Dear Reader,
the year 2008 was a
very intense and active year for the European Music Council (EMC).
We
had our Annual Conference in Brno, Czech Republic, focusing on
different ways of “Access to Musical Diversity”
where a new Board was elected. In October the conference
“Music on Troubled Soils” gave an impressive
insight in music projects taking place under socially and politically
deprived circumstances. Together with the ExTra! project, the
conference contributed actively to the EU Year of Intercultural
Dialogue.
For 2009, “Creativity and Innovation” will be the
subjects in focus which will also be reflected in the next issue of the
EMC magazine “Sounds in Europe”.
With the last newsletter this year we would like to wish you a peaceful
and relaxing holiday time and all the best for the new year 2009! Enjoy
reading!
With kind regards,
Simone Dudt
Acting Secretary General
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Reach out, Open Up, Take In
Developing
your skills in advocacy, networking and international cooperation
Pomáz,
Hungary, 27 February – 1 March 2009
The seminar “Reach out, Open Up, Take In” addresses
national music organisations (e.g. national music councils) in North,
Central and South Eastern Europe, from Albania to Slovakia and from
Ukraine
to Estonia. The seminar will provide an insight on how to be recognised
as a cultural advocacy body in your country and how to put the 2005
UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity into practice. The seminar is
organised jointly by the International and European Music Council
(IMC/EMC), the Hungarian Music Council, Europa Cantat, the Europa
Cantat Central Eastern European Centre (ECCEEC) and the Choral Castle
Pomáz.
Further information and registration are available here.
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ExTra! Exchange Traditions
EMC Annual
Conference and final event of the EU funded project
23 - 26 April
2009, Athens, Greece
In
2009 the EMC
Annual Conference will be the final event of the ExTra! project, which
focuses on musical traditions of migrant and minority cultures in
Europe and their interaction with cultures already existing in the
European countries. The conference will discuss how music can serve as
a tool for integration in education as well as in a political context.
What role media can play to enhance inclusion of diverse cultures will
be for debate. Speakers from the EU institutions, UNESCO, European and
International NGOs as well as individual experts are invited to share
their vision with the participants.
The conference is open to everybody
interested. It
is organised by the European Music Council in co-operation with the
Greek ExTra! partner EnChordais and will take place at the B&M
Theocharakis Foundation in Athens, Greece.
Registration and updated information will be
available at www.extra-project.eu
in January 2009.
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Music on Troubled Soils, 23-26
October 2008, Jerusalem, Israel
The three-day conference taking
place in the
Jerusalem Music Centre provided a diverse overview on different music
projects taking place on troubled soil. Projects from the Balkan area,
Cyprus, Palestine, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Mediterranean area were
presented. In the projects music served both, as interlocutor between
peoples providing a means for dialogue and as a means of development
aid to improve the social situation and to function as mind-opener. The
conference was framed by inspiring concerts of the Mozaic choir (a
cooperation between an Arab and Jewish choir) as well as by the Derech
as-Salam Ensemble (with musicians from Israel and Palestine) playing
songs in Arab and Hebrew.
The event was organised jointly by the
European Music Council (EMC) and the Israeli Music Council (IMC
Israel). Read
more.
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Sawa Choir
Derech-as-salaam Ensemble |
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Access to Music: New
Perspectives in Education, Distribution and Politics
17
to 20
April 2008 in Brno, Czech Republic
In this year the EMC Annual Conference
investigated
specific needs for Access to Music regarding the different aims and
interests of education, distribution and politics. More than 90
representatives from 24 European countries, Israel, Venezuela and
Australia came to Brno to exchange their vision on the music life of
the 21st century. The conference was organised in cooperation with the
Czech Music Council and the Janáček Academy for Music and
Performing Arts in Brno.
You will find a detailed documentation of the
conference here.
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European Year of Intercultural
Dialogue
The
'European Year
of Intercultural Dialogue' (EYID) 2008 is about to draw to an end. It
was established by the EU to encourage all those living in Europe to
explore the benefits of our rich cultural heritage and opportunities to
learn from different cultural traditions.
More information on the
eventful EYID at www.interculturaldialogue2008.eu.
The work of the 'Platform for
Intercultural
Europe'
relates closely to the EYID. The platform was initiated in 2006 by the
European Forum for Arts and Heritage (EFAH) and the European Cultural
Foundation (ECF). It comprises over 200 civil society organisations and
their individual members engaged in intercultural action throughout
Europe - at local, national and international level. This
year
culminated in the final Rainbow Paper (after two earlier versions),
which contains recommendations to civil society organisations and to
the European Union on how to practice respect for cultural diversity.
The final Rainbow Paper is available and ready for endorsement at
http://rainbowpaper.labforculture.org.
