Mutual Mentorship for Musicians (M³) is a platform created to empower, elevate, normalize, and give visibility to musicians of historically underrepresented gender identities in intersection with race, sexuality, or ability across generations in the US and worldwide, through a radical model of mentorship and musical collaborative commissions. By building a non-hierarchical and intergenerational paradigm of mentorship, M³ celebrates a global network of artists, providing a think tank for new ways to connect, collaborate, perform, support, and create.

Co-founded in 2020 and led by vocalist-composers Jen Shyu and Sara Serpa, M³ recognizes that music—with its multiple languages and traditions—has been too often shaped by male power; this has resulted in unbalanced environments and presented multiple challenges for composer-performers from underrepresented groups to have access to meaningful and respectful mentorship. Since then, M³ has already served a global community of nearly one hundred composer-performers, pioneering a growing new model of support and creativity. M³ is guided by the conviction that when women and non-binary composer-performers are supported, they feel valued, are made visible, and are empowered to expand their creativity. A fundamental component of M³’s identity emphasizes process over product; this manifests in every aspect of our mission. By supporting artistic excellence through collaboration within and among each cohort, M³ creates expandable music communities while developing and sustaining career opportunities for women and non-binary composer-performers in the industry, in particular for women and non-binary composer-performers of color.

Jerome Foundation supports Mutual Mentorship for Musicians’ M³ Cohort program. Open to early career New York City-based composers—as well as to composers at any age above 18 years old, working in any music genre including jazz, improvised, creative, world, electronic music, and beyond, the M³ Cohort program aims to normalize powerful women and non-binary composers on the music scene. The M³ cohort program serves 12 composer-performers over 10 months. Through intensive meetings, professional development workshops, and technological support, cohort members create duo commissions of original compositions and videos with someone with whom they have not collaborated before. Participants receive an artist fee, writing workshops leading to their writing and essay or poem for the M³ Anthology of Writings, and audio/visual technological support. At the end of each season, M³ produce a Spring Celebration event to premiere the duo commissioned works, as well as to honor a previous M³ cohort artist with a Lifetime Achievement Award. One year later, M³ cohort musicians are invited to perform and showcase their music as bandleaders at the M³ Festival in New York City.