Activity

In January IMPF sent members the Development Grant Open Call for 2024. This year IMPF has again 15 grants worth 6000 Euro each available to its member companies in Creative Europe Countries. This money is to help Members of IMPF who would like to engage in cross-border activities of either a creative or business development nature.  For each application, a maximum grant of €6000 will be awarded to any project that has a budget of minimum €7500. In other words Members must invest €1500 to receive the €6000. The range of activities you can apply for is broad, however they must have a cross-border dimension, and can include: attending or organising conferences of relevance, cross-border song-writing sessions and residencies, developing capacity-building via training or networking workshops for music publishers and/or emerging artists and composers. Applications were open to songwriters, authors, artists as well as music publishing professionals from their companies. Evaluation criteria will include how the applicants address diversity and gender balance in their proposed activity and their ability to document the event.  

The following IMPF members have been approved for Development Grants to date as at 10 September 2024.

BOA Musica Europa
Bonatarda
Copyright Power International 2023 + 2024
FAAR Music
GL Music Entertainment
Golba Music
Guesstimate Publishing
Ink Music
K9 Music Publishing
Loose Club Edition
Next Era Publishing
Nordic Music Society with co-hosts
ROBA Music verlag
Steam Music Publishing
Strictly Confidential Music Publishing
Tier Music Publishing
Tin Drum Music
22D Music Group x 3
Unitesync
Wasted Talent Publishing

Outcomes/Next Steps

IMPF will gather reports from each company during the year.

A summary report will be available at the end of the year.

Summary

23 grants were made available this year to IMPF member companies in Creative Europe countries.

Activity

The key objective of the grants made available to IMPF members in European countries was to help independent publishers engage in cross-border activities of either a creative or business development nature, with a focus on supporting and nurturing the talent of emerging artists. The range of eligible activities was broad. As long as the activities had a cross-border dimension, they could be supported, and applications were open to composers as well as music publishing professionals. Activities could include attending or organising conferences, cross-border songwriting sessions and residencies, and developing capacity-building or networking workshops for music publishers.

Beneficiaries

The recipients and the activity made possible by the grants are detailed below.

Alondra Music

In 2023, Alondra Music traveled to music industry conferences and festivals to meet with publishers with a view to signing sub-publishing agreements and representing their catalogues in Spain. The company was also able to attend audiovisual events and festivals to expand its music supervision clientbase.

At Primavera Pro Alondra staff attended educational talks about the current music industry landscape, and met with audiovisual production companies and music supervisors with their sync work in mind. They also attended Conecta Fiction & Entertainment, which is a professional and international market focused on audiovisual industry projects where delegates can meet new clients and close music supervision contracts. Finally, at Reeperbahn Festival, they were able to meet with publishers the company already represents and also forge new alliances.

Crunchy Tunes

Crunchy Tunes hosted a Meet and Greet at Franklin BBQ during SXSW 2023 in Austin Texas. The event was a big success, featuring two performers from Denmark: The Courettes and Ki!.

Now in its fourth year, the event is really popular with the industry, with attendees able to taste the legendary BBQ from Franklin alongside quality music from Crunchy Tunes. It is a full house every year.

This year, Ki! was an instant success with the many music supervisors that came along. Crunchy Tunes has had countless requests for his music since.

Prior to Austin, Crunchy Tunes staff had a few days in New York and Ki! went with the crew to visit a lot of music supervisors, industry people and the company’s digital distributor The Orchard.

Elements Music

Within the framework of the project, Elements Music (Finland) organised a songwriting camp together with Budde Music (Germany) with the objective of connecting songwriters, producers and artists with each other, and to later get songs written on the camp released.

Seven artists from around Europe (five from Budde Music, and 13 from Elements Music) joined the camp, which took place over four days in May 2023 in Helsinki, Finland. The artists joining were SERA, Ben Cristovao, Anais, Clara Mae, Andreas Wijk, Keira and Greg Taro.

The camp was a big success in various ways. The artist representatives are excited about the 20 written songs and how the camp played out. Many new creative connections have been established via the camp, and the songwriters and publishers involved in this project now experience a greater international reach as a result.

