Curious about what we’ve been up to?
Here are some of our success stories & past projects…
Alma June and the Persian Cats
Equal Measure Arts supported Alma June and the Persian Cats in recording their debut album at Monaco Studios. Alma began self-funding the album while completing her senior year of college at the University of Southern Maine, and the studio provided a student discount, but even discounted rates can be hard to manage for students and young adults. The band needed additional time to develop their sound in the studio, so they tapped into support from the community in order to get this project across the finish line with mixing, mastering, and distribution.
Alma actually helped inspire the formation of Equal Measure Arts: before founding the nonprofit, board members Victoria Stubbs, Ethan Woodman Fowler, and Sam Monaco had already seen her music’s potential. Initially, Ethan and Victoria began coaching Alma on singing and songwriting when she was still a high school student enrolled in their music class at PATHS; years later, Sam encountered Alma and her band while hosting WMPG’s Local Motives program, where they caught his attention with their bold live-on-the-air performance. After the band started working with Equal Measure Arts, the nonprofit supported them with subsidized studio time, professional photography & videography, and performance opportunities at local venues including Blue, Mayo Street Arts, and All Roads Music Festival.
Check them out on the web / Follow on Instagram / Stream on Spotify
Adele Edelawit
Edelawit started working with Equal Measure Arts on her first EP of original songs in early 2025, after learning the fundamentals of music production as an intern at Monaco Studios over the previous 10 months. In this video, she shares her story in her own words: from her roots in Ethiopia, to discovering her love for country music while growing up with her adopted family in Maine, and her motivations as a singer/songwriter. With community support on her crowdfunding campaign, she was able to cover the final costs of finishing her debut EP before moving to Nashville and attending Dark Horse Institute for audio engineering and music business.
Edelawit performs at All Roads Music Festival in Belfast, ME
Night Hawk
This 7-piece indie rock group out of Bowdoin College recorded their EP “Everything Good Ends” with us at Monaco Studios. Lead singer/songwriter Peyton Semjen described it as “an incredible experience,” and that she would recommend it “to any musician, but especially young musicians like ourselves … these people really care!” Night Hawk has been featured in the Portland Press Herald, and the songs we produced together have gone on to be streamed over 100,000 times!
Visit Night Hawk on the web / Follow on Instagram / Stream on Spotify
Aedan MacDougall
Aedan was educated by EMA board members Ethan Woodman Fowler and Victoria Stubbs in the music program at Portland Arts and Technology High School, and started recording at Monaco Studios during his senior year. After releasing his band Rascal Van’s full-length debut in 2023, he took a gap year and became our first studio intern, providing production assistance on numerous projects while continuing to record his own music (like “August, I’m Tired,” which you can hear below). In 2024, Aedan joined our studio crew for a live performance at All Roads music festival, and helped us run live sound for the Birdcage musical festival at Mayo Street Arts. He is now a student at Berklee College of Music in Boston, but makes frequent trips back to Maine—including to play a recent Salon Night at Monaco Studios!
Visit Aedan on the web / Follow on Instagram / Stream on Spotify
Maine Academy of Modern Music
In 2023, we collaborated with the Maine Academy of Modern Music to bring their MAMMOTH Rock Chorus to Monaco Studios for their first-ever studio recording experience. Our studio crew helped these middle school-aged students create a new rendition of The Beatles’ classic “Baby You’re a Rich Man” that you can hear below.
Visit MAMM on the web / Follow on Instagram / Watch on YouTube
Cassie Irene
Another alum of the music program at Portland Arts and Technology High School, Cassie Irene reached out soon after graduating to record an EP at Monaco Studios. Producer Ethan Woodman Fowler helped translate her melodic ideas into full-fledged songs, building out chord structures and instrumental arrangements to support her vocal lines. Cassie is now in the process of releasing that body of work, “Empty House EP,” and you can hear her lead single “wildflower” below. She recently played a Salon Night at Monaco Studios with fellow local artists Brit Martin and SPARXSEA, and joined Sam Monaco for a live-on-air radio performance on WMPG’s Local Motives.
Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine
In 2023, we had the honor of helping Portland’s Children’s Museum produce audio for a new permanent exhibit celebrating Maine’s indigenous Wabanaki culture. We hosted Passamaquoddy Language Keeper Dwayne Tomah for a studio session to record four traditional songs, which are now heard every day by visitors to the museum who can drum along to the recordings in the new outdoor gazebo. You can hear examples of these songs below, and read more about the exhibit in this Portland Press Herald piece.
Visit CMTM on the web / Follow on Instagram
Luc Anthony
Luc is the lead singer of local band One Hundred Thorns, who formed as students at Portland Arts and Technology High School’s music program. As Luc explains in this video, “Recording at a studio is expensive, especially for me and my band that had just come out of high school. Monaco Studios had offered us a student discount, and that helped us out a lot with getting it done. If that weren’t the case, it definitely would have been a lot harder and would have taken us a lot more time … I have not seen any other place around here that is doing anything like this, and they actually care about the younger artists. Not saying that nobody else does, but they’re taking action to prove that. It’s been wonderful for us.” Luc and One Hundred Thorns are featured prominently in the documentary “An Extraordinary Place” about local radio station WMPG, and they will be releasing their debut album produced by Ethan Woodman Fowler imminently.
Follow One Hundred Thorns on Instagram / Watch on YouTube / Stream on Spotify