Record number of artists to perform at Tallinn Music Week

  • 2013-03-20
  • By TBT Staff

MYSTICAL SOUNDS: Namgar, the Buryat star will bring the mysteries of Mongolian and Buryatian traditional music to this year’s festival.

TALLINN - In the beginning of April Tallinn will buzz with festival excitement while 30 music venues will fill up with music fans and 233 artists from 20 countries. Good music and good food being a match made in heaven, this year’s festival has hand-picked a selection of the town’s best restaurants and eateries that offer special menus and discounts to festival guests. Festival goers will have a chance to visit 16 restaurants over 3 afternoons, just before hitting the music clubs.

Tallinn Music Week [TMW] that has grown into one of the biggest indoor festivals in the Baltic region, spans diverse musical styles and genres, having developed dedicated programs for classical music, contemporary composition, folk and jazz and the whole spectrum that popular music has to offer.

International highlights this year include the dream pop sensation “Me and My Drummer” from Berlin, playful electronic visionaries “Rangleklods” from Denmark and the all-girl electro punk attack “LCMDF” from Finland. As international interest for the festival has grown significantly, so has the number of countries represented in the program. The artist line-up is proud of the Iberi Choir from Georgia, graffiti artists and dub step stars “3421” from Israel, Belarus’ art rock trio “Folkmashina” and the Spanish trumpeter Adan Delgado Illada. And last but not least, Namgar will bring over the mysteries of Mongolian and Buryatian traditional music.

Finland is represented widely at this year’s TMW with 26 artists in the program; Russia and Lithuania have strong line-ups with 6 artists from each country. Denmark and UK follow with 5. Estonia is represented by 165 versatile acts from all genres and subgenres.

This year the festival has also teamed up with the annual world-travelling series of music workshops for DJ-s, vocalists and music enthusiasts, the Red Bull Music Academy, celebrating its 15th birthday at Tallinn Music Week. Their showcase will present Estonian artists who have participated in the Academy’s international events throughout the years, and also the drum’n’bass and breakstep legend DJ Zinc from UK.
The festival’s City Stage program will take new music to unexpected locations and venues in the city – book shops, galleries, record stores, cafes, design studios, hotel bars and elsewhere –, offering free of charge daytime concerts by selected TMW artists.

As a new initiative in TMW, started out in 2012, has partnered up with internationally recognized Estonian start-up product development boot camp Garage48 to explore the topic of innovative music products and services in depth. Within 48 intense hours teams of software developers to designers, marketing, sales and entrepreneurship professionals will turn an idea into a working service or prototype. The best projects will be selected for a pitching session at TMW conference to an international jury of specialists and potential investors.

On its 5th birthday TMW has also launched a brand new festival edition: TMW restaurants’ showcase “TMW Tastes”! From April 4-6 a selection of 16 hand-picked restaurants will offer special afternoon tasting menus and discounts to festival pass holders. So, before hitting the clubs, festival goers can try the best culinary achievements Tallinn has to offer.

Adam Harper from Wire Magazine wrote: “Tallinn Music Week has proven that a country as small as Estonia punches well above its weight in terms of musical talent. The degree of technical ability and polish shown, across many different genres, both live and on record, was very impressive. What’s more, Tallinn’s musical community is warm, well informed and enthusiastic. /.../ TMW was a thought-provoking window on music-making culture not just in and around Estonia, but as regards the rest of the world too.”

Tallinn Music Week will be held from April 4 – 6.
Additional information on the event, its program, venues and tickets can be found at: www.tallinnmusicweek.ee