so I could afford to take care of myself. After the death of my friend, I learned that not all musicians have that option. I had said to me one to may times by local musicians that when they chose to be one, they chose a certain life of poverty. To them this meant no health insurance, living in unacceptable conditions, being forced to take low pay just to feed themselves. It blew my mind learning that this was just - standard.

Not only that, but when a musician pays to go to college and majors in “music whatever”, they typically are not taught accounting, marketing, business management, etc. All of which you need to know of in order to operate as a professional musician. Music First is here to change that. For me, it has been easy to take care of myself, I want to level the playing field for those who are in the industry my friend helped me love.