Going Public: Putting Together a Promotion Plan that Works

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MCV's Lasse Franck was in (digital) place when the Riksting for Western art music was held on 23 March. It was a very eventful morning whose cultural-political ingredients were highly relevant to all musical genres - not just to art music. One of these ingredients was the Music Center's survey.

Susanne Rydén, preses i Kungl. The Academy of Music and CEO of Music in the South, began by telling about the initiative Singing children. She declared the National Agency for Education incapable of considering aesthetic subjects as areas of knowledge - aesthetic subjects no longer give credit points at upper secondary school level and it is now proposed that the student's choice should be removed from the compulsory school curriculum. In addition, the positive influence of music is not used in other subjects, even though research clearly shows that it promotes brain development and learning.
- How many studies on the positive impact of classical music on study peace and concentration need to be presented before we trust the results? Should we not take the signals seriously when higher education institutions such as the Stockholm School of Economics initiate courses in aesthetic areas to promote creativity - precisely because the students are not equipped with this in their previous schooling, Rydén asked.

Research and principals can promote music education
In the ensuing discussion, the moderates' education policy spokesperson pressed Kristina Axén Olin that the music lessons are few in comparison with other subjects and that we in Sweden have fewer lessons than in, for example, Denmark. She also believes that there are all opportunities to create good conditions for music teaching even if the student's choice should disappear and that it is largely up to each school's management and principal.
The Social Democratic chairman of the Education Committee Gunilla Swanstorp noted that many music teachers are worried about their services and think that politicians listen too little to research.
Axén Olin and Svanstorp agreed that research results and good examples need to be made visible and disseminated before Rydén concluded with the hope that a significant part of the country's principals will be present the next time the matter is discussed.

The cultural journalist, the musician and the music teacher Sofia Lilly Jönsson read his written and much appreciated speech You are the song. About the song as an emergency.

Can the live wind music live?
Noomi Hedlund gave a speech about the future of wind music, which began with a look back where she stated that it had been threatened for a long time, that warning signals and alarm reports had been heeded, but that the negative development still seemed to continue. 50 years ago there were more than 30 professional wind ensembles - today there are only nine.
- If nothing is done now, we risk going to an increasingly quieter, grayer and more and more digital society where some wind instruments are only left in archives from a bygone era, said Noomi, whose speech can be read in full here.

Music life after the pandemic
Svensk Scenkonst's CEO Mikael Brännvall talked about life after the pandemic and expressed optimism about the audience's return to the scenes. He does not believe that there is any risk that the consumption behavior forced by the pandemic - where we experience most things through screens - will continue. However, he expressed concern about the performers and took up the Music Center's survey which shows that every third musician is considering leaving the profession. He was also concerned that children and young people have now missed half of the school stage's encounters with culture.
Brännvall further stated that there is a lot of talk about what music and music life now needs to get from the state and said that it is equally important to turn it around and ask the question what music can give society when it is to recover.

United cultural politicians self-critical
The cultural policy spokespersons for all parliamentary parties then participated in a panel discussion, exemplified by Noomi Hedlund. The members of the Culture Committee show great agreement across party lines and seem to agree that the current situation has highlighted shortcomings in the social insurance system that must be remedied and created new pressure for it to work for combiners as well. As well as that they must do more to increase security for free actors - for example through investments in the center formations and cultural alliances.
Lawen Redar (S) stated that scholarships are not sickness benefit qualifying. But maybe they should be?

Christopher Nylander (L) said that the restart investigation must be offensive and followed up properly. Viktor Wernick (M) took the opportunity to mention the proposal for a 70% cost coverage for canceled events that his party raised and which the week after the Riksdag was presented by the government.
Everyone was also worried that fewer people were applying to the music academies' educations.
- It is not a cultural or educational policy issue - it is a societal issue, said Nylander who also claimed that digitalisation is admittedly necessary but not the solution to much or the future of Swedish culture.
While politicians now realize that they need to improve support and security systems, and adapt them to the conditions of cultural workers, they believe that cultural life itself also has lessons to be learned - for example about how to contract each other.

Riksting for Western art music is arranged by Kungl. The Academy of Music in collaboration with the King. The Academy of Music and Swedish Performing Arts.