Is the grass greener overseas or should be make more of the Nordic inner market. Environmental, financial and logistic issues, for instance, turn our attention to the neighbouring countries but how to tour in the Nordic in real life. There are some success stories but also many attempts to organise Nordic tours have failed. Where to find the solution? Is it just about the will, travel support, personal contacts and networks, or do we need structural changes to make Nordic touring more accessible.
In the panel:
-
Booker, Roskilde Festival (DK)
For decades, Peter Hvalkof has been involved in Roskilde Festival: since the mid-nineties he has been a member of a booking committee with special focus on overseas music, roots music, etc. Over the years he was involved in several side projects related to world music. Today he is also booking at ALICE CPH – the power house of adventurous music in Copenhagen.
-
Founder & Agent, MTA Produktion (SE)
Hilda Sandgren and MTA Production has specialised in project management, booking and international collaborations. During the pandemic, Hilda was first on the scene to coin the term “quarantine culture” in Sweden with the initiative Bring It Home 2020 at Sonika Studio in south of Stockholm. Today she has produced 95 live streams with donations and pay per view. The company continues the development of live streams and are currently producing hybrid live bookings in many different forms. Hilda and MTAs strengths lie in the notion that musical genres have no boundaries, but rather opens new and unsuspected doors for all kinds of collaborations. Hilda teaches and holds seminars at the Royal Academy of Music, Innovative Music Management and is a part of the management team at Sweden’s biggest music and events course in Nyköping.
Hilda Sandgren founded MTA Production AB in 2000 after many years of working in the music and theatre industries, as a freelance producer for the Peace & Love festival, Joe Labero, as a fill-in product manager at recordlabel Bonnier Amigo, to name a few. She founded and managed Stockholm Folk Festival, Hesselby kammarfestival and the succesfull Christmas concept “Jul i Folkton”.
MTA has specialised in booking and producing live concerts with many local, Nordic and global collaborations with organisers of all sizes. The company books artists in genres like pop, jazz, rock, folk, world music, Swedish folk and much more. MTA represents and books the following artists: Lisa Miskovsky, Electric Boys, Ale Möller, Eva Eastwood, Kristin Amparo, Bonafide, Magnus Lindgren, Eclipse, Adolphson & Falk, Sara Ajnnak, Fröken Elvis Kolonien, Amanda Ginsburg, Lena Willemark, Isabella Lundgren, Oddjob, Sousou & Maher Cissoko, Staffan Hellstrand, and more.
-
Booker & Freelance Musician (DK)
Jakob Kragesand is currently, besides his work as a freelance musician the past 10 years, occupied at various venues and festivals in Denmark fx. the regional venue Gimle, the folk music event group FOLKAMOK! and Resonator Festival.
In DK he is known as one of the "go-to booking agents" where he gladly hands out his knowledge of festivals and venues that are welcoming different parts of the roots music genre of today. This also gives him the inside knowledge of the problematics and strengths in touring the nordics. When he doesn't tour with the pan-scandinavian group VÍÍK, he also works at Tempi, the genre office of roots music in Denmark.
Jakob has an educational background as MA in Arts - Musicology from the University of Copenhagen with elective in Music and Arts Management, as well as a baggrund from the Music Academy in Malmö, Sweden and Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary.
-
Project Manager, Iceland Music / ÚTON (IS)
Hrefna Helgadóttir, or Habbi, is the Marketing and Public Relation Manager for the Iceland Music Export office, called Iceland Music. Iceland Music is a member of the NOMEX network of Nordic music offices.