Tallinn Music Week announces the first round of conference speakers

Tallinn Music Week announces the first round of conference speakers, including the legendary Viv Albertine of The Slits; prolific artist manager and author Simon Napier-Bell; an influential woman in the business, the manager or Roxette, Marie Dimberg and an award winning journalist and musician John Robb.
The seventh Tallinn Music Week, taking place from 25th-29th March, announces the first round of speakers for this year’s two-day conference being held on 27th and 28th March. Inspirational artistic figures and music business mavericks that have helped to shape the face of pop music will be at the forefront of the event. Strong, influential women such as girl-punk-band pioneer, film director and writer Viv Albertine of The Slits, and the Swedish music industry’s most successful woman, Marie Dimberg – manager of Roxette – promise to be a real highlight. Legendary musicians, writers and industry insiders like John Robb and Simon Napier-Bell are certainly not to be missed. Music supervisors are perhaps the most in-demand industry players of today and Tallinn Music Week is proud to present two of the industry’s true superstars in this field, Andrea von Foerster of Firestarter Music, and Thomas Golubic of SuperMusicVision.

As a tradition, the conference will kick off at 10:00 am on Friday, 27th of March with the highly anticipated opening address by Estonia’s very own rock-star President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves.

A major focus at this year’s Tallinn Music Week is to break the assumption that the music industry continues to be a male-dominated business. To highlight the point, Tallinn Music Week’s conference is proud to present a dazzling selection of top class female speakers throughout all possible topics on the agenda.

This year’s conference will host a prolific set of celebrity speakers:

Musicians, writers and pop-culture icons:

Viv Albertine – her role as guitarist in the pioneering all-female punk band The Slits propelled her to worldwide stardom in the 1970s and 80s. Albertine’s debut solo album, ‘The Vermilion Border’, was released in 2012. Her brutally candid autobiography, “Clothes Clothes Clothes Music Music Music Boys Boys Boys” (2014) is filled with honest insights into the extraordinary life-journey of its author and was named MOJO’s Book of the Year 2014.

John Robb – John Robb was rescued by punk rock in the 70s, putting together the influential post-punk band the Membranes before later forming Goldblade. He became one of the UK’s leading music writers, being the first to interview bands like Stone Roses and Nirvana as well as coining the term ‘Britpop’. Robb’s writing career includes books like “Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop”, “Punk Rock: An Oral History”, and “The North Will Rise Again – Manchester Music City from 1976 to 1996”. John is a regular contributor to The Sunday Times, The Observer, The Guardian and the Independent and runs his own pop-culture online magazine, Louder Than War.

Influential artist managers:

Marie Dimberg holds the number one spot as the most influential woman in the Swedish music industry according to the industry newsletter, Musikindustrin. She played a major role in the creation of Roxette and is still the manager of the Swedish duo, forming D&D Management more than 15 years ago. During her 13 years with EMI she was Head of PR and Marketing before rising to the position of Vice President of EMI International in London. Marie comments: “a good mix of men and women would be necessary regardless of industry.”

Simon Napier-Bell has been a film composer, songwriter, record producer, author and manager. He has managed The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, T Rex, Japan, Ultravox, Candi Staton, and Wham! In the ‘60s he co-wrote the song “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me”, which was a #1 hit for Dusty Springfield and later covered by Elvis Presley. His latest book, an acclaimed “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay”, is a history of the business of popular music from its first beginnings in 1710 until today, published in August 2014 by Unbound Books.

Music supervisors, who will present their skills and knowledge in putting together soundtracks for films, TV series, advertisements:

Andrea von Foerster (Firestarter Music) has done music supervision for film, television and online projects for the last twelve years. She is known for her work on “(500) Days of Summer”, “The Cabin in the Woods”, “Chronicle, Begin Again”, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Modern Family”.

Thomas Golubic (SuperMusicVision) is a Los Angeles based DJ, music supervisor, and Grammy nominated record producer. His music supervision credits include the AMC series “Breaking Bad” and “The Walking Dead”, the Showtime series “Ray Donovan”, the HBO series “Six Feet Under” and the New Line film “After The Sunset”, among a number of other film & television projects.
The Tallinn Music Week conference will cover a wide range of topics. There will be broad discussions about the social responsibility of cultural organizations, the way creative cities work, and how to offer open-minded multi-genre approaches to new audiences. There will be more specific music industry disputes about new business models for independent record labels, developments in artist management, new types of income streams – asking the essential question: “Who will pay for the music?”.

For the first time Tallinn Music Week will host a dedicated panel of presentations and discussions on how to get music into films and commercials as well as offering a special Speed-Meeting session, hosted by Music Estonia, to help regional music companies set up personal appointments with top level international music industry players. Special focus on particular markets will dig deeper into the opportunities in Austria and Poland and will be looking at the positive side of the Russian market by talking to the bright and dedicated people who carry out their good work in the hope of a brighter future outside the politics.

The conference will present panelists and delegates representing all fields of business and genres. To mention a few: John Cumming (EFG London Jazz Festival); Frank Bolder (North Sea Jazz); Georgia Taglietti (Sonar Festival); David Cawley (FatCat Records); Katie Garcia (Secretly Group – Jagjaguwar, Dead Oceans AND Secretly Canadian); Eeka Mäkynen (Finnish Metal Events); Jarkko Pietarinen (Svart Records); Justin Bridgewater (The Agency Group); Nils Bernstein (Matador Records); Jonas Sjöström (Playground Music); Pavel Kamakin (16 Tons Club); Paul Cheetham (Reeperbahn Festival); Rebecca Ayres (Liverpool Sound City); Shain Shapiro (Sound Diplomacy); Trond Tornes (Phonofile); Valgeir Sigurdsson (Bedroom Community); Brendan Walsh (Classical Music Rave); Sigi Schuller (Polydor/Island & Vertigo/Capitol AR); Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdottir (NOMEX); Derek Andrews (Global Café); Frank Abraham (F-Cat Productions); George Prince (Sasa Music); Ahmed Abouzahra (Arabesque International); Hannes Tschürtz (INK Music); Maria Semushkina (Usdba Jazz); Natasha Padabed (More Zvukov Agency); Stepan Kazaryan (Connected Agency); and many more.

See more HERE