Tallinn sets up UNESCO Music City Council

Tallinn City Government has assembled the UNESCO Music City Council, which will implement the Tallinn Music Strategy 2022-2025. The Council will comprise two members of the City Government and ten people from influential music organisations. Its work will be organised by the Tallinn Culture and Sports Department.

"Being a UNESCO City of Music can be summed up in one very simple yet ambitious goal: to make Tallinn the world’s greatest place to both make and enjoy music," said Deputy Mayor Kaarel Oja. "Joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network was a great example of cooperation between the city and the music community. In the process, a very strong programme was created, which we have now started to implement. Setting up the Music City Council is the next step in the teamwork between the top influencers and important organisations in the field and the city," Oja added.

The main tasks of the Music City Council will be to formulate the priorities of the Music City Action Plan, to strengthen cooperation between the music sector and the city, and to make proposals to the city to meet the objectives of the Music Strategy.

The Council will include the Deputy Mayor of Tallinn coordinating the cultural sector, the Deputy Mayor of Tallinn coordinating the educational sector and the representatives of the following organisations: the Cultural Endowment of Estonia for Music, the State Concert Institute Eesti Kontsert, the Foreign Relations Department of the Estonian Ministry of Culture, the organiser of Tallinn Music Week, the NGO Music Estonia, the live music branch of the latter Live Music Estonia, the Estonian Music Council, the Tallinn School of Music and Ballet, and the Song and Dance Festival Foundation, as well as the artistic director of Tallinn Philharmonic. In addition, the Secretary General of the Estonian National Commission for UNESCO is involved as an expert.

According to Ave Tölpt, CEO of Music Estonia, the Music City Council has a major role to play among the music sector in achieving the objectives of Tallinn as the City of Music. "All the members of the Council form a very good whole, being involved in building trust between the city and the music sector and thus in the success of the Music City project. It is important to be supportive and not to compete with each other within the sector. I believe that the Council's main role, task and challenge is to make wise proposals to the city to fulfil the objectives of the Music City and to create a strategically sound plan for the multifaceted development of our sector through the Music City perspective."

Tallinn submitted its application to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network on 30 June 2021, and on 8 November 2021, UNESCO directorate announced 12 new Cities of Music, Tallinn being among them.

Tallinn's vision is to offer world-class opportunities to create and enjoy music in all its diversity in a green world city. In applying to become a member of the network, Tallinn pledged to focus on overall strategic support for the music sector: ensuring adequate funding, human resources, networks and partnerships.

The long-term strategic goals of Tallinn as a City of Music, as set out in the Tallinn Music Strategy 2022-2025, are to increase the quality, professionalisation, diversity and internationalisation of the entire music scene; to discover, nurture and empower new talent in music through multi-layered music education and young audience engagement; to make music more accessible for everybody by removing inequalities and barriers for people with special needs, age, nationality or location; to encourage re-emergence and development of sustainable cultural tourism; to make Tallinn a better and more inclusive community based on shared values; and to support viable and sustainable music industry with strong innovation and digital capacity.

The Music Strategy’s Action Plan 2022-2025, designed to deliver on these objectives, consists of six thematic programs: Next Generation Music, Musical Tallinn, Classical Sounds, Future of Music, Tandem Creative Cities, and Creative Impact.
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