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Tallinn music week 2015
Tallinn Music Week (TMW) is a weeklong city festival, contemporary music showcase and music industry conference, held every spring in Tallinn, Estonia. It is the meeting point for Eastern, Western and Central European music and creative communities, attended by around 35,000 people and 1,000 music industry executives yearly. It has been acknowledged as an attractive tourism destination by The Guardian. and New York Times
Contents
- Tallinn music week 2015
- Evestus live at tmw tallinn music week 2013
- Festival programme
- Music festival
- Conference
- Film
- Multi goes kulti
- Awards and credits
- International media coverage
- References
TMW was first held from 26 to 29 March in 2009 as a showcase festival and conference for international music-industry professionals and emerging regional acts. Organized by Musiccase company, its initial aim was to present current Estonian music to regional public and international industry and to help local music entrepreneurs expand their activities to foreign markets.
During the last few years the festival has broadened its concept further into a multi cultural and thought-provoking event. Besides showcasing around 250 musical acts from all over the world, TMW also presents various art forms and dissects large-scale global issues within its Talks programme and Creativity For Change Forum.
Evestus live at tmw tallinn music week 2013
Festival programme
In addition to the music festival line-up TMW offers a series of free City Stage concerts, a selection of eateries within TMW Tastes, TMW Arts programme, curated by the Estonian Contemporary Arts Development Centre, Tallinn Craft Beer Weekend presenting microbreweries, Design Market showcasing Baltic and Scandinavian brands and designs, and TMW Talks series with topics from music to science and societal issues. In 2016 TMW also moved outdoors with its City Space activities in cooperation with the interior designers of Estonian Arts Academy, and presented five music films at Sõprus Cinema.
Music festival
Among the Estonian acts who have performed at the festival and have won TMW's annual artist award (Skype Award 2009-2014, Wire Prize 2015, Telliskivi Creative City Award 2016), are Popidiot (2009), Iiris (2010), Ewert and The Two Dragons (2011), Talbot (2012), Elephants From Neptune (2013), Odd Hugo (2014), Maarja Nuut (2015), and I Wear* Experiment (2016).
Among the international acts who have performed at the festival are Vashti Bunyan (UK), Public Service Broadcasting (UK), All We Are (UK), Motorama (RU), Kate Boy (SWE) Mirel Wagner (FI), Rubik (FI), The Membranes (UK), Glen Matlock (UK), Kristjan Järvi (US), Yukon Blonde (CA), and Jaakko Eino Kalevi (FI).
Conference
A two-day international music and creative industry conference within TMW hosts discussion panels, presentations and networking opportunities for established industry professionals as well as new innovative brands and initiatives. The opening speech of the conference is traditionally delivered by the Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves.
The TMW music industry conference brings together around 1,000 music industry players around the world. Throughout the festival's existence several international industry experts, artistic figures and pop mavericks have participated in the conference panel discussions, among them Seymour Stein, the founder and president of Sire Records (Madonna, Ramones), influential managers Simon Napier-Bell (The Yardbirds, Marc Bolan, Wham!), Petri Lunden (Cardigans, Europe), Edward Bicknell (Dire Straits, Scott Walker, Bryan Ferry), Peter Jenner (Pink Floyd), artists-turned authors Viv Albertine (The Slits), John Robb (The Membranes, Louder Than War), Bob Stanley (St Etienne), renown acts like Glen Matlock (Sex Pistols, Rich Kids), Russian feminist punk rock protest group Pussy Riot, and many others.
TMW 2016 edition also introduced the one-day Creativity for Change Forum within the conference that brought together game-changers from business, education, science, technology, arts, culture, civil society and policy making from all over the world. One of the main speakers of the Creativity for Change Forum 2016 was the Kurdish Turk entrepreneur and philanthropist Hamdi Ulukaya.
Film
In 2016 TMW presented a music film programme "Social Sounds" in Sõprus Cinema.
Multi goes kulti
In 2016 TMW payed special attention to cultural and ethnic diversity, taking festival visitors to the wider world with the help of music, films, talks, food and interesting people, studying together how culture and creativity can help to solve problems and work as a development engine.
Awards and credits
In autumn 2014, British daily The Guardian and Sunday paper The Observer picked the top 5 music festivals in the world for winter breaks, among them Tallinn Music Week. 2016: The Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves awarded the Order of the White Star of IV Class to Tallinn Music Week founder Helen Sildna for her contribution to Estonian music life and civil society.
International media coverage
In 2014, British quality daily The Guardian picked the Top 10 music festivals for winter breaks and Tallinn Music Week was among them. „Tallinn is known for its art-nouveau architecture, free public transport – and its ability to attract stag and hen parties. It's also becoming increasingly relevant for the music it serves up, especially at this developing annual event. Tallinn Music Week is always opened by Estonia's rock-digging president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who has been known to quote PJ Harvey and Jello Biafra in his annual festival speech. The bands are hardly big name acts, but if you're in the mood to discover some new Baltic beats, this is the place to do it," the paper said.
In 2016, Tom Hawking on Flavorwire pointed out that "/.../ the Estonian national government clearly has no problem providing state funding for such an endeavor, as well as getting involved in other, more hands-on ways. And by that, I mean that the freaking President of Estonia played a DJ set at this year's festival. As much as "cool" is an integral part of Barack Obama's brand, it's hard to imagine him getting on the wheels of steel to drop an impromptu Chicago house set."