Recently, a group of six from TAMK consisting of Timo Kivikangas, Harri Karvinen, Alvaro Moreno, Mark Malyshev, Titta Nevala, and myself attended the Eurosonic Noorderslag: The European Music Platform Conference/Festival that took place from the 14^th-17^th of January in Groningen, Netherlands.

Eurosonic is Europe’s largest showcase festival, taking place over a four day period starting on Wednesday and ending on Saturday.  It is part of The European Music Conference and Showcase Festival Eurosonic Noorderslag. Panels consisting of some of the music industry’s top figures, innovators, and creative entities. Throughout the festival, over 300 bands and acts perform on 36 stages in the city center of Groningen.

Upon arriving in the Netherlands, we were greeted with bleak, rainy weather, that by the end turned into a mixture of rain and snow. After settling in, getting our bearings, we set about creating a game plan as to how to make the most of this brilliant opportunity! This consisted preparing ourselves for the next day’s pitching session, marking to schedule the discussions and performances that we wished to see together as a group or as individuals.

The first order of business on the first day of the conference comprised of the team in cooperation Dutch students pitched songs to audience. These songs were created via collaboration between the students at Leeuwarden University and TAMK. The cooperation involved one week of songwriting, every day producing a song from one genre, partnerships switched on a daily base. This resulted in 25 demo songs of good quality. Seven songs were then chosen to be produced by a team in Finland, which resulted five of the songs being produced. 

The songs received positive feedback!!

“No music, no dance, no powwow!”- Owl Dance Records

After the pitching for the songs, Titta Nevala spoke about the creation of the record company labeled, Owl Dance Records which an indie record label founded in Tampere 2014. It enables students to get a catch of the record company world hands on. Owl Dances first release, a split vinyl filled with good house music will be released this spring.