Opening speech by Elin Heinesen, Managing Director of SamVit – Faroe Islands Enterprise

Gøta 19 July 2008

Dear guests – speakers at this mini conference, musicians, managers, journalists and of course the Minister of Trade and Industry, Bjørt Samuelsen

Firstly, I want to wish you a very warm welcome. Because some of you don’t understand Faroese, I have decided to let this opening speech be in English. I hope everybody understands English. I am very glad to see you all here at this important event for Faroese Music, where we will be talking about Faroese Music in terms of music as a business opportunity.

A kind of independent alternative Faroese rock sound seems to have emerged in recent years. I am not quite able to describe it, but it seems to attract international audiences in growing numbers. We hear people say it all the time: The Faroe Islands present a special sound and at the same time a music scene with an impressive diversity of genres. Faroese music artists of various kinds are also ready to take on the international scene, but what would help them make the leap? Is the support from their own people, public authorities, organisations and media enough? And is the international music industry ready to discover and appreciate the Faroese sound? These are very interesting questions.

Well, we in SamVit – Faroe Islands Enterprise, of which I am the managing director, do indeed regard music as very important in many different aspects – as an important part of Faroese identity, of our brand as a nation and as a business opportunity. It is part of SamVit - Faroe Islands Enterprise’s main function to encourage innovation and enterprise – and that includes encouraging a growing music business on the Faroe Islands. It also corresponds with our other aims: to advance and develop Faroese trade and industry – and in cooperation with other organisations and institutions to coordinate procedures which can benefit trade and industry (including the music industry), and to market Faroese products and services as well as the Faroe Islands themselves as a business and investment opportunity.

And last but not least, our aim is to advance and develop tourism in the Faroe Islands and market the Faroe Islands as a tourist destination.

Yet, I will focus on music business here. There has been a change in recent years in the perception of music from an investment perspective, although one could say that few companies put big money into music in order to get a “return” in the traditional financial way. Rather, they see it as a way of “nurturing” the wishes and needs of their younger target audiences, and in return they hope to gain the trust of these groups and establish their companies’ brands in the minds of these audiences.

The fact that Faroese acts get more international exposure is a sign to everybody that the Faroe Islands may benefit from music as much as from any other “products”. I have also noticed that the trust in our own abilities to initiate, organise and manage music has grown as a result of festivals such as the G! festival, the AME festival (Atlantic Music Event) and the Summarfestival in Klaksvík. Once Faroese companies and investors are presented with ambitious and talented organizers, along with a great and thriving local music scene, they are of course more willing to put their money into it. This is what we are witnessing at the moment.

My organisation, which was the Trade Council – now called SamVit, Faroe Islands Enterprise – has in many different ways supported the Faroese music scene for a long time, but since 2005 it has become a much higher priority. We started out with a research project analyzing the status quo of the Faroese Music scene at the time and with some proposals to what to do about it in the future. Since 2005, Faroe Islands Enterprise has allocated approximately half a million DKK a year to support music business development in various ways. And that is an extensive piece of the total budget of only a few million DKK.

In 2006 SamVit - Faroe Islands Enterprise devised a strategy for promoting Faroese music overseas. This included staging a marketing project and showcase event in London with the aim to introduce Faroese designers and musicians to British decision-makers in the fashion and music industries. The event was called Funky Faroe Islands. The strategy also included financing and co-arranging AME and providing some financial and other support to the G! Festival. We also have a stand at the bi-annual MIDEM exhibition – and we participate in various other music festivals and exhibitions in Europe, such as Eurosonic in the Netherlands and Great Escapes in Scotland.

Last year we were involved in financing and co-arranging AME again and we were the main sponsors of a CD feature of the British music magazine for the international music industry Music Week, and this year we were among the organizers and sponsors of Atlantic Soundscapes in Brussels.

There are different ways of supporting music – and I think it is difficult to point out one institution or organisation in particular, which has been the most prominent in supporting Faroese music. Rather, the development on the music scene is a combination of several things that have happened over the past 20-30 years or longer.

