Tallinn Music Week started it’s music industry conference

Tallinn Music Week started it’s music industry conference programme of 23 discussion panels and around 90 speakers from around the world. The panels will focus on top female executives, game-changing models in fostering musical talent, the value of music, the increasingly demanding role of a manager, and the new exciting markets of Europe.

The two-day music industry conference will be held on 27-28 March in Nordic Hotel Forum Conference Centre.  As a tradition, the conference will kick off at 10 am on Friday, 27th March with the highly anticipated opening address by Estonia’s very own rock-star President, Toomas Hendrik Ilves.  Watch the opening HERE

The day will continue with remarkable women in the business. An interview with Viv Albertine of The Slits by a music culture writer John Robb (Louder than War) is promising to be an educational journey through a woman’s life, fuelled by the radicalism of punk, as written down also in Viv’s highly acclaimed memoir, chosen as “book of the year” by MOJO.

Some of Europe’s finest promoters, festival chiefs and executives as Anna Sjölund, the head promoter of Live Nation Sweden and Anne Erm, the founder of Estonia’s oldest and most respected festival Jazzkaar, going into their 26th year in the business and Paulina Ahokas, the director of Tampere Hall, Scandinavia’s largest Congress and Concert Centre, will share their story of success and struggle. One of Sweden’s most influential women in music business, Marie Dimberg, the manager of Roxette, will be interviewed by Anna Hildur Hildibrandsdottir, head of programme for Nordic Music Export Office. They both will also play an integral role on a dedicated panel on the increasingly demanding role of an artist manager.

Michael Pärt, head of Arvo Pärt Centre, a sanctuary of the work of Arvo Pärt, one of the most influential contemporary composers of our time, will share his extraordinary experiences as one of the most sought after music producers and editors, whose credits include collaborations with artist like Björk, Peter Jackson and Francis Ford Coppola. The music supervisors’ role will be introduced in detail on the panel featuring top specialists who spend their days finding and placing music into films and TV shows – Andrea von Foerster (Firestarter Music),Thomas Golubic (SuperMusicVision) and a popular radio host for Californian KCRW, Chris Douridas. Discussion is led by Jonas Holst from Universal Publishing Sweden.

In an interview by MOJO magazine’s Kieron Tyler, the always controversial and outspoken manager and author of best-selling books on the music industry, Simon Napier-Bell, will take a journey through the many aspects of his colourful life in music.

A line-up of innovators and music genre boundary breakers, including the Classical Music Rave revolutionaryBrendan Jan Walsh and the founder of the Icelandic Bedroom Community record label, Valgeir Sigurdsson will discuss how the ever-changing music listening tools have reshaped and expanded the type of music experiences we offer and expect from classical to techno.

A dedicated panel to celebrate CEETEP (Central Eastern European Talent Exchange Programme) as focus of Eurosonic 2016, will discuss the fast developments for the new exciting music markets in Europe and will prove the fact that “Eastern Europe” is a term that has expired and can no longer be used. We all are in fact Europe without a prefix. Digging deeper into markets like the rapidly growing Poland and Austria and presenting the state of affairs in Russian music business will prove the point.

Other topics include the driving force for creative cities, the value of music, staying alive as an independent record label, the future of music radio, and the need for an open-minded and broad music education.

A round of speed meeting sessions, hosted by Music Estonia for the first time within TMW, will help regional music companies set up personal appointments with top-level industry players.

The conference will wrap up with the traditionally entertaining “Check My Demo” session, where industry experts will give feedback on festival acts’ recordings.