On 31 December 2023, Katja Lucker will be stepping down from her long-time position as managing director of Musicboard Berlin GmbH in order to pursue a new challenge. Starting next year, she will take over as managing director of Initiative Musik gGmbH, the federal government’s central funding body for popular music and jazz.
Musicboard Berlin has been in operation under the leadership of Katja Lucker since 2013, when she co-founded the institution, also having played a key role in its conception. For over a decade, Katja Lucker has helped shape Musicboard, developing it into an innovative, diversity-oriented, and artist-centred pop funding institution along with a steadily growing team. Her own passion for music and the pop cultural scene has been a major factor in the evolution of Musicboard, which meanwhile has taken hold as a firm supporter and facilitator for stakeholders in the music business. Also under her guidance, the discourse-oriented pop festival Pop-Kultur has become an annual fixture that showcases line-ups marked by diversity and emerging talent.
Katja Lucker sums it up: »In 2012, [Mayor of Berlin] Klaus Wowereit and [Head of the Senate Chancellery of Berlin] Björn Böhning asked me to establish Musicboard. With my passion for the music landscape in Berlin, I took on the task – a decision I’ve never once regretted! Over the years, Musicboard has developed into a fantastic funding organisation. I’m happy to have seen Pop-Kultur become a high-profile music festival with great resonance, and I’m also pleased that Musicboard has the honour of hosting the annual Fête de la Musique in Berlin, a music festival that makes live music available to the entire city, free of charge. After eleven years of fruitful collaboration at the state level, I am looking forward to working at the federal level in 2024 as I step up as managing director of Initiative Musik. I would like to sincerely thank all my colleagues, my teams, the cultural administration and – as always and most of all – Berlin’s music scene, a valuable asset to this city that must be safeguarded at all costs.«
The staff of Musicboard, the Pop-Kultur festival and Fête de la Musique regret the departure of Katja Lucker and thank her for her many years of work, her forward-thinking approach to Musicboard, and her tireless commitment to the interests of Berlin’s pop music scene.
Starting on 1 January 2024, an interim management will lead Musicboard.
Download press release (pdf)