The publisher Tutl was established in 1977 as a direct consequence of the activities in Havnar Jazzfelag – the local jazz club which was very active at the time – also initiated by Kristian Blak, the director of Tutl. Tutl has played a major role in documenting Faroese music and giving the musicians a chance to record and publish their music – thus making it accessible to a larger Faroese audience. This has later been expanded to include an international audience through for example their online outlet. But Tutl also acts as a promoter of records and live acts, and has been successful in building networks abroad.

The Faroese Music School under the Ministry of Culture and the local Councils was established in the mid-1980s and has played a major role in the training and education of musicians while providing a vibrant and creative environment for young musicians.

The Nordic House started its activities in 1983 and has been important to the Faroese music scene in terms of benchmarking – by this I mean that it brought in Nordic, European and International acts and made the world “bigger”. This provided a different perspective to

the Faroese musicians – along with the influence from television, not least MTV.

The Nordic House hosted the Jazz, Folk and Blues Festival for many years and has organised and hosted Prix Føroyar, which was a contest between bands or acts with original material, and the Atlantic Music Event, which promotes Faroese and Nordic acts to industry people abroad.

The Faroese Entertainment Music Association (FUT). FUT has been involved with several local music events, including Prix Føroyar and AME. FUT has undergone some changes recently and is now being relaunched or rebranded as FUTT.

And then the festivals: Summartónar (with classical/contemporary/crossover music), the G! Festival and the Summarfestival in Klaksvík have also been very important in developing and supporting the Faroese music scene.

Over the past 3-4 years my organisation - SamVit - has focused on music and creative industries in general and is now one of the key players in promoting Faroese music abroad by coordinating and promoting events, participating at trade exhibitions etc. – often in cooperation with the Faroese Representations abroad – such as the one in Brussels, in Copenhagen, in London and in Reykjavík.

There is a stronger sense of working together now than ever before. So together with the other parties, we in SamVit are now working on a long-term strategy for export of Faroese Music. There has been active work towards that over the last years.

The latest result of this work is a survey that was made to gather information and experiences from important people in the Faroese music scene – especially in regard to music export - such as music managers and other people working directly with Faroese music export. The result of the survey forms the basis in the proposal which will be handed to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Bjørt Samuelsen, today.

We will get back to that later today. The agenda for today is that Anna Hildur, director of the IMX, the Icelandic Music Export Office will have a presentation with the title: What does a Music Export Office do? Then Birita Nolsø, project manager at SamVit, will present the results of the survey that I mentioned earlier in my speech. After that, Anna Hildur will interview David Balfour, contributing editor on “Record of the Day” and director of Finetunes about the English music market. Then we will have a short break, and after the break Kristian Riis, director of Volcano Management, and former director of MXD, the Danish Music Export Office, will have a presentation with the title: “What does a Music Manager do?” And last but not least we will have a discussion which you people in the audience are very welcome to participate in.

So… I hereby declare this conference open. Thank you very much for listening.

(End of Opening Speech)

……………………………
(Speech in connection with the handover of the proposal):

Dear Minister of Trade and Industry, Bjørt Samuelsen.

I will hereby hand over a proposal from my organisation, SamVit – Faroe Islands Enterprise, about Faroese Music Export. Birita Nolsø from SamVit has been the project manager on this project. To our foreign guests I can inform you that the proposal is only in Faroese

right now but will be translated so you can acquire a copy later. If you would like a copy, please ask Birita to add your name to her list.

The main point in the proposal is the importance of establishing a Music Export Office, probably combined with a Music Information Centre, here in the Faroe Islands as soon as possible, because, as it is, nobody solves or takes on many of the important, even crucial, responsibilities and assignments which would be an obvious part of the work of such a Music Export Office – just as in similar offices in most other countries.

