Anna van Nunen
Anna van Nunen, Managing Director of ESNS Eurosonic Noorderslag
I don’t always feel European. I feel Dutch. Sometimes I feel like a citizen of the world. But European? That can feel quite abstract. We live in so many different countries, speak hundreds of languages and have very different histories and cultures. And then there are moments when it suddenly feels very close.
Last year, I went to see Zaho de Sagazan. She sang entirely in French. Around me, people spoke English, Spanish and languages I couldn’t even identify. Nobody seemed to mind that they couldn’t sing along to every word. We were all there for the same reason. For a while, I didn’t feel like a Dutch person at a concert. I felt European. That is what music can do!
We have plenty of examples. Artists travel more easily across Europe than ever before. Audiences are increasingly open to songs in languages they don’t speak. Festivals such as ESNS - Eurosonic Noorderslag bring together artists, professionals and audiences from across the continent. What started as a small Dutch-Belgian band competition has become one of Europe’s biggest places to discover new music.
Still, European music is not really functioning as one market. And that won’t change on its own. A lot of our industry is financed by capital from outside Europe. Streaming platforms determine a large part of what people get to hear. Their algorithms don’t make a distinction between European and non-European music. And most listeners understandably don’t stop to check where an artist comes from before pressing play.
But we do have influence over what happens next. We make choices every day about who gets booked, signed, played, promoted, published and discovered.
So, if you’re a booker, make room for more European artists. Give someone from another part of Europe a chance to play your stage.
If you’re a festival or venue programmer, look beyond the markets you already know. Go and find artists in the Baltics, the Balkans, Central and Southern Europe. There is an enormous amount of talent that still doesn’t travel far enough.
If you work in streaming, radio or media, help people discover that music. There is a lot more to European music than the artists who have already crossed the borders.
If you work in recording, publishing or sync, actively look for European repertoire.
And if you’re a listener: be curious. Click on that song in Croatian. Go and see that French artist. Listen to the Irish band. You might find something you didn’t know you were looking for.
We have the talent and the audiences. We have the festivals, venues, networks and infrastructure. Now we need to use them. Because the more European music we hear, the more European artists we see on our stages, and the more stories we share across borders, the less abstract Europe might start to feel.
Courtesy of YOUROPE - The European Festival Network.
Also published in YOUROPE’s dedicated ’About Europe’ website section.
