Two new festivals are happening in Sweden during one weekend in August. Or they are both on their second year but are both creations from the pandemic and COVID.
25 of August is Norrköping Music Day in Norrköping, Sweden. It was invented during Covid last year and is a smaller version of Future Echoes that takes place in February 2023. Norrköping Music Day was last year two days and had 20 acts on two stages. This year it’s one day with 4 acts and 10 speakers on 4 panels. The purpose of Norrköping Music Day which is a free event is to teach and inform how a showcase festival works. Here you can easy start a network and learn what is important to do on a showcase festival. Talent Line-up TBD.
Lilla By Festivalen which happens 27 of August in Rinkaby just outside Kristianstad in Sweden is a product that Sweden opened up last summer and suddenly the craving for events was back. In two weeks’ notice the festival was set up. The event was so successful that they wanted to do it this year again. At the same time, they wanted to give back to the local community. After visiting Future Echoes Lilla By Festivalen teamed up with Norrköping Music Day and share speakers and artists. The focus of the festival is to teach the local music community how to network and follow their dreams by meeting global industry professionals in a smaller setting.
VIP Delegates and Panelists:
Jeff Bova (US)
Jeff is a Grammy Award-winning producer, arranger, and musician with hundreds of platinum and gold-selling records to his name. He won his Grammy for Album of the Year as a producer on Celine Dion’s, Falling Into You. During a career spanning over 40 years, he toured as a member of Herbie Hancock’s Rockit Band and has contributed to hundreds of recordings by significant mainstream artists, including Katy Perry, Michael Jackson, Celine Dion, Luther Vandross, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Robert Palmer, Billy Joel, Bee Gees, Backstreet Boys, Cher, Meat Loaf, Cyndi Lauper, Iron Maiden and many more. Jeff continues to produce, arrange and collaborate with new and exciting young artists. Inspired by his role in the ever-changing music business, he looks forward to more opportunities for creativity and collaboration.
Sandy Graham (CA)
Sandy Graham has had perhaps one of the most diverse and interesting careers in the Canadian Music Industry. Currently the Owner and Editor-In-Chief of Cashbox Canada as well as Founder and Managing partner of Record World International, the most recent addition to her CV is being the founder and co-owner of Cashbox Radio. Cashbox Radio is a popular online radio station that prides itself in playing the legendary artists right alongside the new indie artists releasing today. With over close to 40 years in the industry, Sandy Graham has been involved in many various aspects of the music business, and is a true trailblazer as well as a supporter of music and artists. She began in record retail, followed by holding the position of the 3rd female Music Director in Canada, and was known to break artists such as Shawn Phillips, Murray McLauchlan, Daryl Hall & John Oates, Ian Matthews, Jesse Colin Young amongst others. She was also one of the first women to be hired by a major label, holding the position of Eastern Promotions Manager for RCA Records in Montreal, Quebec which resulted in working and touring with the aforementioned Daryl Hall & John Oates, KC & the Sunshine Band, Natalie Cole, Tower of Power. For touring and management she has worked with the likes of Andy Kim, Chubby Checker, Tommy James and the Shondells, Gowan of Styx, John McDermott, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Terry Sylvester/The Hollies, Bobby Curtola, April Wine to name a few. Sandy Graham has owned various music venues in her career, including the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern and Route 66 and produced shows for The Tall Ships, Starlight Foundation, Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club, Variety Village, Earth Day 2021 with Tom Jackson. Aside from currently being a music journalist, musicologist and on air host, Sandy Graham is also a choreographer, having choreographed the first ever halftime show at the Sky Dome (Rogers Centre) Toronto’s 60,000 seat domed stadium. She also worked with Atlantis Films as a dance instructor and choreographer (Robocop, Almost Grown, Maniac Mansions-SCTV, David Chase/Sopranos, Joe Flaherty) and continues to teach dance to this day. Currently Sandy Graham tours globally on panels in various countries and is one of the partners in Entertainment Music Group (EMG CANADA) who focuses on promoting and providing mentoring and guidance to legendary and indie artists.
