Future Leaders: Keychange announces a new 2022 cohort of 76 artist and innovator participants from 12 countries to lead the global movement for gender equality in music. Check out who are the Italian ones!
About Keychange
Keychange is a pioneering international initiative which is transforming the future of music. By encouraging festivals and music organizations to pledge to have at least 50% women and minority genders in their programming, staffing, and beyond, Keychange is creating a more gender representative, and more inclusive music industry for present and future generations. It is led by Reeperbahn Festival, PRS Foundation and Musikcentrum Öst, supported by the Creative Europe program of the European Union.
Alongside the Keychange Pledge, the Keychange Talent Development Program unites 76 emerging artists and innovators from Europe and Canada each year, to take part in international festivals, showcase events, collaborations, and a program of creative labs.
Keychange Talent Development Programme 2022
Launching with a digital kick-off on February 16th – 18th 2022, this extensive program aims to equip the 76 women and gender minority participants with the skills, resources, and opportunities needed to fast track them to the next stage in their career.
Alongside the full network meet-ups, participants will take part in Creative Labs at the 13 festivals that are partnered with Keychange in Europe and Canada. The Creative Labs will take the form of workshops, seminars, studio sessions, masterclasses and more. In addition to these opportunities, the program’s artists will take part in international showcases. Meanwhile, innovators will be invited to international music conferences and each participant will benefit from a mentoring scheme created in collaboration with shesaid.so.
Italian participants at Keychange 2022
Here are the three brilliant Italian artists selected for Keychange 2022:
Anna Bassy
Italian-Nigerian singer-songwriter, Anna Bassy is one of the most interesting emerging talents in the Italian new soul scene. Her actual project includes a full band line-up. They have brought new life to the arrangements, making them more intense and sophisticated without losing their delicacy. Also, she blends African roots with soul, pop, electronic, and folk influences. Since the presentation of the project in 2019, Anna has continued to pursue opportunities to perform her songs live, as a fundamental way to express herself. Her debut EP Monsters, released in October 2021, is a journey through fear in its various forms, but also an appeal, an exhortation, a cry for help.
Being selected for the Keychange Program has made me very happy. I feel like it’s a big step for both my artistic and professional life. I see it as an opportunity to enhance my knowledge, connect with professionals and other creatives, and widen my understanding of the music business. It will also allow me to be challenged and supported at the same time. Maybe the best combination for empowerment.
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Arya
Arya is an Italo-Venezuelan singer and songwriter. She began working on her solo project in 2018, when she started her collaboration with Atelier 71, an independent collective and music label based in Milan. Her style is warm and smooth, her lyrics are introspective and reflexive. Arya freely moves between nu soul and rap, hip hop and R&B. In January 2021, she released her first EP, Peace of Mind, receiving praises from many Italian publishings and radio shows. While taking her project on tour in the summer of 2021, she also lends her voice as backing vocalist for one of the most interesting Italian artists of the moment, Venerus. She recently took part in New Skool Rules, an international urban festival taking place in Rotterdam backed by Italia Music Export.
I think representation is key to participation and vice versa. We all gotta do our part to improve our position in the music world, and being part of Keychange is just the first step to do so!
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effe effe
effe effe is the solo project of Federica Furlani. Melodies and strings, collected sounds, concrete and electronic matter: all of these things shape her electroacoustic work, where music and sound design collide. She has performed on stage with Einsturzende Neubauten and Blonde Redhead, among many others. She works as sound designer for performing arts (La Biennale di Venezia, Piccolo Teatro di Milano). Her research is also focused on soundscapes studies, sound education, and the social and artistic potential of new technologies.
I believe that the opportunities offered by Keychange program can help me take my career to the next level: expand my network internationally; find the right frame for my project; be part of a reality of which I share values and goals; nurture and develop new relationships with both business music professionals and artists; confront myself with other artists facing my same challenges in the industry and share our experiences on building our paths.
