Europe’s City Festival To Visit: Tallinn Music Week
Tallinn Music Week attracts dozens of aspiring and well-known musicians from all over the world.
The 11th edition of the new music and city culture festival Tallinn Music Week took place from 25th to 31st March 2019 in the cozy walkable area of North Tallinn, with the main landmarks being Telliskivi Creative City, Port Noblessner and the Estonian Academy of Art. Curated to channel “tomorrow’s music, arts and ideas”, the festival took extra care of uniting the most unique new artists from all over the world with all manner of genres from the edgiest sounds to chart pop, from dance beats to metal and from folk to contemporary classical represented.
Kirill Richter, Russian neoclassical star who performed at the festival, noted:
“Only unexpected combinations of music can be born out of this diversity, and that’s why we need it.”
Watch the official documentary by Vita Pictura here:
TMW was originally a platform for Estonian based musicians and entertainment industry professionals to connect and showcase their talents to the outside world. Now, the annual event has blossomed into an internationally-renowned gathering point for performers and professionals from several continents.
Vita Pictura’s lead producer Serj Rimma and director of photography Aleksei Kulikov have chosen the locations for the interviews carefully.
Serj Rimma remarked on the production process:
“We were given creative freedom to choose interview locations, which led to bringing the real atmosphere of Tallinn Music Week. This also provided us with a possibility to achieve different moods in each of the locations in Telliskivi district. We have prepared a set of question, but a lot of times Serj would try to have a usual conversation with the artists, in order to gain insights into their experiences and emotions.”
What makes Tallinn Music Week unique is that one can discover less-known and up-and-coming musicians and bands from any part of the word. Tallinn Music Week also serves as a trampoline for many of Estonian and foreign-based lesser-known artists.
One of this year’s participants, a Slovenian neo-soul band Wckd Nation added that “Bands that are not so well-known get the opportunity to present their music and to actually, you know, to make something of it.”
One of the main features of TMW is that one always finds surprising acts during the festival. In fact, this defines the Estonian music scene very well — a country of 1.3 million does produce a good amount of excellent musicians, unafraid to try new sounds and combinations.
In addition to the music festival, another main component of TMW was the conference, which brought together expert minds in music, technology, and business. It focused on music- and film-related topics, with talks on artistic pursuit and challenges of alternative futures. The discussions also examined the impact of creativity on the economy within diverse and gender-balanced expert panels. Such topics as meaningful cityscapes and sustainable development formed the basis for discussions around innovation-driven societies.
For the first time, TMW 2019 conference has been held in the brand new building of the Academy of Arts (EKA) in the Kalamaja district, the vibrant new cultural centre of North Tallinn.
Mentoring sessions, a tech-savvy chat with Startup Estonia and e-Residency, lectures on the music scenes of Estonia, Russia, and Japan, as well as Q&A panels, peppered the robust conference schedule. Press and delegates also had the chance to partake in tours that highlighted Tallinn’s publicly available art forms, including street art, architecture, and museums.
Vita Pictura’s director and chief editor Georgius Misjura commented on the process of the production from the director’s point of view:
“This project has started initially as an aftermovie, but after researching and contacting artists, it became clear that it is not going to be a standard aftermovie due to the musical diversity of TMW, therefore this approach was not going to work here. We decided to do the interviews and they turned out to be a game changer for our format of the video. We had turned this video into a hybrid between documentary and an aftermovie, and TMW musicians helped us by giving their honest answers. I consider us fortunate to be a TMW partner and I enjoy to watch this event grow internationally!”
The twelfth edition of TMW is scheduled to take place on 26–30 August 2020, due to the current situation. The Creative Impact conference is scheduled for 28–29 August. We will keep you updated in case of any further changes in the schedule.
TMW’s side events will cover art, design, public talks, and various urban space activities throughout the duration of the festival.
Click here to find out more about Vita Pictura.
Original article written by Roman Pototski
