Applications for scholarships and residencies in the first funding round 2024 are open. Now through the application deadline on 1 March 2024 at 6 p.m., Musicboard Berlin is welcoming Berlin-based pop acts to submit applications for the annual project scholarships. The application phase for three residencies has also begun: The co-creation residencies Accra / Berlin and Kampala / Berlin as well as the overseas residency in Salvador de Bahia.
Two months of collaborative work in a feminist community in Accra, Ghana, getting to know the underground music scene in Kampala, Uganda, exchanging ideas and networking at the VILA SUL residency in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, or working on your own project in Berlin? From now until the application deadline on 1 March 2024 at 6 p.m., musicians and artists from all genres and areas of pop music who live and work in Berlin can apply for a project scholarship and three Musicboard residencies. Musicboard defines pop music as all genres and styles that cannot be clearly categorised as classical, new music, or jazz. This includes all forms of genre-spanning and experimental pop music.
Musicboard will provide information about the current call for concepts in an online session held jointly by Music Pool Berlin and Kreativ Kultur Berlin. On 7 February 2024 at 5 p.m., interested parties will have the opportunity to join a Zoom conference to ask questions about the advertised scholarships and residencies, the funding criteria, and the application process.
PROJECT SCHOLARSHIPS AND COACHING
The Musicboard project scholarships support Berlin musicians and bands in realising a project of their own choosing. These are intended to serve individual artistic development and professionalisation. Funding can be provided, for example, for creating albums and videos, promotion and marketing, the songwriting process itself, developing artistic collaborations and co-productions, realising promotional tours, or purchasing instruments and equipment.
As in previous years, Musicboard Berlin is once again offering professional coaching for musicians and bands. Jovanka von Wilsdorf (BMG, DIANA, freelance coach) will individually support selected scholarship holders with their project plans. Applications for the musician and band coaching programme must be submitted as part of the application for a project scholarship.
Details and application:
Project scholarship and coaching
RESIDENCIES
Now through the application deadline of 1 March 2024, Musicboard is also accepting applications for the co-creation residencies Accra / Berlin and Kampala / Berlin as well as the international residency in Salvador de Bahia. With a particular focus on international collaboration and supporting long-term artistic and cultural exchange, the co-creation residencies will be presented as part of the Pop-Kultur festival. In cooperation with the initiative Black Girls Glow in Accra, Ghana, and ZK/U – Centre for Art and Urbanistics in Berlin, the co-creation residency Accra / Berlin is aimed at solo acts who identify as women, intersex, or non-binary. The co-creation residency Kampala / Berlin takes place in close collaboration with the label and festival Nyege Nyege, which represents experimental electronic music from its base in Uganda as well as the surrounding East African region. Solo artists can also apply for a two-month residency as part of the Goethe-Institut’s VILA SUL residency programme in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, which offers the opportunity for encounters, reflection and inspiration far removed from Eurocentric perspectives.
Details and application:
Residencies
MORE FAMILY-FRIENDLY WITH CHILD ALLOWANCE
This year, in order to make the residency programme as accessible and family-friendly as possible, Musicboard is introducing supplementary support for accompanying children and caregivers. Whether they are able to join a recipient of a residency depends largely the respective location and the specific needs of the applicant, which can be discussed in a personal consultation. For inquiries, please contact Maureen Noe: maureen.noe@musicboard.berlin.de
NEW JURY MEMBERS
Scholarships and residencies are granted on the recommendation of an independent jury of six experts of the Berlin music scene. Starting in 2024, Ebru »Ebow« Düzgün and Yeşim Duman will be part of the jury. They will join Aida Baghernejad, Ji-Hun Kim, Thien Nguyen, and Misla Tesfamariam in evaluating applications. Musicboard would like to take this opportunity to thank the departing jury members Katja Lucker and Pamela Owusu-Brenyah.
PREVIEW: SECOND ROUND OF FUNDING 2024
The second funding round, with its application deadline of 1 June 2024, will include open calls for the co-creation residency Detroit / Berlin, the residencies abroad in Los Angeles and Ris-Orangis/Paris, the domestic residencies in Dresden and the Uckermark region, and the Hinterhalt Commission in cooperation with Deutsche Oper Berlin. The co-creation residency Tel Aviv / Berlin will not take place in its usual form in 2024 due to the security situation in Israel an the current state of war. Nevertheless, a continued cooperation with the Kuli Alma Club as a partner in Tel Aviv in 2024 is still planned, enabling an artistic exchange between artists living in Israel and Berlin. The residency in Havana, Cuba, is no longer being granted. Musicboard would like to thank the Endirecto agency, which has supported the residency as a long-standing cooperation partner on site. Further information on the second funding round of the residency programme will be announced in the spring.
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