Does your club/festival/venue already have international activities or networks, or do you have resources to launch that? Are you planning to book Nordic artists in 2021? Are you interested in developing sustainable touring models and partnerships with Nordic-Baltic colleagues?
The Nordic Culture Fund has awarded a grant for a co-operational Nordic Jazz Comets 2.0 project for developing sustainable touring and event production models in the Nordic region. The steering group of the project consists of the main jazz organizations in Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The first phase of the project includes assembling a core network of 2–3 club/festival/venue promotors from each country. The selected participants should be established players on their field and motivated to engage themselves to the project for the pilot period 2020–2021.
What do we do?
The project uses the established Nordic Jazz Comets showcase event concept as a frame for the pilot year of the network. The 2020 edition of NJC will take place in one of the Nordic capitals. The pilot project participants commit to:
- selecting one band from each country to perform at the Nordic Jazz Comets showcase (based on open call applications and a pre-selection by each country's jazz organization)
- participating in the 2020 Nordic Jazz Comets event in November–December
- booking at least one of the bands for a concert in 2021 (not from their home country)
- developing value-based partnerships for touring (the NJC band) and including the other jazz promotors in their home countries in the work.
What do you gain?
The project supports organizing one concert for the Nordic Jazz Comets bands in 2021, as a part of a larger tour. The support will be scaled to match the production expenses, but will not cover 100% of the costs.
The project covers the travel and accommodation expenses to the Nordic Jazz Comets showcase & professional event in late 2020. Also the project supports other possible networking events in 2020.
How are the participants selected?
If there are more than 3 organizations from Finland who show interest to the network, each country's jazz organization makes the selection for the pilot season based on the following criteria:
1. We are looking for all: clubs, venues and festivals.
2. The participants should have resources and readiness for international co-operation (references of international bookings from the recent years, or a clear plan for a Nordic focus for the near future), and a motivation to co-operation on national level too.
3. Regional and artistic/operational/conceptual diversity, different audience profiles and volume are taken into account.
4. We are enforcing affirmative action in the selection process; if there are two equivalent candidates, we will select the one who is in minority regarding the whole group.
How to enter?
Send a free-formed email before January 7th, 2020 to Jazz Finland, Project Manager Raisa Siivola, at raisa.siivola@jazzfinland.fi with a brief letter of motivation. Please mention:
- for what reasons do you want to participate
- what kind of international networks or projects do you have already
- what are the best practices that you are already follow in your work/organization.
The deadline for the registration/application is January 7, 2020. If there are more than three candidates, the selection will take place before January 15, 2020.
The first network meeting is in Helsinki on the 27th of January.
The project is coordinated by Jazz Finland and supported by Nordic Culture Fund.
The partners include Eesti Jazzliit, FÍH Music School (Iceland), Jazz Danmark, Norsk jazzforum, Svensk Jazz.
Photo: Depositphotos, Yuliya Kirayonak