Red Bull Music Academy

The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is a world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals that was founded in 1998 by Red Bull GmbH.[1] The main five-week event is held in a different city each year. The public portion of its program is a festival of concerts, art installations, club nights and lectures by influential figures in contemporary music.[2] The other part of the program is by invitation only and is held in a building that has been custom-fitted with a large recording studio, a lecture hall, a radio booth and 8–12 bedroom-sized studios.[3] There, 60 up-and-coming producers, singers, sound artists, DJs and musicians from around the world learn from and collaborate with top industry professionals.[4]

The Red Bull Music Academy maintains an online magazine and lecture video archive year-round. The Academy hosts additional music workshops and club nights and curates stages at festivals in around 60 countries worldwide. In 2019, it was announced that both the Red Bull Music Academy and Red Bull Radio would be closing on October 31 of that year after Red Bull parted ways with consultancy company Yadastar, which managed both organizations.[5]

History

The Academy was initiated in 1998 in Berlin[6] and has taken place annually in subsequent years in Toronto, London, São Paulo, Seattle, Cape Town, Rome, London, Melbourne, New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Tokyo, Paris, Montréal and Dublin. While the first few editions saw a greater emphasis on DJ culture, the program and recording facilities now accommodate all genres and aspects of the musical spectrum.[7]

Prospective applicants to the Academy must prepare a demo CD of their work, be it original productions, songs or a DJ set, along with a completed questionnaire, and mail it to a Red Bull Music Academy office in Cologne, Germany. From there, each application is taken into consideration, with no quota on country or musical genre. From these applications, 60 are selected and broken down into two groups of 30.[8] Each group of 30 is flown in to the location of the respective year's event for one of two fortnightly "terms". In 2012, the Academy received over 4,000 applications to take part in the 2013 edition in New York City.[9]

For two weeks, the participants have the opportunity work in up to 12 studios specially designed

Further activities

The Red Bull Music Academy has partnered with some of the most prominent music festivals, such as Sónar,[18] Mutek,[19] Movement: Detroit's Electronic Music Festival,[20] Melt!,[21] Notting Hill Carnival,[22] Oxegen,[23] Meltdown, Monegros Desert Festival, Splendour In The Grass[24]

Host cities

Lecturers

Corporate structure

The Red Bull Music Academy was co-founded by Many Ameri, Christopher Romberg and Torsten Schmidt, of the consultancy company Yadastar (Christopher Romberg left the company in 2011). In 1997, beverage manufacturer Red Bull approached Yadastar about implementing some method of fostering discourse about underground dance culture.[29]

External links

• Red Bull Music Academy Magazine and Official Website