ANNUAL REPORTS & ANNUAL ACCOUNTS

Read Swinging Europe’s annual account for 2022.

2022 was a year that opened the doors of culture wide open again in order to be able to meet, gather and jointly create cultural experiences: Corona restrictions lapsed and Swinging Europe continued to launch international, national, regional and local projects. We rounded off the big Creative Europe collaborative project LIBERTY with a tour in August, as well as a three-day festival in Leicester, UK. During the Journeys International Festival, all examples of the partners’ activities were promoted to the city’s live audience, including LIBERTY ORCHESTRA 2022, which played a concert in the streets. A small mood video from the festival can be seen here: https://bit.ly/415YdwP. Likewise, the second installation of the LIBERTY Tour 2022 was carried out, which brought 8 new young talented musicians together with artistic director Kenneth Dahl Knudsen on the road around Denmark to unfamiliar locations, in order to bring the live music out to a wide and far-reaching audience.

Locally and regionally Swinging Europe as an institution supported Herning’s musical life; the local project Connect rounded off and created a platform for young electronic musicians to network and produce new artistic material, while we contributed to Kulturfest Herning with a bombastic trio in the form of the Kematica Trio at Højhuset 1961 to great success. The regional project Wavelength – Tour of Solidarity brought the cycling artist Claudia Jancke around Herning and Ringkøbing-Skjen Municipality, as well as the surrounding small communities, to spread the message of community through the single, simple act of waving.

The Drama War Project brought the Ukraine war remarkably closer to the Danish citizens, when two actors performed newly composed drama texts, written from the epicenter of the war, while MOORJAZZ Festival 2022 returned to its familiar format of a 1-day celebration of concerts with well-known names and up-and-coming musicians, where Herning got jazz under its skin. PLAY!GROUND LIVE 2022 brought young talents out into the field again in its usual tour format and there was even the possibility of extra music concerts, when we created a completely unique PLAY!GROUND LIVE Grand Prix band for this year’s celebration hosted by Herning, Melodi Grand Prix. For Kultur i Mørket, we gathered inside from the cold and directed the spotlight at the young local talent MATHW, who played electronic music.

Internationally, we participated in the final LIBERTY partner meetings hosted in Hungary, Serbia and also in Herning – and also showed Swinging Europe’s work at major European conferences together with the European Jazz Network and Culture Action Europe. In continuation of our completed projects, we have also peered into 2023 in relation to participation or management of new, exciting cultural projects that stretch across national borders!

Read Swinging Europe’s annual account for 2021.

Following on the heels of 2020, 2021 was a year that was still characterized by social distancing, sanitation and travel bans in a larger European perspective: Despite one step forward and two steps back in terms of the cultural world’s opportunities to unfold, we still managed from the Swinging Europe office to achieve a combination of international, national, regional and local projects: We successfully carried out activities in our Creative Europe projects MoSaIC and LIBERTY. The European collaborative project MoSaIC saw its conclusion in the form of the World Music Festival in October – over three days, which consisted of a mini-conference, a large live concert and workshops, the project rounded off in a tribute to mixed musical genres and multicultural identity. In relation to LIBERTY, we carried out the LIBERTY Tour 2021, where 8 young talented musicians accompanied by artistic director Kenneth Dahl Knudsen toured around Denmark to unfamiliar locations, to bring live music to a wide and far-reaching audience.

Locally and regionally, Swinging Europe supported the musical life in Herning; the locally-based project Connect created a platform for young electronic musicians to network and produce new artistic material, while in collaboration with Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium, we offered the Ikarus Rooftop Concert during the HerningErMusik week, where orange unicorns took over Herning town center with live music and infectious energy. In the cross-artistic collaborative project Ideeerne / The Ideas, artists took over the Sculpture Park in August, Swinging Europe contributed with a young orchestra, playing live to the performance together with the other local cultural actors; The local Herning-based pilot project Bevingede Ord investigated the mental health of exposed traumatized refugees through the healing possibilities of music and literature and En Symfoni til Herning played a grand concert in Sekskanten at Højhuset 1961 to great applause. Jazzen Flytter Ind på Højskolen Skærgården followed in the same footsteps –  jazz musicians looked at the positive effects of live music on Højskolen Skærgården’s students, while MOORJAZZ Festival 2021 took a corona-friendly form with a series of concerts with well-known names and up-and-coming musicians spread over various venues over a week’s time. PLAY!GROUND LIVE 2021 took place, but under new circumstances: Højhuset 1961 became the work base for the selected young musicians, who held their 3-day boot camp course, as well as the subsequent concerts for surrounding schools here. In this way, the size of the audience could be regulated and proper distance between the musicians could be enforced on the part of Swinging Europe.

