Arts and culture have always been at the forefront of systemic change, advancing efforts to promote
inclusion and creating economic and racial justice (Linares and Woolard, 2021) and the UN General
Assembly declared 2021 as the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development in honour of its important role in local development. Despite the great contribution of the arts to sustainable development, sectors such as music require effective solutions to ensure their resilience as the existing vulnerabilities of the music sector have been further exacerbated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is an issue of concern to music professionals across Europe who are focusing their efforts on conducting research and offering solutions: The EU SMART Composer European report (2021) reveals that the main skills that the music sector needs nowadays are those related to entrepreneurship, working with others and spotting opportunities and the 2021 Cultur COOP Music report reveals that 87,5% of rural professional musicians think that cooperation is the key for music sector development and the 100% wants to know more about cooperatives. The need analysis of the sector reveals that music sector need a just and resilient recovery and cooperation is the key for music sector recovery and to keep providing positive impact in local development.
Defining a new professional role
The social cooperative working with Creative Industries and Social and Solidarity Economy to provide positive impact in European rural areas Wazo Coop is developing the European project Music4Coop to strengthen the cooperative mindset in the European music sector for local development and define a new professional role in music: The European music cooperator.
European music cooperators are music professionals working in conjunction with community-level stakeholders for the promotion of a common end of sustainable development of rural, low populated and remote areas of Europe. These music professionals can be composers, performers, educators, cultural managers… who develop their professional career in public and private music institutions, cultural organizations, independiently, civil society organizations… but the main legal entity for European music cooperators will be worker cooperatives: which are jointly owned and democratically managed organisations that provide inclusive and quality jobs.
European music cooperators are expected to generate synergies with community-level stakeholders: civil society organisations, local authorities, local business, community workers, schools… aiming to support the sustainable development of their territories (specially rural, low populated and remote areas of Europe) and by means of music and creativity.
This new professional role follows Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) principles which is an ethical approach to economic development based in cooperation that prioritises the welfare of people and planet fostering diversity, gender equality, social cohesion…
European music cooperator is a new professional profile and music workers are welcomed to upgrade their professional profile such us composers, performers, educators, cultural managers… who develop their professional career in public and private music institutions (orchestras, conservatories, SMEs, universities…) and independently (freelancers, other cultural related activities…) established in the EU Member States.
Opportunities to became European music cooperator
Music4Coop is a project by Wazo Coop to strengthen the cooperative mindset in the European music sector for local development and it is developing an innovative upskilling experience to enable music professionals to gain new skills in cooperation and Social and Solidarity Economy to allow sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work in the music sector.
Very soon a call for aspiring European music cooperators will be realeased to participate in an unforgeattable capacity building experience in rural Spain. Stay tuned for more details about how you can be a part of it and contribute your unique perspective to this exciting project. We believe this call will offer an amazing opportunity for all those interested in getting involved and making a difference. So don’t miss out on this chance to join in on the conversation and help shape the future! Keep an eye out for more information coming your way very soon!
