INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ is a training and networking project for youth workers, educators and organisers of youth music competitions across Europe, co-funded by Erasmus+. The main objective is to facilitate exchange and create sustainable cooperation between the participants in order to find creative and innovative solutions to the new challenges facing youth workers and organisers of youth activities in the cultural field, enhancing the mobility of youth workers and young people will improve the quality of support systems for youth activities on a local, national, and European level.
The activities of the participatory project employs non-formal education methods to enhance intercultural learning and provide participants with practical knowledge and transferable skills that they can use on a national and local level to improve the current and future possibilities for young people from a range of educational, social and cultural backgrounds.
There are nine project partners from FYR Macedonia, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovakia and Spain. We expect to directly involve 50 participants from the partners including, youth workers, educators, experts and at least 25 young musicians.
The project will focus on the exchange of best practices through conferences and workshops. The partners will call experts in key areas to develop competences to provide high quality youth work and support young European musicians.
The results as well as the publications created during this project will be disseminated through the EMCY and partner networks and will significantly benefit around 40 music competitions, indirectly impacting over 30,000 young people annually as well as youth workers, professors and directors of local and national music schools and conservatoires, jurors and organisers of youth music competitions.
Conference for EMCY´s International Competitions & INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ meeting in Weimar (Germany), November 2015
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” Leonard Bernstein
This conference, which brought together Europe´s finest talent scouts: directors of 17 youth music competitions from 14 European countries, addressed pressing topics including audience development and sponsorship as well as created sustainable cooperation, thus enhancing the quality of support systems for young musicians.
The Conference took place on 20th–22nd November 2015 and was hosted by the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar (DE), organisers of EMCY´s members International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists and the International Louis Spohr Competition for Young Violinists.
EMCY´s membership showed great interest in a planned cooperation of EMCY with the star violinist Julia Fischer for a festival and concert tour with EMCY Prize winners. Beyond that, they engaged in new collaborations for Europe-wide tours of prize winners, featuring innovative concert formats.
Working sessions were hold on how musicians can effectively engage audiences, (inter)national presswork of EMCY and its members to broaden their scope and the benefit of volunteers at youth music competitions.
Broad agreement was reached on contemporary works at youth music competitions: EMCY will actively support the exchange and wide access of recently composed European works that were commissioned by its member competitions all over Europe.
The EU funding programmes Creative Europe and Erasmus+ were presented and examples of concrete projects as well different funding and sponsoring strategies introduced.
The conference took place in the framework of the Erasmus+ strategic partnership project
INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ and was co-funded by the European Union. It was chaired by EMCY´s Vice President for International Competitions, Justas Dvarionas. The conference benefitted from different guest speakers: Steven Walter, the director of the Podium Festival Esslingen; Christian Bergmann, board member of the Staatskapelle Weimar; and Judith Drühe, dramatic advisor and responsible for the children and youth programme of the Staatskapelle Weimar.
Musical highlights of the Conference comprised Danilo Kunze (guitar, DE) and Can Cakmur (piano, TR), prize winners of EMCY Member Competitions.
EMCY’ s Conference INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ and 30th General Assembly in Vilnius (Lithuania), October 2016
What does a young musician need for a successful communication of his/her passion for classical music?
How to ensure that classical music remains relevant and accessible also for young people?
Do we have a hierarchy in audiences? Are the music fans more worthy than the ones to reach out to?
25 youth music competitions and partners from 14 countries followed EMCY´s invitation for its Conference INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ and 30th General Assembly in Vilnius from 14th to 16th October 2016 and addressed these and other crucial questions. Their discussions were enriched by presentations of renowned experts as Constanze Wimmer of the Anton Bruckner University (AT), Pascal Sticklies of the Luxembourg Philharmonie (LU) and Andreas Berg of the Edvard Munch High School (NO).
Also on the agenda were EMCY´s upcoming activities for 2016-2018 to promote young musicians. In his greetings for the Conference Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, perfectly described EMCY´s main tasks for the coming period: “Our ambition is the same: encourage youth mobility, help to create networks of exchange and solidarity and to allow the young musicians to develop their talents.” Among EMCY´s proposal to the delegates were following activities:
EUROPE: ensemble, master course with star violinist Julia Fischer for EMCY Prize winners, planned for October 2018
Outreach and audience development activities of GIVE MUSIC A FUTURE (#GIVEMUSICAFUTURE) in 7 different countries; GIVE MUSIC A FUTURE is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Activities of INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ (#INTERNATIONALnetworksPlus), co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme and many more activities on www.emcy.org
For the sake of fairness and transparency, EMCY´s Quality Standards at youth music competitions as well as the digital promotion of competitions were discussed and how EMCY competitions can support each other and extend their bi- and multilateral network.