Nordic Music Partners
The songwriting camp, hosted by Nordic Music Partners in collaboration with Monster Music Group in Helsinki from March 27-31, was a remarkable demonstration of creativity, collaboration, and professional networking. The event brought together an exceptionally talented group of 14 songwriters, including Yoshi Breen, Séb Holdinghausen, Teemu Brunila and Yasmeen “Mougleta” Semaan to name a few. The writers worked in teams, rotating groups each day to promote creative diversity.

The presence of notable artists, such as Sophie ‘Sophie And The Giants’ Scott, Luca ‘LUM!X’ Michlmayr, Alma, and Svea ‘SVEA’ Kagemark, enhanced the event’s prestige and increased the likelihood of successful song cuts for the writers.

Positive feedback received from the management teams after the camp was a testament to the great dynamic between the writers and the artists, and to the exceptional organisation of the camp as well, which ran smoothly and provided a conducive environment for creative output.

The songwriting camp provided invaluable opportunities for writers to expand their professional network and establish industry connections, making it a truly successful event for all parties involved.

Palma Songwriting camp (22D Music Group, Roba and K9 Music Publishing)

This year, the Palma Songwriting camp welcomed 20 songwriters from all over the world (Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, United State of America) during five consecutive days at the Palma Music Studios in the center of Palma de Mallorca.

Each day, in groups of three (which included one producer and two artists/top liners), writers created a track based on briefs that we shared with them on this occasion. The groups changed every day so all writers had the chance to meet and work with someone new.

36 tracks were created during the songwriting camp, and they will be promoted for sync by every music publisher involved.

The camp allowed up and coming artists to grow their network internationally and create future collaborations.

ROBA

On September 18, ROBA Music Publishing held the much-anticipated ROBA x IMPF Songwriting Camp in Hamburg across four days at the DIY-Studios in Karolinenstraße.

Inviting IMPF publishers (like CTM, Café Concerto, Faar Music, Cosmos, Ultra and Guesstimate) to send their talented writers, the day started by bringing together the 14 songwriters, having breakfast and some coffee, introducing each other, and explaining the planned sessions. After the first day of writing, there was a networking dinner with participants.

The camp was wrapped up on Wednesday with a listening session, where everyone had the opportunity to hear the songs that were recorded over the three days.

Afterwards the ROBA team went to the ROBA Reception 2023, our networking event at this year’s Reeperbahn Festival.

According to feedback from participants (as well as their managers and publishers), the camp was a huge success for everyone involved.

SMV Musikverlage 

SMV Musikverlage attended ADE in Amsterdam at the end of October. All in all, the activity can be counted as a great success: Staff had meetings and receptions, met with current and potential partners, made new contacts for potential collaboration and co-writing opportunities, and even noted down some potential new signings.

Sugar Music

The Sugar Music Publishing team traveled from Milan to London with composer and producer STABBER to attend a two-day session in Spotify’s Noteable Studios to create a new track for STABBER’s upcoming album. The album will be released in fall 2023, featuring the Algerian-born, London-based female singer-songwriter Miraa May, who attended our session and wrote and sung on the track.

The sessions granted diversity, gender balance, and attention to environmental issues: Miraa May is a female R&B artist who was born in Algeria. There was a delightful connection in the studio, and she was given maximum creative freedom on STABBER’s track. The team traveled via a direct flight in economy class and took care of offsetting their carbon emissions (see attached certificate by CoolEffect). They were able to cut unnecessary technical costs and reduce the impact of their movements by using only equipment provided by the studio. They used public transport within the city and, when it was not possible, they favoured walks or electric cars (e.g. Uber Green).

Tier Music Publishing

The development grant was used towards organising an international songwriting camp in Tallinn at the end of August 2023, co-hosted by Faar Music. The companies combined their two rosters, as well as inviting international talent to take part in the camp. They finished off with a seminar day, providing insights into the different aspects of the music industry, focusing mostly on areas related to music publishing. In total, the camp hosted 19 songwriters from across the EU, including three from Tier Music Publishing. The seminar day was attended by around 70 people.

22D Music Group

22D Music Group embarked on an Atlanta trade visit at the end of October to attend Atlanta Create. They were able to meet with other attendees from companies including SOCAN, MPC, Monstercat, PEX and Rytebox; and music supervisors or coordinators from the likes of Passion Flix, Creative Control and Triple Threat. They attended a number of panels across the event on subjects including music supervision, the creative and business relationship, music rights and the Manager Masterclass. They also attended networking events that took place at the hotel and allowed them to meet new attendees and hear inspiring speakers. They also met fellow publishers from Bailer Music Publishing, Cymba Music Publishing, Anthem Music, Lusitania Music Publishing, One Rpm, Downtown Music.

