Funding is awarded through Musicboard Berlin GmbH upon recommendation of an independent jury of Berlin-based pop experts and in consultation with the Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Jury members are usually appointed for a period of three years. The following jury is currently appointed to the Festival Funding as well as the funding programmes Karriersprungbrett Berlin and Pop im Kiez:
CHRISTOPH REIMANN
Christoph Reimann is a radio journalist. At Deutschlandfunk he presents the program ›Corso – Kunst & Pop‹, while at Deutschlandfunk Kultur he mainly contributes to the music magazine ›Tonart‹ as editor and author. For ByteFM he produces the program ›Regler auf, Regler runter‹. His work focuses on pop and gender.
DAHLIA BORSCHE
Dahlia Borsche is a musicologist and curator. Since January 2019 she took over the management of the music section of the Berlin Artists-in-Residence Program of the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD. Her last engagement as a musicologist was from 2014 to 2018 at the department of Transcultural Musicology at the Humboldt University of Berlin, after having previously worked at the University of Klagenfurt in the Department of Applied Musicology. She has worked as an organizer, DJ and freelance curator, besides many smaller projects especially at the CTM Festival Berlin, where she was first involved in the production, then as co-curator of the discourse program.
ESRA KARAKAYA
Esra Karakaya is a video journalist and founder of her own YouTube talk show BlackRockTalk/KARAKAYA TALK. The Grimme-nominated and Grimme-Online-awarded show covers topics ranging from pop to politics and creates a platform for those in our society who are otherwise underrepresented and not heard. With a lot of humor and courage for unpleasant topics KARAKAYA TALK sets a new standard for a respectful and empathetic culture of discussion. Furthermore, Esra works as a video producer for Datteltäter, a youtube channel for the empowerment of young Muslims. Esra Karakaya has been honored for her work by among others Zeit Campus Verlag, the Hertie Foundation and Edition F.
GREGOR HOTZ
Hotz has conceived and organized numerous music and cultural events as a freelance curator and/or production manager since 1995: In addition to initiating the concert series Labor Sonor and the online platform www.echtzeitmusik.de in 2000, Hotz was involved both in the founding of the collective ausland in Prenzlauer Berg in 2002 and in the realization of the venue’s own experimental music series biegungen im ausland from 2003 to 2011. Hotz also founded the 24-member Berlin orchestra Splitter Orchester, whose manager he was until 2017. Since June 2017, Gregor Hotz has been managing director of Musikfonds e. V.
JUDYTA SMYKOWSKI
Judyta Smykowski studied online and cultural journalism in Darmstadt and Berlin. She is head of the editorial staff of the magazine Die Neue Norm and writes as a freelance journalist for taz. The thematic focus of her work is on inclusion, intersectional feminism and digitality.
