The elimination of the Canadian Musical Diversity fund will marginalize artists working in jazz, folk, traditional and contemporary classical music that do not have a large commercial following, musicians say.

Musicians working in these genres across the country are raising concerns after learning the $1.35-million program, administered through the Canada Council, will be eliminated by April 1, 2010.

Canadian Heritage announced a restructuring of its funding for the music industry in July, including an increase to music programs to $27.6 million over five years.

But while more money will be available for international touring and help with selling music online, the Canadian Musical Diversity Program was eliminated.

Newfoundland-based pianist Bill Brennan said the increases in funding to performing rights organization SOCAN and Factor will help commercial music, at the expense of some of Canada's more diverse offerings.

"The thing that's most concerning to me is that those organizations have not been very strong in their support for artistically driven, non-commercial music such as jazz and folk and traditional and contemporary classical music," Brennan told CBC News.

Newfoundland artists such as the Flummies, Frank Maher, Shallaway, Spanner, Christina Smith and Jean Hewson have been helped by the fund.

"When you consider that that is very important to this province, especially folk and traditional, and to the health of those genres across the country ... I think it's a huge concern."

He urged musicians to write to their MPs and to the government in Ottawa to protest the changes.

Changes criticized

Guitarist Duane Andrews said he applied to the program for help creating a recording.

"Through this program I was able to bring in a string quartet and broaden my artistic vision. These things are hard to do independently," he said.

"For me this goes back to the question of quality, not just artistic quality, but even technically, being able to make an album sound as good as it can sound. You can make an album on a small budget, but it sounds like a small-budget album."

In addition to helping with recording costs, the program helped with specialized distribution.

"It's a move away from artistic quality and diversity as a culture and a move towards a more commercially-driven society really," Andrews added.

But Heritage Minister James Moore defended the changes, saying they were made in consultation with the music industry.

"The changes that we made to the Canada Music Fund which we announced back at the end of July in Montreal were made after broad consultation with the music industry across the country and they were very well received," Moore told CBC News.

Artists were part of consultation

Moore said the ministry consulted with SOCAN, Factor and with independent artists.

"They wanted us to support artists with touring, with international touring, they wanted us to support artists with developing markets online and we decided that was the best way to invest these funds for the music industry," he said.

He insisted there are still opportunities for many diverse kinds of music to get funding under Canada Music Fund programs.

"Whenever you make a change there are people who don't like changing the status quo," Moore said. "The envelope they were looking for was basically to fund artists who have no interest in developing any kind of commercial opportunities for their music, that's just a different approach than what we have in mind."

With files from Angela Antle