Internationally, we were able to finish our Creative Europe project MoSaIC with a big planned closing World Music Festival in Milan, as well as managed to complete the tour for LIBERTY OR CHESTRA 2021, playing live in unexpected locations around the country. We also had the opportunity to travel to Europe again, when LIBERTY invited us for a partner meeting in Northern France.

Read Swinging Europe’s annual account for 2020.

2020 was a year that in every way could not be foreseen: With a more or less normal start, it would turn out to be different from March – the corona pandemic found entry not only abroad, but also Denmark. In an international context, we moved project management and partner meetings onto the virtual Zoom service in the Creative Europe projects MoSaIC and LIBERTY, while the implementation of our Nordic talent development project Young Nordic Star managed to escape the restrictions before the outbreak back in February.

Locally and regionally, Swinging Europe as an institution engaged with the music scene in Herning, as working internationally roved to be problematic; the local-based project Museum as Muse combined Herningsholm’s historic setting with electronic music production during the lockdown, while MOORJAZZ Festival 2020 took a corona-friendly form with a series of concerts with well-known names and up-and-coming musicians spread over various venues over a week.

We took the initiative to get live music out to isolated elderly people at the care centers in Herning Municipality with Mental Health concerts during the summer, to both get professional musicians to work, al in the same breath as we took vulnerable people into account – with social distancing and hand-sanitizer. Likewise, 70 children had the opportunity to have fun and experience playful live music at full blast at Fermaten, when we arranged a children’s concert with the band Ørehængerne to great joy.

In a regional context, the second installation of the project The Artist Revisiting – The Dancer Revisiting – paved the way for day care institutions with three dancers from the Black Box Dance Company, as the cultural encounter with toddlers directly created mutual creative inspiration between artist and children. PLAY!GROUND LIVE 2020 took place, however under new circumstances and we participated as an active stakeholder in the revitalization of local cultural life with HerningErKultur’s reopening manifesto.

2019 was a year defined by a combination of international, national, regional and local initiatives in relation to our projects, which consisted of equal parts launching, as well as execution and facilitation; internationally, the network project NIMPE ended, the intercultural collaborative project MoSaIC took shape to a greater extent, and locally, Swinging Europe as an institution brought a music festival back to Herning Municipality, when the first installation of the jazz festival MOORJAZZ Festival took place on 9th October at HHHerning. Jazz was not abandoned this time: The project Jazz Music Revisiting realized a musical cultural meeting between young children, professional jazz musicians and nursery teacher students from VIA University College in Ikast and Horsens. Six Danish jazz musicians went to daycares and kindergartens to collaborate with the children to create new and unique musical results through the reintroduction of jazz music.

PLAY!GROUND LIVE offered a special edition: exclusively selected young musicians from previous years’ orchestras attended a full day of celebration in the Italian city of Matera, as it was honoured as of European Capital of Culture at the beginning of the year. Along with a number of other bands from all over Europe, PLAY!GROUND LIVE musicians played concerts in the cultural year in various locations, both under an open sky and at specific venues.

Internationally, our intercultural collaboration project, MoSaIC, unfolded with introductory workshops, where our competent nine female musicians from Denmark, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Iran, Kurdistan and Syria had the opportunity to meet each other, rehearse together, and played their first concert at MOORJAZZ Festival. Furthermore, the Nordic tone was played with when twelve young musicians from Denmark, Finland, Åland and Greenland went on a Scandinavian tour in connection with the talent development project Young Nordic Stars. Together with musician and artistic director Kenneth Dahl Knudsen, social and competence development were equally demanded when the tour brought them out on country roads and further out on the waves of the sea.

In addition, our new intercultural Erasmus+ project, humARTS: Creatively Interpreting Human Rights was carried out in 2019 and a new Creative Europe project, LIBERTY, was cemented with the first partner meetings in Englang and Italy, respectively.

Regionally, we carried out a dance workshop and rap workshop at the Herning Cultural Festival with the sub-theme Closer to the Sun; attended Culture in the Dark; participated in conferences, workshops and cultural meetings focusing on European cultural resources, children’s early cultural formation, and the further development of intercultural projects.