The EMCY membership also elected a new board for the period 2016 to 2020:
President: Paul Scholer (LU, Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes & European Competition for Young Soloists)
Vice-Presidents: Mária Slaninová (SK, EMCY Slovakia), Justas Dvarionas (LT, National Lithuanian Balys Dvarionas Piano & String Competition, International Balys Dvarionas Competition for Young Pianists and Violinists, International Jascha Heifetz Competition for Violinists)
Members: Àngels Civit Fons (ES, Concurso Permanente de Jóvenes Intérpretes), Boris Svetiev (MK, International Competition for Young Musicians ‘Ohrid Pearls’, Competition of the United Music and Dance Teachers of Macedonia).
In between productive talks, the delegates enjoyed concerts as for example NICO the lights of the New Ideas Chamber Orchestra of former EMCY Competitions´ Prize Winners. The Conference was part of the project INTER-NATIONAL net_works+, co-funded by Erasmus+. It was hosted by the Lithuanian EMCY members: the National Lithuanian Balys Dvarionas Piano & String Competition, the International Balys Dvarionas Competition for Young Pianists and Violinists and the International Jascha Heifetz Competition for Violinists. We are very grateful to our generous hosts, Natu knygynas, the Balys Dvarionas Foundation as well as to the Lithuanian Council for Culture and the Ministry of Culture for the support.
The European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY) is a European network of Youth Music Competitions, active in 26 countries. Our main task is to support cooperation and best practise of our members, to uphold fairness and transparency at youth music competitions and to promote the prize winners of our member competitions with concerts, master classes, workshops and tours all over Europe. EMCY stands for musical excellency, the promotion of youth and European cooperation.
Conference for EMCY´s National Competitions & INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ meeting in Malaga (Spain), November 2017
From 24th to 26th November 2017, the national EMCY member competitions were present in Malaga for the INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ Conference in the framework of Erasmus+. The aim was to initiate new collaborations and partnerships, to brainstorm and find solutions in a Future lab.
The conference was hosted by the Fondation Hispania Musica de Málaga in collaboration with Juventudes Musicales de España organisers of the Concurso Permanente de Jóvenes Intérpretes.
The conference had the following topics:
– cultural exchange, cross-sectoral cooperation, synergies for competition managers,
– making competitions fit for the future and challenges faced by national competitions,
– enlargement of the EMCY network
The EMCY team shared examples of best practice and the emphasis was on learning from one another and finding ways to cooperate more closely, including ideas for (common) future projects.
EMCY Conference INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ and 31st General Assembly in Luxembourg, June 2018
Data protection at music competitions?
Setting up a project in five steps?
EU funding opportunities for cultural associations?
28 youth music competitions and partners from 18 countries attended the INTER-NATIONAL net_works+ Conference and 31st EMCY General Assembly in Luxembourg from 29th June to 1st July 2018. This event was an initiative under the patronage of Mr. Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission.
At the conference, discussions were enriched by presentations of renowned experts including Pierre Feltgen, the legal consul of the UGDA Music School, Irma de Jong, project manager of Cicerone Music & Art as well as Nadine Linden (ANEFORE, the national agency for Erasmus+ in Luxembourg) and Marc Rettel from the Creative Europe Desk Luxembourg.
The EMCY board and staff presented the past activities and the redesigned website, www.emcy.org. The updated website is more user friendly and includes navigational changes and an improved structure. Also a first draft of the GIVE MUSIC A FUTURE guidelines were introduced to the EMCY member competitions.
The meeting contributed to the development of cooperation between the EMCY member competitions, potential new members, and EMCY. New contacts and synergies were developed for bi- and multilateral collaborations and initiatives. EMCY´s Quality Standards at youth music competitions were discussed and from 1 January 2020, preselection at EMCY competitions need to be written down to promote fairness and transparency.
In order to be able to support competitions and promote their prize winners in the best possible way, EMCY is preparing Erasmus+ and Creative Europe projects. It is open to receive concrete ideas with a short description of activities that can be the foundation for common projects.
The delegates also enjoyed cultural activities, such as the concert «Kinnekswiss loves Elīna Garanča and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg» by Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg with Gustavo Gimeno, direction, and Elīna Garanča mezzo-soprano. At the EMCY General Assembly, two prize winners of the Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes & European Competition for Young Soloists, Yanis Griso and Cyprien Keiser performed works by J. Suk, J. Brahms, G. Faure and C. Dimitrescu.
The conference was part of the project “INTER-NATIONAL net_works+”, co-funded by Erasmus+ and was hosted by the UGDA Music School, organizer of our member competition, the Concours Luxembourgeois pour Jeunes Solistes & European Competition for Young Soloists. We are very grateful to our generous hosts, the UGDA Music School, as well as the Luxembourgish Ministry of Culture and the City of Luxembourg.
