AWME SHOWCASE APPLICATIONS ARE OPEN !

Thursday 17 - Sunday 20 November 2011, Melbourne Australia

Over the last three years the Australasian World Music Expo (AWME) has established itself as a major international music industry event pioneering new networks and creating opportunities for musicians world wide by engaging with industry representatives from around the globe.

Over 400 high profile local and international music representatives from some of the world’s leading festivals, record labels, booking agencies and arts organisations will be making their way once again to Melbourne in November for the fourth installment of AWME.

Artist showcase applications for the AWME 2011 are now open through the AWME website or through Sonicbids

Interested artists are invited to apply before 29 April 2011.

UNESCO prize to the Førde Festival’s Talent project

The “Talent 2008” project has received the UNESCO title "Young artist for intercultural dialogue Between the Arab and Western worlds." The title is an honor to young artists for their efforts to promote dialogue between Arab and Western culture.

The Talent project is a collaboration between The Førde Festival and the Concerts Norway with support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The project has been held every year since 1995. Each year, three musicians aged 18-25 from three countries (one of them is Norway) meet and live close to each other a week during the Førde Festival and create music together under the guidance of two artistic leaders. The year after, they meet again in one of the participating countries.

"It is a great pleasure for us that the Talent project from 2008 have been chosen out of getting such an important honor. This hits the core of our project! That is exactly what we want with it; to create meeting places across national and cultural borders", says the Førde festival’s artistic director, Hilde Bjørkum and Concerts Norway’s project leader Anne Moberg.

Innovative project
In the motivation for the price, Unesco says that the Talent 2008 is an innovative project and an example of excellent work to increase public understanding and cultural exchange through music:  "This distinction honors your outstanding endeavour's to further mutual understanding and cultural exchange through music, as demonstrated by your innovative project."

In 2008, the participants in the Talent project came from Egypt, Palestine and Norway. The young musicians met both at the Førde Festival and the following year in Egypt.

A great honor
One of the young musicians from Norway, singer Ingebjørg Harman Bratland is excited over the prize:
" This is a great honor! It's quite a title we can adorn ourselves with! We had a fantastic, successful cooperation with young people from Palestine and Egypt. I have many fond memories of this cooperation. I even have one of the songs we recorded in Cairo out on myspace my page, and it has about 20 000 playback! This suggests that other think our cooperation is successful", says Bratland.

The UNESCO title will be awarded at the Unesco headquarters in Paris on April 13, 2011

More info: info@fordefestival.no   / www.fordefestival.no

We are more – a Europe-wide arts advocacy campaign

Whether at local, regional, national or European level, cultural policies and funding have to reflect the needs of all those who enjoy and produce today’s and tomorrow’s culture. We believe that it is necessary to re-imagine public investment to contribute to developing human, cultural and social capital – Europe’s most precious assets. The concrete goals of the campaign are to increase support for cultural activities that benefit all European citizens and stimulate their enjoyment of the arts.

We are more (2010-2013) is a Europe-wide arts advocacy campaign set up by Culture Action Europe. It will use the upcoming EU political and financial negotiations for the period 2014-2020 as a timely opportunity to develop and sharpen the arguments used when advocating for arts and culture. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to contribute to a strengthened recognition of the role of arts and culture in the development of our European societies. The concrete campaign objectives focus on improving the quality and quantity of support that the sector receives from 2 key EU policies (the Culture Programme – providing direct support to cultural co-operation projects, and EU regional development policies – supporting cultural interventions as key contributions to social, economic and territorial development). The aim is for the campaign to function both as an eye-opener for policy-makers at local, regional and national level, and as a mobilisation and professional development tool for the sector.

More information can be found on: ww.wearemore.eu

7TH BABEL MED MUSIC

THE CULTURAL AND ECONOMIC EPICENTRE OF WORLD MUSIC
The 7^th edition of BABEL MED MUSIC welcomes, in Marseilles from 24 to 26 March 2011, the economic and cultural sectors of world music for the most affluent European forum.  3 days, 3 nights, 30 concerts open to the public, dozens of conferences, over 150 stands and thousands of fruitful meetings offering you, on a plate, a unique panorama on music.

KAMS-EFWMF Tour Grant

For the second year KAMS (Korean Arts Management Service) has teamed up with EFWMF to support Korean traditional music on EFWMF-stages.

Member festivals can apply for international travel support, thus introducing high quality Korean musicians. In 2010 following artists received a Kams-grant and made their way to Europe:

Sonagi Project, Mr. Dong-ho Choi, Be Being, Dulsori, Ahn Sook-Sun. Deadline for application is February 25^th. You can download the application form here.

http://gokams.or.kr/kams_eng/main.asp?sub_num=25&pageNo=1&state=view&idx=266