Boyan Robert Pinter (BG, US)
Boyan Robert Pinter – Born in Bulgaria, matured in America, enjoying himself responsibly over the world. He now splits his time between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Sofia, Bulgaria. Before establishing himself in Europe, Boyan was a touring musician in the US. Besides being a college- trained guitarist, he was the de facto logistics and business manager the bands he worked with. A keen linguist, he holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in Spanish and French from University of Houston, Texas. His continuing path in the music industry eventually led him to a Masters in Arts Administration from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. After moving to Bulgaria in 2010, Boyan was recruited to work on Live Nation productions such as Sting, Roxette, Depeche Mode, Aerosmith, Cirque Du Soleil, Roger Waters’ The Wall, Iron Maiden, the Scorpions, Hans Zimmer, Dream Theater, Steven Wilson, and Steve Hackett. Striking out on his own in 2017, Boyan expanded his roster by working with Sara Tavares, Morcheeba, Al Di Meola, Opeth, Katatonia, Nigel Kennedy, Laibach, flamenco wizard Edu Vico, and many others. Boyan is the founder of SPIKE – Bulgarian Music Showcase, Bulgaria’s first conference and showcase platform designed to fulfil the needs of the growing Bulgaria music industry for both developing and established artists. The second edition will take place during May25 – 27, 2023 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. As of 2022, Boyan is part of the Booking and Production team at the Green Futures field Glastonbury Festival. He is responsible for booking the first Bulgarian bands onto Glastonbury, along with bands from Poland, Sweden, and Ukraine. This year, as part of the festival’s mission to support the Ukrainian people, Boyan placed 2016 Eurovision Song Contest winner Jamala on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage for a performance with the band Dakha Brakha, which was televised by the BBC and widely covered by international media. Boyan’s management clients have performed at nearly every showcase festival around the world, have received funding for the recording of albums or shooting of music videos, and have obtained coveted US “O” visas, giving them the privilege of being able to perform (legally) in the US. Having completed his education in Law, Boyan is looking to qualify as a solicitor to specialize in the fields of Entertainment, Media, Intellectual Property, and Sport.
Vaidas Stackevičius (LT)
Co-founder and CEO of Lithuania based M.P.3 music agency (est. 2002), which operates as record label, concert agency and concert promoter. From 2015 co-founder and current director of Lithuanian Music Business Association, the organizer of annual music conference & showcase festival What's Next in Music?, which every September takes place in Vilnius.
Peter Astedt (SE)
Peter Åstedt has been working in the music industry for over 30 years. He started his own record label, Dead Frog Records, at the age of fifteen in 1990. Over the years he has started several companies in different fields in the music industry like PR, Publishing, Distribution, Sync placements, Management, Festivals, and Artist Development. Today he oversees several of the departments on Musichelp which is an umbrella company of different companies in the music industry. Peter has also been involved in working to structure cities to become music cities. He has worked with five of the top twenty most-streamed songs in the world. He writes the popular music blog that is also published in Cashbox Magazine Canada and Record World International. He is also part owner of Cashbox Radio an international online radio station. He is now a booker and curator on Sweden’s new showcase festival Future Echoes, Norrköping Music Day and a couple of more showcase festivals.
David Silbaugh (US)
David Silbaugh is best known as a Talent Buyer for Summerfest, “The World’s Largest Music Festival”, in Milwaukee, WI. The traditionally 11 day festival is moving to three, 3 day weekends in 2021, but will still book over 800 artists in nearly all genres, featuring international headlining artists as well as up-and-coming artists. He also produces the noted Emerging Artists Series for the festival. Silbaugh has served as an A&R Consultant for GMR Marketing as well, having previously spent 4 years in that role for Banshee Music under the GMR Marketing umbrella. Banshee Music was a “sonic branding” agency, creating custom music for sports teams, sporting events, and brands. In addition to Summerfest, he is currently curating a SXSW branded music library for APM Music. With a diverse background in music and the music business in general, David is a former Board Member, Secretary, and Vice President of the Chicago Chapter of The Recording Academy (GRAMMYs), is a voting member of The Recording Academy, and currently serves on The Recording Academy Advocacy Committee (Chicago/Midwest), the Board of Directors for Sing Me A Story, and the Advisory Board for FestForums.
Michelle Titian (CA)
As a founder of The Drive Foundation, a charitable foundation that helps and supports those afflicted by mental health and addiction through music, the arts and holistic recovery programs, Michelle holds a passion for helping others. Through life experience, incredible courage and raw talent, Michelle challenges the listener to believe in the person behind all the adversity and to tune into a world of fresh vocals and inspiring sounds. Creating from a place of self-awareness and pure consciousness,
Umong Shah (UK)
Umong started his music career after graduating from University of Hertfordshire with a degree in Music and entertainment Industry Management. Having played many roles Umong has been a musician (October Sky), Operations Manager (Awdio), Binaural Studio Installer (Jawbone) and Festival Curator (Summer Sizzler 2013 & 2014). Umong still co-promotes a new music showcase in Great Portland street called Discovery 2 (Discovery Talent). Umong has collected various accolades during his time in music for example, being noted as IQ magazine’s 2015 Top 10 New Bosses, and Music Week’s 30 under 30, “Best of the rest”. He regularly participates on panels at international renowned conferences such as The Great Escape, Live UK and Liverpool Sound City. For almost five years Umong had managed Elle Exxe. In that time, Elle has received international showcasing funding 3 times, to explore festivals and showcases in South Korean, North American and European markets. These international strategies helped market the release of her debut album ‘Love Fuelled Hate’ and was one of many reasons why Elle Exxe won ‘Best Female Solo Act’ at the inaugural Unsigned Music Awards, as well as sought critical acclaim from BBC Scotland, Rolling Stone, Q Magazine and more. Umong has now created a consulting division of Fortitude Music with an array of talented and inspiring customers, each needing specialist services to grow their career.
