96 artists from 14 countries are taking part in what could be the largest online matchmaking of musicians ever undertaken.
Global Music Match was created through a collaboration between founding partners Sounds Australia, Showcase Scotland Expo and Canada's East Coast Music Association along with eleven other music export organisations and showcase events, including English Folk Expo. Global Music Match brings together participating artists across the world, works with them to up-skill their social media activity and then to facilitate cross-border artist collaboration by helping each artists' social media audience to discover the music of their matched partner artists. It 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 programme 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.
Global Music Match follows an initial trial which involved artists including O'Hooley & Tidow from England. Belinda O'Hooley from the duo said of the experience, 'For us it was the unexpected and lovely connections we made with people during Global Music Match that made it such a pleasure to be part of.'
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.
Following an application process in July, artists from England selected to participate in Global Music Match, running until 12th October 2020, are Captain Of The Lost Waves, Daisy Chute, Edgelarks, Harbottle & Jonas, Jackie Oates, Jon Boden, Lady Nade, Lucy Ward, Luke Concannon, Sam Carter, The Magpies and The Shackleton Trio.
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”
Search for the hashtag #globalmusicmatch to see some of the examples of the content each act shared during the pilot initiative – or head to globalmusicmatch.com to learn more and see examples.