AEDEM (Asociación española de editores de música)

The Spanish Association of Music Editors organised the 22nd Music Editors Convention, which took place in May at the Meliá Hotel in Sitges. This event served as a prominent space for discussion and networking, bringing together music editors and related professionals to address the present and future of music publishing. With the goal of surpassing the success of the previous year, invitations were extended to colleagues from across Spain, and there was a special participation of editors from Italy as the guest country, aiming to strengthen the relationships between the publishing communities of both countries. This year’s edition focused on defending repertoire in the digital realm within the current European legal framework. Concurrently, AEDEM offered training courses during the convention with the purpose of equipping editors with practical tools and knowledge to tackle challenges and opportunities in a constantly evolving publishing market. These courses covered key topics such as new technologies and their impact on the publishing industry, providing participants with the ability to adapt to digital transformation. The convention featured the participation of national and international speakers – experts in various areas related to music publishing. Through lectures, workshops, and discussions, topics such as improving productivity, digital identification of repertoires, digital rights management, and the relationship between copyright in social networks and the EU were explored. The agenda also included a general assembly, as well as networking opportunities for attendees.

FAAR Music

In August 2023, FAAR Music organised an international songwriting camp, music seminar, and networking event in Tallinn, Estonia. The songwriting camp took place at FAAR Music Studios in the city centre, while the seminar was held at Terminal Records Bar in the Creative City area.

For the songwriting camp, the company brought together 22 songwriters, producers, and artists from various countries, including Romania, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Germany, and Estonia. The goal was to create and strengthen bonds between creatives from different countries, fostering collaboration and the creation of new songs. Songwriting camps serve to inspire and facilitate learning among participants, helping them make valuable connections for future collaborations. During the sessions, FAAR ensured that everyone had the opportunity to work with different people each day, further enhancing those bonds. The result of the three days was 20 new songs.

FAAR has already received feedback from many artist teams expressing interest in using the songs for their releases. Any songs not selected by the artists from the camp will be pitched to other artists, labels, and management teams to find suitable homes.

On August 31st, following the songwriting camp, FAAR organised a music seminar and networking event in Tallinn for the music industry. We brought together nine music industry professionals from various fields and countries (The Netherlands, Norway, Germany, France, Poland, Finland, and Estonia) for panel discussions. The seminar day was designed to benefit both musicians and industry professionals, covering topics such as sync & film, A&R, music publishing, and music promotion. Additionally, they included a demo drop session where musicians could send us songs for live feedback from professional musicians and label A&R’s, a highly popular session that generated a significant number of demo songs.

All the seminar event speakers arrived in Tallinn one day before to attend the song camp listening session at FAAR Music Studios. Bringing professionals to the listening sessions had several purposes: 1) to provide them with a better overview of the Estonian music scene and showcase our studios for potential future collaborations, and 2) to connect writers and professionals, allowing them to hear the quality of the songs and discover new talent they might want to work with.

Both activities were highly successful. Most of the international writers and speakers invited to Tallinn were visiting for the first time, giving them the opportunity to meet many Estonian music industry professionals, writers, and producers. While Estonia hasn’t been a regular destination for writing songs and collaborating with creatives, it’s hoped that international songwriting camps like this will encourage them to return for future writing sessions.

FAAR has received a lot of positive feedback from seminar visitors, prompting them to consider organising similar events next year. These events also helped to expand the company’s network and raise its visibility internationally, leading to many valuable new contacts from different countries, and the potential for writers and producers to come and use their space in the future. FAAR also benefited from networking with writers, producers and artists from Romania, Denmark, Finland, Belgium and Germany. Their writers were able to connect with new, talented artists and create connections that will hopefully lead to new collaborations and releases, while being part of the seminar gave them an opportunity to learn more about the music industry.

CTM Publishing

CTM used part of the funding to send two Dutch writers, Koen van de Wardt and Okke Punt, to Denmark to work together with Danish and Asian songwriters at the GL Music x Outdustry writing camp, which took place from October 3-5 in Kopenhagen. During the camp, the writers worked on material for the Asian market, and the songs are getting pitched as we speak.

