Women’s Audio Mission (WAM) is an organization dedicated to magnifying the voices of women and gender-expansive people in all aspects of the music business. Founded in San Francisco by Terri Winston in 2003, WAM expanded to Oakland in 2018 to serve young women from underrepresented communities with afterschool and in-school programs. A location in Los Angeles opens next month and the organization is currently searching for space in Nashville.
“I started WAM after I became a professor at City College of San Francisco, where I created the Sound Recording Arts Program,” Winston said. “It grew out of a small club of seven or eight women students in my program. I’d often been the only woman in the studio during my career as a musician, but I hadn’t really thought about it.”
When her students asked why there were so few women in the record business, Winston didn’t have an answer to the question. She started WAM as a response. The organization took off immediately.
“After we started, we went to an Audio Engineering Society convention and had $7,500 in audio gear donated, from my connections in the industry,” Winston said. “They were excited about WAM and wanted me to build a studio for it. Three years after we started, we built our first studio.”
Over the years, graduates of the program have produced songs, albums, podcasts, audiobooks and voiceovers, and gained expertise in other areas of production that most people are unaware of.
“We’ve placed over 2,500 women and gender-expansive folks in positions at Dolby, Pixar, Meyer Sound, Disney, ESPN, Google, Meta and most studios and venues across the Bay Area,” Winston said. “They’re working as recording engineers, audio editors, sound designers, live sound engineers, A/V technicians, broadcast engineers and jobs across all sectors.”
The organization currently runs two full-service commercial studios in San Francisco. One is Dolby Atmos certified. Anyone, of any gender, can book time there. The studios have hosted sessions for Beyonce’s band, Tune-Yards, Kronos Quartet, Toro y Moi and many more bands.
WAM also makes use of the internet to reach people outside of the Bay Area. More than 4,000 people from 30-plus countries joined WAM classes online during Covid. Some of that access has been kept available. “We had more demand, online, from folks in Los Angeles,” Winston said. “That’s one thing that pushed us to get a location down there.”
As WAM keeps expanding, Winston focuses much of her attention on fundraising. “It’s hard to raise the money fast enough to support our growth,” she said. “There’s so much demand for our programs, and so many ideas we’re waiting to execute. It’s a constant hustle.”
WAM needs to raise almost $2 million dollars every year just to keep the San Francisco location functioning. The campaign to fund locations in L.A. and Nashville will take an additional $4 million to $9 million.
WAM’s ultimate goal is gender parity in the music and audio industries. “Perhaps someday WAM will no longer be needed, or just becomes the Audio Mission (AM),” Winston said. “The way we intend to do that is to bring the successful model we built in the San Francisco Bay Area to the music hubs of Los Angeles and Nashville.”
She said she’d like to see WAM studios across the country, serving as examples of welcoming, inclusive spaces that deliver and promote music and media projects that reflect the ideas and perspectives of women, girls and gender-expansive people.
Since she grew up as a musician, Winston said she misses the time she used to spend engaging in her own creative pursuits. “My time in the studio is really limited,” she said. “I spend most of my time raising money and making connections for WAM. I’ve also been battling the onset of a hearing loss that is an incredible mystery to my UCSF doctors.
“I like making music,” she continued, “but I have to accept this hearing loss. The best I can do is pass on all the production wisdom I have gleaned, from so many people over the years, to the next generations. I love running into folks I mentored. It’s the best part of the job to see our graduates get employed or excited about the new career paths or skills they learned—better than caffeine!”
WAM will present a free Local Sirens concert as part of the Yerba Buena Gardens Festival at 12:30pm on Aug. 21 at 750 Howard St., San Francisco. 410.651.3684. For more info, visit womensaudiomission.org.
