On Friday 29 January at 14h CET Stepping Stone is organising a second Online Dialogue for professionals from the music sector. After the successful launch and first Dialogue in October, this second one focuses on current issues. The COVID-19 pandemic is having a tremendous impact on our sector and at the same time offers us the opportunity to learn. What can this imply for a healthy music scene?
Stepping Stone is an international collaboration platform and community aimed at empowering musicians towards sustainable international careers. The purpose of Stepping Stone is to support and stimulate these new ways of collaborating and creating that will emerge, by connecting people and offering a common ground, an inspiring community and practical stepping stones for its realisation. Different projects and methodologies can find a home on the common ground of Stepping Stone, leaving ownership and initiative entirely with the initiators.
COVID-19 has thoroughly shook up our society and cultural sector. We all hope to be able to leave it behind us relatively scarfree, but that doesn’t mean we have to sit and wait. A pandemic exposes our systems’ strengths and weaknesses. Together with musicians, promoters and other professionals, Stepping Stone will explore the obstacles and pitfalls of a COVID-struck world, but especially also potential solutions and opportunities that present themselves.
Questions that can arise are, for instance: What is the impact of this crisis on professionals? How can we tackle the weaknesses in the system? How can we work towards a healthier music scene, with more transparency and actual collaboration? How can we avoid becoming adversaries when it comes to the dispersion of funds and subsidies, in these corona times but also beyond? These questions are now more urgent than ever. Stepping Stone as a platform and community allows musicians and organisers to discuss these matters in an open and honest dialogue.
The following professionals will share their point of view on these subjects: Mijke Loeven (director Bimhuis) and Petros Klampanis (bassplayer and composer).
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