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Find now out who are the three Italian innovators selected for Keychange 2022:
Flavia Guarino
Born in 1994, Flavia is a young and enthusiastic booking agent and manager, engaged in booking strategies, management and creative communication. Always attentive to a design vision of music with an echo extended far beyond national borders, her main skill is structuring functional strategies for both the Italian and foreign markets, focused on social inclusion and activism for queer musicians in the Italian music industry. Alongside her work in the music industry, she founded in 2019 Restart – A Safe Space For Music Minds, the first mental health support office in Italy for musicians and professionals in the industry.
Keychange is gonna be game-changer for my career and my activism. I always dreamed of being part of such a genuine and female-empowerment oriented movement: I feel blessed and proud to be, as an innovator, part of it in 2022.
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Sara Colantonio
Sara Colantonio started her career in the music industry in 2004 as radio speaker and DJ. In 2010 Sara founded Bassa Fedeltà, a gig agency, which became a music label and management firm in 2015, and also a music publishing company in 2020. From 2018 to 2021, Sara was the Community Coordinator of shesaid.so Italy and she has been one the Mentoring Managers of the 2020 she.grows Project. In 2021 she has been co-founder of Equaly, the first Italian institution for gender equality in the music business.
I have great respect for the Keychange Project commitment and for the projects it carries out. Its values are the same ones I try to put in place in my everyday work. Thanks to the Keychange Project, I would like to professionally grow in an international environment. I will treasure everything I will learn and all the professionals I will meet.
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Silvia Nocentini
Silvia has been living in New York since she was 13 years old. It allowed her to improve her creative skills and research the roots of HH and Black culture. She has been working with different artists of the Italian and NYC scenes in prestigious and international festivals and now she is the CEO & Founder of NoOx Worldwide, the bridge between Italy, the Afro diaspora and Sub Saharan Africa, starting from Senegal. Also, Silvia is pioneering the Afro Urban music market in Italy since 2018 and works behind the inclusion and the export of innovative of diverse sounds, attitudes and lifestyles. Above all, her main life-goal is to change the world through music!
Boosting up the chances to change the world through music and inclusion of diversities, creating bridges between ideas and revolutionary minds.
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Partners and sponsors
Keychange happens in partnership with Tallinn Music Week, Iceland Airwaves, BIME, Oslo World, Linecheck/Music Innovation Hub, Ireland Music Week, Different Sounds, SACEM, Sound City, Way Out West, MaMA Festival, MUTEK and Breakout West.
The 13 partner festivals involved in the program are Liverpool Sound City (UK), Tallinn Music Week (EE) Different Sounds Festival (PL), Way Out West Festival (SE), MUTEK Montreal (CA), Reeperbahn Festival (DE), Break Out West Festival (CA), Ireland Music Week (IE), MaMa Festival (FR), BIME Pro (ES), Oslo World (NO), Iceland Airwaves (IS), Linecheck Festival (IT).
Keychange 2022 is sponsored by FACTOR, Fundación SGAE, GEMA, Gorwelion Horizons, IMRO, the Musicians’ Union, Norsk Tipping, Roskilde Festival, SOCAN Foundation, Songtrust, SoundCloud, STEF, STIM, Talent Norge, Ted Baker and Italia Music Lab.
Keychange Ambassadors are Shirley Manson, Imogen Heap, Tony Visconti, Alexa Feser, Dermot O’Leary, Hinds, Emily Eavis, Nadine Shah, Paulette Long OBE, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, iskwē, Corinne Bailey Rae, Joy Denalane, Kate Nash, Sara Potente, Ave Tölpt, planningtorock, Jess Partridge, Carla Marie Williams, Claire Edwardes, Avtomat, Karolina Czarnecka, Darcy Proper, Tones and I, Tegan and Sara, Margherita Vicario, Claudia Pereira, Brisa Fenoy, Linnea Henriksson, Mari Boine, Samsaya, AURORA, First Lady of Iceland Eliza Reid, Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, Peaches, James Foley, LYDMOR, Andreea Gleeson, Flore Benguigui and Alice Phoebe Lou.