Björn Engelmann (SE)
Björn worked at Sveriges Radio late 70s to early 80s, then Polarstudio for a number of years with a lot of vinyl engraving. With that experience and knowledge, he eventually started at Cuttingroom.
Björn has extensive experience in all sound handling from everything regarding vinyl engraving, CD mastering and nowadays all streaming formats and even old music cassettes which are beginning to be in demand again.
Björn has worked with e.g. Britney Spears, Rammstein, ABBA, Backstreet Boys, Il Divo, Miriam Bryant, Zara Larsson, Tomas Ledin, Jill Johnson, Kent and Tove Lo to name just a few.
Amir Aly (SE)
Amir Aly started out as a singer and guitarist in the mid-1990s but eventually switched to producer and songwriter. In 1999 he started his own recording studio (YLA Studios in Malmö) where most of his productions are still made. In 2002, Amir began what would become a long-term collaboration with Jill Johnson and since then their recordings have led to, among other things, three platinum records, a Grammy, several songs on the Svensktoppen.
Amir produced three tracks on Eurovision Song Contest winner Alexander Rybak's album Fairytales. The following year, Rybak chose to place the entire production with YLA Studios.
Amir has also produced the album "Pieces" with the winner of Melodifestivalen 2013 Robin Stjernberg. The album sold gold on the first day.
Amir Aly has had eight entries in Melodifestivalen as creator and another two as producer.
Pelle Åberg (SE)
Pelle Åberg has worked full-time with the Sweden Rock festival for 17 years and participated since its inception in 1992. His role at the festival is Head of production or production manager in Swedish, responsible for, among other things, the layout of the festival area as well as everything that is built in the production.
In the years of the 90s, the work was close to the bands that came in smaller productions such as Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Mountain, Lynard Skynard, Blackfoot, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc. with whom he became close friends with several of them.
During the 2000s, the productions became larger such as. Kiss, Aerosmith, Rush, Guns 'n Roses and more. The festival currently has 5 stages and is booking young. 90 bands.
Peller has also started a rock/punk club, The Rock, in a free church in Sölvesborg, Sweden
Jonas Tancred /Malin Östh (SE)
aka Bara Jonson and Free, the creators of Lilla By Festivalen, became nominated ‘Best Emerging Artist – International’ at Indie Week Showcase Festival in Toronto, Canada (2019) then they were selected and announced INES#Talent 2020-21 .
They call their music Crockpop (Country/Rock/Pop)
Signed to a Canadian management company Entertainment Music Group (EMG) based on the attention garnered from their song ‘Hello Newfoundland’ which held a #1 position for 8 straight weeks on the international charts due to their extended Canadian fan base.
The duo has become a frequent feature on the live stages around Sweden. Their tours have also reached into Denmark, Holland, Germany, UK and Canada.
Bara Jonson and Free were excited to perform at the official MIDEM showcase at Morrison's in 2019.
2021 the performed at Musikhjälpen in Norrköping and returned as delegates and artists at Future Echoes, Norrköping 2022.
In 2021 they started Lilla By Festivalen in Rinkaby and 2022 sees the second year of the festival; this time in collaboration with Music Help and Future Echoes.
The evening will turn into the musical section of the festival, with 20 hand-picked acts performing on a large and smaller stages featuring:
A.L.E.K.S
ANTON SANDÉN
A TINY PROJECT
BARA JONSON AND FREE
CHRISTOFFER ZAAR
CIRQUE ARTÉ DIEM
DON GRAHAM
JOCKE & MATTE
LOVE BERGREN
MICHELLE TITIAN
MOTHER MERSY (yes correctly spelled!)
SOPKOMMISSIONEN
THE MAGNETTES
VERA KRONBÄCK
WATERHILL
WICKED WENDY