A Music Export Office would have more means and can make a much greater impact when promoting Faroese music abroad than Faroese musicians can by themselves one by one. If we want to benefit from Faroese Music as a product and make a solid business out of it, it requires a joint concerted effort. A Music Export Office would be the obvious place for everybody interested in Music Export to link together and network, and the office would also play a very important role as the presenter of Faroese Music as a whole to the rest of the world. But of course, the establishment of such an office requires political will to finance the project. And that is why we now hand over the proposal with the arguments in detail to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Bjørt Samuelsen, today.

Here you are, Minister.

(End of Speech)

Additional information about the Faroese music scene
There’s no doubt that in such a small community as ours the feeling of “if they can – we can” maybe is much stronger here than in other, larger communities. There is a strong feeling now that local acts are just as good as the ones we listen to abroad.

What is lacking in furthering the music scene even more is the infrastructure or rather the lack of one. There is a need for managers, promoters and publishers etc. – all these individuals and small companies or establishments who take the music further and promote it towards “the rest of the world”.

This is also changing: we see young people travelling abroad to study management and promotion etc. Confidence in the acts is definitely growing. There is a market for all kinds of music, it’s just a matter of finding your audience out there, and in this respect MySpace has been very important to Faroese musicians to promote themselves toward their particular target or core audiences. Every single Faroese band or act has its MySpace page and uses it a lot. On the internet everybody is equal and that certainly is an advantage for a small country like ours.

Iceland, I think, has been a role model when it comes to the production of progressive music, perhaps not so much when it comes

to business models. As far as we know they do not have strong public support for music, maybe even less than here in the Faroe Islands. But Iceland has, by the way, been an important second market to Faroese music not least after Eivør broke there along with Denmark.

So it is almost like an extended home market.

Iceland Airwaves and a support scheme for touring, called Loftbrú (travel bridge), have been an inspiration. We are working on establishing that on the Faroe Islands as well so that our musicians can travel abroad back and forth less costly.

We have also been looking at Sweden as a good role model for the more mainstream pop music, but then again, they do not support music publicly (pop, rock etc.) as much as for instance Denmark or Norway, but on the other hand Sweden has well-established education and training for musicians.

And both Sweden and Iceland have fantastic international acts that have led the way for many others. In terms of good “business” models (as a public effort) maybe Denmark is a good role model. Finnish music industry is probably as good – if not better than the Danish and Norwegian. Public and national authorities there are focusing a lot on music – especially in supporting bands touring - and a lot of their bands have broken through in recent years.

The results are quite evident: ten years ago one could point out one international Danish band, Aqua, but then nothing happened for many

years. Now there are tons of Danish bands out there. Publicly they have established many different support schemes; to live venues (and the support goes also to paying the musicians), to marketing, to tours, to rehearsal rooms, to CD/audio production etc.

The driving force on the music scene are of course the musicians themselves though…. The fact that Teitur, Clickhaze, Eivør and Týr quit their day jobs and went for a music career without a safety net (that is getting an education first or having a civil career at the same time) – just throwing themselves into the mercy of life as aspiring professional artists – has maybe been one of the most significant developments in the Faroese scene. This acted as role model for other artists as well and changed the way the whole conception of being a musical artist in the Faroes.

Before, bands used to be cool if they were good at playing cover songs. The G! festival and the association behind called Grót and the artists connected to that environment, together with Prix Føroyar and TUTL changed that and made the concept of "being who you are" and creating and playing your own material the only measurement for success.

By leaving out the cover bands and putting the new and original bands on the programme, as well as taking part in public debates about these things, they played a major role in this change of values. But we still do have a lot to achieve. We still have a public television which does not broadcast Faroese music – or Faroese music videos. The public radio station has no stated goals of supporting new talent etc.... There are so many things to do; the battle has just begun really.