Yet again this year, a new installation of PLAY!GROUND LIVE toured around the country to play for old and young people, and we visited the Culture Meeting at Mors, to network and experience cultural events in a national context.

Internationally, we took the first steps to our big intercultural collaboration project MoSaIC with a kick -off partner meeting from the 15th – 16th November in Milan, in which we will be a partner. MoSaIC – short for Music for Sound Integration in the Creative Sector – will involve refugees and migrants in European society through music as a storytelling device across nationalities and languages. In connection with NIMPE, we participated in the Nimpe Music Factory during the Linecheck Festival with up-and-coming Danish musicians from the 22nd – 24th November.

Furthermore, we travelled to Greenland in May to meet with our partner, The Orphanage Uummannaq, in connection with the Nordic project Young Nordic Stars. In addition, our new intercultural Erasmus+ project, humARTS: Creatively Interpreting Human Rights, was approved by Erasmus+ and will be facilitated in the summer of 2019.

The year 2017 was defined by a European sign in relation to Swinging Europe’s continued work with network-creating projects within the international cultural world. Not only in the shape of our projects, but also in the creation of collaborative collaborations across geographical boundaries, exciting developments took place both at home and abroad.

Regionally, we again participated in Culture in the Dark’s annual event, Kultur i Mørket, where artist Lord B told about sustainability for children and childish souls, while the initiative InVITAtion Lab continued to travel around the central and western Jutland municipalities to involve young people in the local community to be active citizans through creative problem solving. Likewise, the big cultural festival – Off Road Festival – was celebrated with a blast in April, where Swinging Europe contributed with the trio Migrant Music and the new pilot project, PLAY!GROUND LIVE NORDIC, who played various concerts for the audience.

Internationally, in 2017 we launched several collaborative projects that engaged in the interdisciplinary field; The Erasmus+ project Culture ShoX, took place in Cyprus and Herning, as it tested the opportunities of using theater and music as a creative mouthpiece between young Europeans and immigrants. Results and experiences from the intercultural project were subsequently presented at the Tools conference in Herning from 29th – 30th November, where we participated as facilitating partners. During the two conference days, a film collage from the youth camps was shown to a wide audience, which consisted of national and international representatives from the field of culture.

2016 was an inspiring and cultural year for Swinging Europe. Not only in the shape of our projects, but also in the creation of network connections and collaborations, there was exciting development both regionally, nationally and internationally with the need to develop, strengthen and launch projects, among other things, interdiscipli-nary collaborative projects. Regionally, InVITAtion Lab unfolded in Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality and the seeds for the project Migrant Music were sown.

Nationally, 2016 was the year that Swinging Europe’s annual talent development orchestra, PLAY!GROUND LIVE, with international musician Bo Stief at the forefront, was able to celebrate its 15th anniversary. It was also the year that initiated the further development of the same music concept, which will culminate in an unpreceden-ted Nordic version of the orchestra next year, namely PLAY! GROUND LIVE NORDIC. At the same time, Swinging Europe planned, coordinated and developed several new international projects, including the Erasmus + project Culture ShoX, the Ukrainian collaborative project, Sound Becomes Life, and the European network concept, NIMPE.

2015 was an eventful year for Swinging Europe. As an organisation, we have a good tradition of working both locally, nationally and internationally. 2015 was no exception, where we carried out many activities both at home and abroad. Internationally, we had several projects and networking activities in Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and Brussels, respectively.

2014 was a dynamic and eventful year for DSI Swinging Europe. It is now the fourth year that we as an organisation are working locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, and at this time, the status is mapping out new paths, as well as other projects have been removed from the drawing board. But even though a number of projects have been rethought and re-evaluated since their inception, the tradition and goal is still to work both locally and with an European aim with cultural projects.

Nationally, the project Borderless has been a new successful project that fills a niche in the Danish music scene, which has been evident by the many talented newcomers in Denmark, just waiting to be activated.

Bringing the world to Herning and bringing Herning out into the world became the motto for 2013. Since the transfer from Brande Municipality in 2010, the cultural institution has worked purposefully to develop the local activities while spreading the knowledge of our institution international. Thus, the year opened with a D-A-D concert in China and later in the year, we co-organised the International Association of Schools of Jazz meeting, which took place in Herning and Aarhus. No less than 20 nationalities were gathered during the week the meeting lasted. It was both an inviting musical experience for both participants and the audience who showed up in Herning and Aarhus.