The website of the platform is available at http://www.intercultural-europe.org/
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European Year of Creativity and
Innovation
2009
will be the EU Year of Creativity and
Innovation. It has the objective to raise awareness of the importance
of
creativity and innovation for personal, social and economic
development, to
disseminate good practices, to stimulate education and research, and to
promote
policy debate and development. The official inauguration will take
place in Prague
on the 7 January
2009, in the presence of the President of the EU Commission
José Manuel Barroso
and the Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. All Member
States will be
represented, among others by their specially-appointed national
coordinators.
The website dedicated to the Year has already been launched on 5
December 2008
and is accessible here.
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EU
Agenda for Culture
In order to implement the EU
Agenda for Culture the European Commission
is enhancing the dialogue with the cultural sector by the support of
the Platform for Intercultural Europe and the setup of two further
civil society platforms in 2008:
•
Platform on Access to
Culture
Three Working groups were
installed to prepare and work already on the
recommendations dealing with different field of
“access”:
1. Education/Learning, 2.
Creation/Production, 3. Participation/Audience
•
Platform on the Potential of
Culture and Creative Industries
Five Working Groups were
installed to draft first recommendations in
different areas of culture and creative industries:
1. Regulatory Environment, 2.
Small and medium sized enterprises, 3.
Exchange and export in a globalised world, 4. Circulation of works and
artists, 5. Interface "creation-industry"
All three platforms are
meeting on a regular basis and working on
position papers to submit to the EU.
The
Council of the EU adopted
conclusions on the promotion of
cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue in the external relations
of the Union and its Member States, and a Resolution on a European
strategy for multilingualism in its meeting on 20/21 November 2008. By
this the EU is asking its member states to strengthen the cultural
foreign affairs and to establish closer cooperation with third
countries in the culture sector. Download the respective Press Release here.
There
will be
more information available on the EMC website soon!
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EU funding for cooperation
Projects with third countries
The Education, Audiovisual & Culture Executive Agency has
announced
the countries that are in the focus for the project funding for actions
with third countries (strand 1.3) from 2009-2011:
Armenia, Belarus, Egypt, Moldova, Jordan, Palestine territories,
Tunisia
You will find more information to the EU Culture Programme 2007-2013 here.
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On The Move – threats
of closure
The EMC would like to express its deep concern about
the anticipated closure of the On-The-Move mobility information
services, due to difficulties in funding the basic running costs in
2009. On-the-Move (OTM) is a web site dedicated to information about
professional mobility in the areas of theatre, dance, music and other
performing arts disciplines. It helps performing arts, music
professionals and arts operators to search for information and funding
for their international activities. EMC finds this service a very
useful source of information and hopes that OTM will find a way to
continue its valuable work! Find more information at
www.on-the-move.org.
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ExTra!
There have been plenty of
wonderful activities taking place within the
ExTra! Exchange Traditions project in 2008. You will find detailed
information at www.extra-project.eu.
The ExTra! Newsletter with
updated information will be circulated via
email soon.
The official project period is
going to end in June 2009. Its final
event will take place in Athens, Greece, 23-26 April 2009 (see above).
At this occasion the project research study "Music in Motion. Diversity
and Dialogue in Europe" will be released.
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Sounds in Europe #4
On
schedule with the start of the 2009 EU Year of Creativity and
Innovation, the EMC will publish the fourth issue of its magazine
"Sounds in Europe". The issue will discuss different ways of
interpretation of the notion of the terms “creativity and
innovation”.
Furthermore, it will inform about the European culture sector, report
on EMC events and present some member activities as in the previous
issues. All EMC members will receive a free issue by regular post. You
can download an electronic version of the three previous issues here.
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AEC: Variazioni
The Association Européenne des Conservatoires,
Académies
de Musique et Musikhochschulen (AEC) is partner of the 'VARIAZIONI'
project. The project is a content enrichment portal where major
European Musical Institutions and User communities integrate, enrich
and reuse existing musical contents (courses, teaching material,
articles, thematic webs, etc). The project is supported by the eCONTENT
Programme and coordinated by the Foundation Albéniz in
Madrid.
Find more information and the 2nd Variazioni Newsletter at www.variazioniproject.org.
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Welcome
to new members
The
EMC welcomes the European Composers Forum (ECF) as new member in the
IMC / EMC community. ECF was accepted during the Board meeting, held in
Ramallah 22/23 October 2008, unanimously. The European Composers' Forum
(ECF) is the official network organisation cross-linking all national
composer societies that represent Art and Classical Music composers in
their countries. Find more information on the ECF homepage at www.composersforum.eu. |
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The EMC is
supported by
Explore the
EMC and ExTra! Websites:
Information,
activities, press articles,
reports... and a lot more!
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| This communication reflects the views only of
the EMC and its members. The funders cannot be held
responsible
for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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