Pop music festival m4music 2014
The 17th edition of the Migros Culture Percentage pop music festival m4music will take place from March 27 to 29 in Zurich and Lausanne. Over 50 bands will be performing. 825 up-and-coming Swiss bands registered for this year's Demotape Clinic. "Berlin" is the focus of the conference.
It will be opened m4music on Thursday, March 27, in Lausanne. For the first time, exclusive showcases by Blood Red Shoes (UK), Rootwords (CH/GE), Nadine Carina (CH/TI) and Wolfman (CH/ZH) will be broadcast live from Studio 15 of RTS on Couleur 3 and SRF Virus. The Best Swiss Video Clip award ceremony will take place in the afternoon. The industry will discuss music promotion in Switzerland with representatives of the newly emerging indie label association.
New stage with free concerts on the Schiffbauplatz
m4music moves its headquarters to Zurich's Schiffbau on March 28 and 29. Thanks to the new open-air stage on the Schiffbauplatz, around 50 bands will be performing in Zurich this year instead of the previous 40 or so acts. These include up-and-coming Swiss bands such as Milchmaa (CH/GR), Jeans for Jesus (CH/BE), Adieu Gary Cooper (CH/VD) and Ekat Bork (CH/TI). The free concerts will begin on Friday afternoon, March 28, from 2.15 pm. m4music festival director Philipp Schnyder von Wartensee is delighted about the new open-air stage: "We are thus offering another platform to strong up-and-coming Swiss bands. Conversely, the audience can listen to new bands in the afternoon - an ideal addition to the free conference and demo tape clinic program."
Diedrich Diederichsen and Daniel Miller discuss at the conference
This year's conference will cover the top topics of the music industry in workshops, panel discussions and keynotes. The thematic focus will be on Berlin: emigrated Swiss artists such as Tobias Jundt (Bonaparte) and Stefan Rusconi (Rusconi Trio) will discuss whether Berlin is the new Swiss music capital. Diedrich Diederichsen, former editor of "Spex", the magazine for pop culture, talks to publicist Max Dax about his book "Über Pop-Musik", which will be published at the beginning of March. Daniel Miller, founder of Mute Records (Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk and many more), is interviewed by presenter Markus Kavka.
Marc Sway and Steff la Cheffe rate the songs of tomorrow's artists
The Demotape Clinic is Switzerland's most important competition for up-and-coming musicians. In this edition, 825 demos were submitted, compared to 777 in 2013. The jury, consisting of industry professionals and musicians such as Steff la Cheffe, Marc Sway and José Moreno, music editor and critic for Radio Couleur 3, comments on a selection of them in public. In order to give the best Swiss talents the best possible start to their careers, the Fondation Suisa presents four awards in the categories pop, rock, urban and electronic with prize money totaling CHF 17,000.
Further information and detailed program: www.m4music.ch
