Youth! Music! Access!

Everyone’s talking about access. We’d like to think they’re all talking about the WGY’s European Youth Forum on Music in October 2010 in Turin but that would perhaps be overly optimistic. Access is a wider theme, a buzz word which pops up everywhere. But what does it mean? And why did the WGY chose it as the title of its forum, the theme of this newsletter and the central tenet of our current activities?

The core aim of the Working Group Youth of the European Music Council is to enhance youth participation in its network and in the European music sphere as a whole. No one can deny that young musicians and managers are the future of this sector but relatively few are prepared to let us actively access and shape it. Music organisations don’t just have a responsibility to involve us in their work and decision making processes: the unique experience, knowledge and vision that we offer makes this a necessity. Only through multigenerational cooperation can we all gain access to our future.

It is this which we are actively promoting through the first European Youth Forum on Music and our European Agenda for Youth and Music. And we’re not alone. We invited other youth groups and organisations worldwide to contribute to this newsletter to demonstrate how they are promoting access for young people in the musical sector. Youth is a force to be reckoned with: try as you may you won’t escape us!

Claire Goddard, Chairperson of the WGY

From October 15-17 the first European Youth Forum on Music is taking place. The Forum is part of a larger project called Access!, and is initiated and coordinated by the Working Group Youth of the European Music Council. 

Young Europeans involved in diverse aspects of the musical sphere are meeting together with experienced professionals, as part of an interactive three-day programme in the European Youth Capital 2010, the Italian city of Turin.

In the framework of the European Youth Forum they will search for innovation; and launch and intensify actions and discourse. As a result of the entire Access! project, participants and experts will round up the outcomes in a document: the European Agenda for Youth and Music... read more

Musical Diversity - Looking Back, Looking Forward

15 to 18 April 2010, Vienna, Austria

The European Music Council in cooperation with the Austrian Music Council and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna launched the First European Forum on Music, together with the EMC Annual Conference 2010. Representatives of the Working Group Youth opened the conference with the traditional “icebreaker”, which this time involved to miming famous people connected with Vienna.

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> Would you like to be part of an active and committed team of young people from all over Europe?
> Would you like to represent your organisation and/or country in the WGY?
> Do you have an area of expertise you would like to share with the WGY?
> Do you want to contribute to and influence the work of the European Music Council and the future of music in Europe?

Then join our network! Anyone under the age of 30 can join the WGY network and committee but there are of course no age restrictions on people interested in our work and wanting to find out more.

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As a response to the call from the outgoing IMC President, Richard Letts, in his opening speech of the 3rd World Forum on Music, the invited youth delegates formed the International Music Council Youth Advisory Group (IMC YAG).

At the IMC General Assembly the YAG called for immediate dialogue with the new IMC Board. The reaction was very positive and the YAG was invited to provide its comments on the IMC Action Plan 2010-2011 and is already involved in working groups on communications and the next World Forum on Music in 2011...read more

CIOFF (International Council of Organisations of Folklore Festivals and Folk Arts) is an international cultural non-governmental Organisation (NGO) in formal consultative relations with UNESCO. Created in 1970, the duty of CIOFF is safeguarding, promotion and diffusion of traditional culture and folklore.  

The inclusion of young people in the work done by CIOFF was an initiative born in the early nineties and represented a novelty in international NGOs. In 2000 CIOFF started involving young people into its administration by creating a Working Group for Youth. Since then, the participation of young people in the different bodies of CIOFF is constantly increasing...read more

On September 13^th 2010 several representatives of various cultural organisations across Europe were invited to the European Commission in Brussels in order to join a presentation about the final report of a study on Youth Access to Culture. The study was carried out by Interarts Foundation, a platform for research in the cultural sector, directed by Mercedes Giovinazzo and coordinated by Annamari Laaksonen, who also presented the final report at the European Commission.

According to the authors of the final report, a denial of access to culture and participation in the society for young people can result in fewer possibilities for young people to develop the social and cultural connections which are “…important to maintaining a satisfactory coexistence in conditions of equality.”...read more

A relatively young approach of audience development, initiated by reperesantatives such as José Antonio Abreu, Founder of the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra, Venezuela, assumes that “all the benefits of the arts begin with individual captivation and intense absorption”. New technologies and social media are now allowing everyone to be and feel like artists. The young generation is using these tools to infuse their creativity on the web through blogs, facebook, youtube, myspace etc. Doing something uncommon presupposes being creative and innovative. “Creativity is the cultural equivalent to the evolution of the gene mutation” says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. 

The difference, according to him is that the acquisition of “memes” (the cultural equivalent to genes) is not genetic but transmitted by the parents and the environment during the childhood. This underlines the importance of the early education in the process of understanding and integrating cultural goods in order to “consume” art later on.
Participation building is in some way aiming at reviving the curiosity of adults by re-creating and stimulating the childhood sentiment of discovery...read more

One of the main problems the classical music concert industry is facing is the decreasing level in concert attendance and the advanced age of the audience. The fear of losing audiences and the subsequent decline in musical heritage and traditional art forms is stimulating policy makers, governments, concert venues and orchestras to develop strategies to secure future audiences. The real problem is that the number of attendees of classical music concerts is decreasing, as there is a transition of younger participants from classical to popular music events. The decline in attendance in each younger birth cohort (which means that every new born generation will attend less classical music events) is even more alarming; it presents a long-term participation problem in the classical music sector.

What kind of ‘introduction’ to classical music, what kind of experience in the concert hall can generate a positive effect on young people’s perceptions of classical music events and on their further participation?

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Developed by the European Federation of National Youth Orchestras as a network of 25 pre-professional youth orchestras covering 22 countries in the EU, the programme “MusXchange” aims at reducing a deficit in the training of young musicians resulting from a lack of support to short-term mobility programmes in professional orchestra and ensemble training. One of its major objectives is the organisation of joint projects which take the cultural diversity of Europe as their starting point and involve networking between all EFNYO members and related partner institutions in the sectors of music education and music profession throughout Europe.

Desiring to extend the mobility of young musicians also to non-European countries and therefore seeking collaboration with worldwide youth orchestras the EFNYO accepted the National Youth Orchestra of Iraq as cooperating member...read more

by Floriane Cottet 

The Working Group Youth is an initiative of the European Music Council. The EMC is supported by

• www.emc-imc.org/WGY
• www.emc-imc.org