TMW
PRO
Tallinn Music Week
Conference
4—5 April 2025
Tallinn

Investing in Music: For Short-term Return or Long-term Impact?

Saturday 5 April at 13:1514:15 in Vega

The word "investing" was adopted among cultural sectors as soon as it was felt that adopting business speak was necessary to gain or retain political relevance. Regardless of the confident rhetoric of creative industries as being several percent of any country's GDP, it remains an open question whether investing, in the traditional sense of the term, in the core cultural fields such as music, can be justified. Meanwhile, the rationale of investing has itself broadened and so talk of impact investing has grown over the past decades. Can music –creation, performance, business – be invested into? And if so, with what returns in mind?

This session opens with a presentation by Elise Hessevik, the CEO of BUZZ, a municipal music fund in Bergen.

Followed by a panel

Speakers:

  • Elise Hessevik, CEO of BUZZ
  • Jaanus Juss, Founder of Telliskivi Creative City
  • Risto Salminen, CEO of Teosto
  • Kati Uusi-Rauva, CLC Director North, EIT Culture & Creativity

Moderator:

  • Virgo Sillamaa, Music policy researcher at EMEE / Erasmus University Rotterdam