As one of the stops for us this summer, Hangvető was honored and happy to participate at Czech Music Crossroads organized by the team of Colours of Ostrava, the legendary Central European music festival that maes the remains of the Vítkovice steel mill lively again.

This year due to international restrictions, the Ostrava crew decided to keep the professional hub and networking events and bring Czech, Slovak and Polish artists for three days of showcases. The likes of Radek Baborák & Orquestrina playing the oeuvre of Piazzolla, legendary Gypsy bannd Pokošovci, or the overwhelmingly talented Hrubá hudba played, combined with fresh formations and modern sounds represented by the noise-world-rock of Ciśnienie, the artistic and dark one-woman cello performance of Resina, or the almost divine sounds of Beata Hlavenkova supported by Oskar Török, suprisingly on the drums.

Apart from the wonderful showcases, invited experts participated in Czech and English language panel discussions focusing on the positives and the technical, hands-on details of the pandemic year. As Juliana Voloź said on one of the panels, such events are extremely important in keeping the faith, in keeping the relationships going, as we all need to persist and continue against all odds.

MOST Music was also represented on a panel titled “Pandemic success stories” by our communication team member, Ella Csarnó from Hangvető. Ella emphasized that during times like these it is extremely important to keep organizing workshops, talent programmes and networking opportunities for music industry participants. Programmes such as MOST Music are able to keep artists, managers and festivals afloat in times when no other support is provided or when support in unevenly distributed between industry members, as is the case in many European countries.

That is why MOST Music is making even more effort for recruitment for the second year of the four-year programme: we are acutely aware of how important such opportunities are in the current state of the music industry, and how crucial it is to keep building networks and connections between the talent of the Balkans and the rest of Europe.

Photos by Czech Music Crossroads.