Right now our strategic focus is to create events that have the possibility to attract the attention of the media and music business abroad – such as Atlantic Soundscapes in Brussels. You could say that we are trying to create success stories to build the further development of the music scene on, so we can get more and more people involved in playing, training, educating, promoting Faroese music and get companies to invest in the music business – and slowly build up a more lucrative music industry in the Faroe Islands.

I hope that we will succeed in this – and I hope that you guys have had a good time here with some exciting experiences – also music wise – so you can go home now with a deeper sense of what the Faroe Islands is about - and what the Faroese music scene has to offer – and hopefully you have seen and heard musical quality here that deserves a broader audience, so you will be willing to help us promote it out there.

……………………………..
 
Main radio and TV stations, the main magazines, the venues, the promotional companies, other festivals in the Faroe Islands

Kringvarp Føroya (www.kringvarp.fo) is the main and national public broadcasting company. It consists of Útvarp Føroya (Faroese Radio) and Sjónvarp Føroya (Faroese TV). 

Rás 2 is a private radio station (www.ras2.fo).

Lindin is a christian community radio channel (www.lindin.fo).

G! Music/G! Festival promotion company/festival (www.gfestival.com )

Five Star Entertainment – promoter (www.fivestar.fo)

Summarfestivalur - festival (www.summarfestivalur.fo).

TUTL - record company. (www.tutl.com)

AME. The Nordic House (www.nlh.fo)

Sosialurin - newspaper (www.sosialurin.fo) or the online edition (www.portal.fo and www.planet.fo) - pop music portal owned by the newspaper Sosialurin.

Dimmalætting – newspaper (www.dimma.fo).

FACTS:

SamVit - Faroe Islands Enterprise
Faroe Islands Enterprise is a public organisation, which is to carry out the chosen national policy regarding trade and industry. Main functions: to encourage innovation and enterprise, to advance and develop Faroese trade and industry, and to market Faroese products and services as well as the Faroe Islands themselves as a business and investment opportunity. And, furthermore, to advance and develop tourism in the Faroe Islands and market the Faroe Islands as a tourist destination. www.samvit.fo, www.trade.fo and www.tourist.fo – and www.faroeislands.com or www.visitfaroeislands.com  

AME
AME (Atlantic Music Event) is a Nordic showcase with the main purpose of promoting Nordic rhythmic music by arranging Faroese/Nordic concerts and shows of high quality. AME wants to give artists the opportunity to show the world what the Faroese and Nordic music scenes have to offer. The aim is to raise international awareness of Faroese and Nordic music. AME is a collaboration between the Nordic House in Tórshavn, the Faroese Islands Enterprise and the record Company Tutl. www.ame.fo

G! Festival:
Surrounded by the picturesque seaside village of Gøta and the soaring emerald green mountains beyond, G! Festival has a fantastic setting right on the beach. Nearly one-fifth of the entire Faroese population participates together with an increasing number of visitors from abroad. In 2005, Jón Tyril, founder and chairman of G! Festival received the M.A. Jacobsen Distinguished Prize for Cultural Achievement for his work with G! Festival. The selection jury said: “G! Festival brings together leading international and local musicians for a musical extravaganza against the splendid backdrop of the ancient seaside village of Gøta. … G! Festival provides a totally new setting for the advancement of Faroese culture and the sense of fellowship and community that is the country's heritage.” www.gfestival.com

Nordic House:
The Nordic House’s aim is to support and promote Nordic and Faroese culture, locally and in the Nordic region. The Nordic House is organised as a cultural organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers, subsidising with 92% of the annual budget, and the Faroese government providing the remaining 8%. www.nlh.fo

TUTL:
The publisher Tutl was established in 1977 as direct consequence of the activities in Havnar Jazzfelag – the local jazz club which was very active at the time – also initiated by Kristian Blak, the director of Tutl. Tutl has played a major role not only in documenting the music and giving the musicians a chance to record and publish their music making it accessible to a larger Faroese audience, and later also an international audience through their online outlet, but also as a promoter of records and live acts, and building networks abroad. www.tutl.com