Totnes Duo, Harbottle & Jonas chosen for Worldwide virtual festival

Global Music Match unites 14 Music Export Programs for a world first!

Harbottle & Jonas are one of 96 artists from 14 countries are taking part in what could be the largest online match-making of musicians ever undertaken.

Created in a world first collaboration between founding partners Sounds Australia, ShowcaseScotland Expo and Canada’s East Coast Music Association (ECMA), along with 11 other export organisations and showcase events from around the world, Global Music Match is a pilot initiative created to continue raising the profile of local artists in international music markets within the challenging parameters of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The program is a unique response to the limitations imposed on the music industry, that makes use of one of the only available platforms – social media and peer-to-peer collaboration – to increase networks and exposure for export-ready artists internationally. Breaking artists into a new territory or country is a challenging process, exacerbated by the pandemic as traditional international showcasing opportunities reduce.

Totnes based promoter Katie Whitehouse appeared on The Full Totnes Breakfast show; “I’m delighted that Harbottle & Jonas have been hand picked to be part of ‘Team England’ in a world wide music networking project – #globalmusicmatch 2020. They’ve been ‘matched’ with some wonderful bands around the world so I thought we should listen to some of their music today!” All 6 bands are showcased on the Soundart Radio programme and the podcast can be listened to here.

This programme aims to develop new audience bases for artists in a range of international locations, providing a groundwork for future international touring development. The programme will also support participating artists to upskill their social media activity, as well as encourage cross border artist collaboration by connecting musicians from around the world. Each week, one band/musician from each country will ‘introduce’ another artist from a different country, engaging with them on social media to cross promote to their audiences. This is reciprocated for everyone involved, meaning that participating artists will be presented via social networks across a range of participating international artist’s online audiences. For the pilot edition of Global Music Match, artists are steeped in the acoustic, folk, roots,traditional and world music genres.Lisa Whytock of Showcase Scotland Expo, one of the founding organisations said: “The idea came about on a zoom call between myself and Millie Millgate of Sounds Australia several months ago. We have since seen it grow to include so many export organisations and all of us have been meeting regularly to develop the initiative. It’s great that we can all still connect through social media and we are really looking forward to seeing how all the artists work together. Most of them will never have met and many never have toured in the other countries,so it really is going to establish new international connections”

David and Freya have been designated ‘Team 7″ and are joined by 5 other bands for the grouping with zoom meetings support and contact: The Heart Collectors from Australia, Canadian musicians Charly Lowry and Tomato-Tomato, Scots band Fara and Italian Jazz Folk in the form of BandAdriatica

Global Music Match is supported by the following export organisations: Catalan Arts (Spain),East Coast Music Association, ECMA (Canada), English Folk Expo, FOCUS Wales, Folk Alliance International, Iceland Music, LUCfest Taiwan, Music Estonia, Music Finland, MusicNorway, Puglia Sounds (Italy), Showcase Scotland Expo, Sounds Australia and Spectacle vivant Bretagne (Brittany, France).