The rest of the funding was used for the CTM ADE writing camp, which took place in Amsterdam from October 16-19. During three days, four hotel rooms were transformed into writing rooms, where artists and writers worked together on new music.

The remaining funding was used to fly in international artists such as Boye & Sigvardt and catering during the ADE writing camp in Amsterdam.

Lusitanian Music Publishing

Lusitanian’s Nuno Saraiva attended the inaugural AIMP (Association of Independent Music  Publishers) Atlanta Creative Summit and participated on a panel titled ‘The Music World Is Different Outside The US’, alongside Canada’s Margaret McGuffin from Music Publishers Canada, the  IMMF’s Jake Beaumont-Nesbitt, and ex-Sheer Publishing, now Downtown Music Holdings’ Senior  VP of New Markets David Alexander.

The trade mission saw Saraiva and Alexander, both IMPF members, be “adopted” by the MPC’s  delegation to Atlanta led by Margaret McGuffin, who also moderated the panel.

The conference included special networking between the international delegates and Atlanta music  professionals, a studio tour (including recording, television and movie studios), as well as the conference programme organised by AIMP Atlanta.

In parallel, a songwriting camp including Atlanta artists and producers as well as Canadian artists resulted in 21 tracks being written, four of which were featured in a listening session on the last day of the conference.

It was an amazing experience, the likes of which Lusitanian and IMPF hope to repeat in years to come to the benefit of the entire European and international music publishing  communities.

Lusitanian’s participation was made possible in part by contributions from Creative Europe via the IMPF Network Project.

Globe Art Publishing

Globe Art Publishing took part in the programme in Atlanta. The business contacts made there are really valuable and will bring prosperous business in the future. The studio tours and the CMPA & AIMP programme in particular were very helpful in terms of getting to know industry peers from Atlanta.

Dancing Bear

Recording sessions of a new Sunnysiders’ album, titled ‘’27 Stitches, took place from March 22-26 at sound engineer Arnaud Bascuñana’s Studio 180 in Paris.

Sunnysiders have more than 10 years of great friendship with the French Blues Society and French blues musicians, so they had an opportunity to meet and make great music again with many guests from their previous album ‘The Bridges’. Names include Fred Delforge (president of France Blues), Jerry T. (musician/journalist) and French blues-rock star Manu Lanvin.

The whole team had a great time, with many wonderful recordings having been made. The company believes it will result in a lot of great music. 

Schubert Music Europe

Schubert Music Europe held their International Schubert Music Meeting in Trogier from 2 – 6 October. The meeting brought together colleagues from Poland, Czech, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, France, Germany, Austria and Spain, including all managing directors of the various Schubert Music companies and most of the senior staff. Attendees met in one-to-one meetings as well as in larger groups to discuss and exchange information on a number of general topics including new developments in the various territories; legislation; changes and developments on a CMO level; economic environmental influences on day to day work such as the war in Ukraine, high inflation rate, and growing exchange rate risk; and the potential outlook for 2023/24.

They were also able to discuss new developments on technical solutions within Schubert Music; new signings on local and international levels; and the direct co-operation between the various territories and sections of the company – especially when it comes to creative business, co-writes and productions realised as cross border initiatives.

Beutara Cameroon

Beutara Cameroon organised two writing workshops – one on November 24 in Douala and one on December 9 2023 at the Case des Arts in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Each workshop was attended by six participants and five experts/musicians : Peckey Power, Johannes Kraemmer and Arlene Nna. The one-day workshop focused on writing lyrics, learning music, musical notes and an introduction to music theory. Feedback from the participants suggested that they would like to see this type of workshop to be organised regularly and expanded over several days.

Moonbase Music

Poppin’ West Camp, which took place in Gothenburg, Sweden, from November 30 – December 2, featured 15 creators representing music publishers from various countries, including Japan (Soundgraphics), Finland (Elements Music), Germany (Meisel), Estonia (FAAR), and Sweden (Moonbase Music), along with two independent local writers. A highlight of the second day included a mingle and networking event, fostering connections among the creators. Subsequently, attendees had the opportunity to attend the local international music festival, Viva Sounds, at a discounted rate. Over the course of three days, the participants collaborated to produce 11 songs destined for the Asian music markets. The feedback received has been notably positive, and all insights will be carefully considered for future events.

