The first of six workshops within the European project #synergy, entitled Financing Classical Music: Different Forms of Financing and Ways to Achieve Financial Self-Sustainability, was held this week in Ljubljana. In addition to the professional public and Ljubljana cultural institutions, the Ljubljana Festival team, the workshops were attended by representatives of all #synergy partners: KotorArt, initiator and main coordinator of the project, Belgrade Festivals Centre, Dubrovnik Summer Festival, Chopin Association from Priština and Vox Baroque from Tirana.
Festivals are not just a culture, but a platform for a multitude of things. Every euro invested in culture is returned to the budget of a country many times over. The City of Ljubljana, for example, allocates over 10% of the budget for culture, pointed out Darko Brlek, general and artistic director of the Ljubljana Festival, who also hosted the workshop.
Andrej Drapal, management consultant of Consensus, Blaž Peršin, director of the Museum and Gallery of the City of Ljubljana, and Tibor Mihelič Sjed, general director of the Slovenian Youth Theatre, spoke about the importance of investing, creating good programmes and raising quality, as well as examples of good practice.
For the first time, this workshop brought together members of the project research team, which consists of young cultural managers from each of the partner countries. The #synergy research team will participate in the remaining five workshops of the project in the coming period and summarize the acquired knowledge and experiences in a unique publication, a kind of guide for the production of art music in our region.
#synergy is an international cooperation project, initiated by KotorArt, and supported in the call of Creative Europe to support cooperation projects in the Western Balkans. The goals of this project are to improve and connect cultural workers, primarily those involved in festivals and art music, then to encourage composing of new works of classical music inspired by the local heritage of all countries participating in the project, as well as connecting and collaboration of young musicians, composers and organizations dealing with art music in the Western Balkans. Over three years, the project will bring together 12 composers, over 50 young musicians and cultural managers, six seminars for cultural professionals, 12 residencies for composers, which will create 12 new works inspired by the cultural heritage of the region and Europe itself. As the grand finale of the project, a festival tour is planned that will present composers, new compositions and young musicians at festivals across the Western Balkans in the summer of 2023.