"Get Going!" enters the second round
Last year, FONDATION SUISA awarded four kick-off grants under the title "Get Going!" for the first time to promote innovative creative approaches outside the usual pigeonholes. The call for entries will enter its second round at the end of June 2019.
"Instead of patting an artist on the back with an award after the fact, we are now investing more of the money available to us in the future," said Urs Schnell, Director of FONDATION SUISA, a year ago, explaining the new funding policy adopted by the Foundation Board. The aim is to promote rather than judge and "to focus more on the future".
No sooner said than done. The first call for applications for "Get Going!" resulted in over 90 applications. This huge interest in something completely new was simply overwhelming for him, says Schnell. "We really struck a chord with the times. We couldn't have expected it to this extent, as such an openly formulated call for applications was an innovative shot in the dark despite all the analysis."
Bertrand Denzler, Michael Künstle, Beat Gysin and the duo Eclecta (Andrina Bollinger and Marena Whitcher) were the first recipients of the "Get Going!" award. They were awarded CHF 25,000 each because they were able to convince the expert jury with their creative visions. As the start-up funding is not tied to a result, it allows the musicians to work free from financial and time pressure. "I believe that in an increasingly hectic environment, time has become a precious commodity that should not be underestimated," says Schnell, explaining one of the advantages of "Get Going!".
Call for applications "Get Going!" 2019 from the end of June
From the end of June, creators, authors and musicians who can demonstrate a clear connection to current Swiss or Liechtenstein music creation can once again apply for a "Get Going!" contribution. In 2019, four such start-up grants of CHF 25,000 each will be awarded by an expert jury.
It is also important to mention that "Get Going!" neither competes with nor affects FONDATION SUISA's other funding programs, in particular the current application system, existing partnerships, trade fairs and events abroad and classroom music-making.
"On the contrary," explains Schnell, "the new model is an important start-up aid that complements the previous funding. We want to identify new creative spaces and prevent certain projects from falling between a rock and a hard place in future."
Urs Schnell knows that the deliberately open wording of the "Get Going!" call for proposals could be a little confusing at first: "In recent decades, musicians have been conditioned by traditional funding instruments to think in terms of applications. Our aim with the new focus is to move towards the artists as a funding body in order to bring free creative thinking back into focus with this reversal." To demonstrate the possibilities of "Get Going!", portraits of the recipients of last year's "Get Going!" grants will therefore be published on the FONDATION SUISA website as well as on the SUISA blog over the next few weeks.
