Keynote One
Peter Gregson
"YO CEO" Where the music industry was and where we can take it!
Born in Edinburgh in 1987, Peter Gregson is a cellist and pioneer of contemporary music. He has performed widely in the UK and the US, at venues ranging from The Royal Albert Hall, London to The Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh; from the Twitter Offices in San Francisco to Le Poisson Rouge, New York. Peter's innovative approach to integrating cutting edge technology and contemporary music has led to collaborations with Tod Machover, Microsoft Labs and many other developers and artists, along with invitations to speak and perform at technology and media conferences around the world. His work has been recognised with the 2008 Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for music and with membership to the Courvoisier Future 500. Peter is also the 2010/11 Creative in Residence at The Hospital Club, London, where he curates his year long series, alt-classical. Peter was commissioned by Bowers & Wilkins and Real World in 2009 to produce Terminal, an album of contemporary cello music. Subsequently, his music has been used in installations including The Secret Garden Party and The Courvoisier Revolutionary Spirit Festival, as well as commissions to create live soundtracks with visual artist Jamie Shaw at The Future Gallery and for ENO and Punchdrunk's staging of The Werewolf of London. Peter recently collaborated with Kidkanevil to create a track for Red Bull and is currently remixing a track for Gabriel Prokofiev's Nonclassical label. Pre-production work has started on his newly commissioned album to mark the end of his Hospital Club residency, collaborating with producer Guy Sigsworth, with the release planned for early 2011. Selected performances for 2010/11 include the MIT Media Lab, The Roundhouse, The Future Gallery, The 92nd St Y, The Lab Gallery, The Queen's Hall, An Tobar, Le Poisson Rouge, The Lemon Tree, Faster than Sound Residency, Excite! Turin, TED x Music, Kings Place. Peter Gregson plays a Colin Irving acoustic cello, a custom five string Eric Jensen electric cello and is an Apogee Electronics Artist. His music is published by Mute Song.
Keynote Two
Zuhal Sultan- The Enlightening Music from the Darkness and Silence
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in July 1991, Zuhal Sultan is the youngest of a scientific family of two boys and two girls. She started piano studies at the age of six with the help of a private tutor, then she auditioned to join the Music and Ballet School of Baghdad at the age of 9. After the departure from Iraq of many artists and intellectuals as a result of the 2003 Iraq war, Zuhal was left without a piano teacher. She therefore taught herself, as well as the younger students in her piano class. Despite all these difficulties, Zuhal has performed concerts both at home and abroad, including Jordan, France, Switzerland and at the Wigmore Hall, and at the Royal Festival Hall in London as a member of the Leonard Bernstein Mass orchestra.
Zuhal was chosen as a British Council Global Changemaker in 2008, and was then invited to become a peer facilitator for their 4th Global Youth Summit in 2009. She was involved with UNICEF and UNESCO in raising awareness through concerts, speeches and media interviews on Iraqi culture as well as Iraqi children’s rights and education. Zuhal was a keynote speaker at FairSay’s eCampaiging forum in 2009 held at Oxford University. She also served as a Global Youth Ambassador for the New York-based charity Musicians For Harmony.
In 2008, she was chosen by Channel 4 and Raw T.V. for their web-based programme Battlefront to campaign for establishing the first National Youth Orchestra of Iraq. Along with Scottish conductor Paul MacAlindin and Musicians For Harmony’s artistic director Allegra Klein, she formed the orchestra with the help of the British Council and the then Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq Barham Salih, whom she contacted through Twitter. The orchestra’s debut was in August 2009 in the Kurdish city Al Suleimanya. The orchestra then performed in the Kurdish city of Erbil in 2010. Planning is underway are for a follow-up academy in 2011.
Zuhal has received a great deal of attention in the American and European media, including stories in the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Symphony Magazine,Classical Music Magazine, International Piano Magazine, CNN Television, British Satellite News, and the Italian and French press.
She has received nominations for the Rolex Awards: Young Laureates Programme and Clarins Most Dynamisante Woman of 2010.
Zuhal’s participation in Access! is supported by the British Council, Global Changemakers.
Introduction to the European Agenda for Youth and Music
Kate Declerck and Antoine Mertzeisen- European Youth Policy and Music
In the first of two sessions dedicated to European Youth Policy and Music
Kate Declerck (Jeunesses Musicales International) and Antoine Mertzeisen
(European Youth Forum) introduced the key aspects of current European Union youth policy and explained their relevance to music.
This session also served as a starting point for work on the European Agenda for Youth and Music which continued throughout the Forum and beyond.
This Agenda shall be a qualitative document outlining the current interests and future aspirations of young Europeans in the field of music. It will be launched in the coming months and disseminated globally to serve as a reference for European music organisations, policy makers, and as a stimulus for young people.