Café Concerto

Café Concerto was involved with Freibank Music Publishing in a ‘Milano – Berlino’ international writing camp, which took place over two parts.

The first part of the writing camp, organised by Café Concerto, took place at the Quite, Please! Studio in Milan on 20 – 21 – 22 June 2023. A group of German writers, led by Freibank’s Mark Chung, were hosted at the Marriott Hotel, not far from the recording studio.

During the Milan camp, all the writers wrote in harmony with two artists from Cafè Concerto: Maninni and Ascanio. In total, seven compositions were written during this session.

The second part of the writing camp, organised by Freibank, took place at Loftyard Studios in Berlin on 26 – 28 September 2023. A group of Café Concerto writers, led by Laura Amata, were hosted at Hotel AMO by AMANO and Titanic Chausse Berlin.

During the three days, the writers followed the directions of Patricie Fuxovà, leader of the Vesna group. In total, five compositions were written during this session.

Everyone was very happy to have participated in this international experience. It was not only very productive on an artistic level, but also a very high-level human experience.

Steam Music Group

Steam Music Management and Publishing’s Head of Sync and Creative Tanya Timofeeva was able to travel to New York for a number of fruitful meetings from 24 October – 8 November 2023. There she was able to connect with industry peers and partners including Michelle Fantus (Songwriter & Publishing Relations, Spotify), Steven Matrick (Kepler Events), Constance Hauman (Isotipia Records), Mark Allen (music supervisor), Jon Mizrachi (Bodega Music), Jackie Palazzoio (Riot Games), Dan Burt (music supervisor), Laura Katz (Supetroop), Michelle Johnson (Sound Around Media), Samuel Diaz (Paramount+/ CBS), Megan Barbour (Buddha Jones) Angel Mendoza (AV Squad), Anita Grigore and Yvette Metoyer. During the trip, Timofeeva was able to discuss a range of useful topics including the sync market and new opportunities, co-publishing collaborations, the Steam catalogue, new artists and the Most Wanted Music Berlin conference.

Outcomes/Next Steps

IMPF will offer 15 grants worth 6000 Euro each available to its member companies in Creative Europe Countries* during 2024. This money is to help Members of IMPF who would like to engage in cross-border activities of either a creative or business development nature.

This report is available to download here below.

Summary

15 grants were made available this year to IMPF member companies in Creative Europe countries.

Activity

The key objective of the grants made available to IMPF members in European countries was to help independent publishers engage in cross-border activities of either a creative or business development nature, with a focus on supporting and nurturing the talent of emerging artists. The range of eligible activities was broad. As long as the activities had a cross-border dimension, they could be supported, and applications were open to composers as well as music publishing professionals. Activities could include attending or organising conferences, cross-border songwriting sessions and residencies, and developing capacity-building or networking workshops for music publishers. An open call for applications was sent to members in April of 2022.

Beneficiaries

15 applications were accepted for the Publisher Development Grants. The recipients were:

• Strictly Confidential Music Publishing (Belgium)
• Velvetica Music (France)
• K9 Music Publishing (Romania)
• Freibank Musikverlags und-Vermarktungs and CTM (Germany/NL)
• Guesstimate Publishing (Germany)
• GL Music Publishing (Denmark)
• Nordic Music Society (Denmark)
• Cosmos Music Publishing (Sweden)
• Ink Music (Austria)     
• Editions Bjorlund (Sweden)
• Lusitanian Music Publishing (Portugal)
• 22D Music Group (France)
• Elements Music OY (Finland)
• Roasting House (Sweden)
• FAAR MUSIC (Estonia)

Outcomes/Next Steps

Three WP3 events took place in October: the Nordic Music NMS event (see images here), and the Nordic Bridges song camp (see images here)– with four IMPF publishers using International Development Grants to attend the latter in Canada – as well as the Song writing Camp in Palma (see all images here) which was jointly organised by two members. One IMPF member also used grant funds to successfully host a songwriting camp and publishing network event in Austria in September. Report forms were sent to Grant recipients in December. A full list of completed activities will be available on the website once full reporting is completed.

This report is available to download here below.