Symposium 2022 – Change in the Making

Feimatta Conteh is the Environmental Sustainability Manager for the Manchester International Festival. She has worked across sustainability, technology development, digital culture and the arts for over 15 years, for organisations including the LSE, Arcola Theatre, Arcola Energy and FutureEverything. She is a trustee of Artsadmin and Invisible Dust, an active member of the GMAST network and sits on the advisory committee for the Theatre Green Book. Outside of work, Feimatta Conteh is deeply involved with an educational children’s camping charity – she enjoys building communities and helping young people interact with nature.

Dipl. Psych. Stephanie Cuff-Schöttle (she/her) has been working for OPRA, the only psychological counselling office in Germany for victims of far-right, racist, and antisemitic violence. She built her free practice for racism-critical and sensitive individual and couple counselling and installed a racism-specific consultation hour within the scope of a paediatric and adolescent psychiatric and psychotherapeutic practice in Berlin. She offers further education on racism-sensitive counselling and therapy for psychological/pedagogical specialists and empowerment workshops. She launched www.myurbanology.de together with Alina Hodzode.

At the moment, Stephanie Cuff-Schöttle is working on DE_CONSTRUCT, a further-education platform for racism-sensitive therapy and counselling.

Soumik Datta is not only a virtuoso sarod player, but also a composer, producer, bandleader and TV presenter. His multi-arts productions explore the meeting point between the climate emergency, social injustice and the psychological impact of displacement. Soumik’s project „Songs of the Earth“ won the British Council’s 2021 COP26 climate award. He is currently directing a new stage show about the UK migrant crisis titled „Hope Notes“ at Southbank Centre, London.

Guy Dermosessian was born in Beirut in 1985. He is a DJ, record collector, artist and curator in the music and performing arts areas. With his Kalakuta Soul Records label, he brings together artists from various continents. Along with Özlem Avcı, Gîn Bali, Wagma Bromand and Kübra Sekin, he founded the BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of colour) platform “amalopa” to produce and promote music, the arts and knowledge. Guy Dermosessian co-curated the Ovel/Eibel Festival at the Theatre in the Pfalzbau, and the “Irreversible Realities” think tank in the North Rhine-Westphalia art collection, among others, in 2021. He has been an agent in the Federal Culture Foundation’s 360° programme at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus since 2019. He has been a lecturer at Düsseldorf University (HSD) on diversity-oriented processes of change in the cultural sector since 2021.

Born in 1958, Lothar Dittmer studied History, German Language & Literature and Educational Science at Hamburg University, after which he received his doctorate in History. He was Assistant Professor and Deputy Director at Biggesee Political Academy from 1989 to 1994. Since 1994 Lothar Dittmer has worked for the Körber-Stiftung, since 2008 as a Board Member and since 2015 as Chairman of the Board. He is among others also Chairman of the Board of the Herbert and Elsbeth Weichmann Foundation, a Member of the Foundation Board of the German Children and Youth Foundation and a Member of the Advisory Council of the Association of German Foundations.

Francine Gorman is the Project Manager (UK) for the Keychange gender equality initiative, a project empowering women and minority genders to transform the future of the music industry, and encouraging the music industry to work towards a representative future. As well as working with Keychange, Francine is a music consultant, content and event producer, strategist and editor, working with clients including the Nordic Music Export and Deezer.

Anke Fischer (*1977) studied vocal pedagogy (specialising in jazz) at the Alfred Schnittke Akademie and the Hamburg School of Music, elementary music pedagogy at the Bundesakademie für musikalische Jugendbildung Trossingen, and music education at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz. In 2011, she took over pedagogic management in the Klingendes Museum Hamburg. From 2014 onwards, she worked as a freelance music teacher and developed the “Ausflug” programme with Ensemble Resonanz. Since 2015, she has been working in the Elbphilharmonie team, where she took over as head of the Education department in 2018.

Kai-Michael Hartig studied culture management at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, after graduating as a pianist from the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule Düsseldorf. He then worked in culture sponsoring for Vereins- and Westbank and for Deutschlandfunk. From 1997 to 2001, he was personal speaker of Hamburg Culture Senator Dr. Christina Weiss, before taking over management of the presidium department under Senator Karin v. Welck. Since 2005, he has been responsible for the cultural activities of Körber-Stiftung. He became head of the Culture department in 2009. He co-founded Netzwerk Kulturmanagement and the Junge Freunde der Kunsthalle. He is a member in the project advisory council of the Bundesjugendorchester and on the board of trustees of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg.

Becky Hazlewood joined Julie’s Bicycle in July 2019 to work as an Environmental Sustainability Project Manager across the Creative Green Consultancy, Arts Council England and City and Policy JB programmes. Prior to that, she worked in CSR and Sustainability management, primarily in the social housing sector. She has also worked in ecological consultancy and biodiversity conservation research, most recently as a senior researcher for a small charity in Malawi where she specialised in bat biodiversity monitoring, resolving human-wildlife conflicts and managing the outreach programme. Becky Hazlewood holds an MSc in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia and is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM).

Tina Heine is a freelance curator, lecturer and passionate hostess. Her work thrives on the interest in people and on artistic debate with societal themes and on her diverse network. At the age of 23 she opened a bar in Hamburg, which she still runs today. Tina founded the ELBJAZZ Festival in 2010, and her studio for contemporaries in 2016. She has been artistic director of the Salzburg Festival’s Jazz&TheCity since 2016 and, together with the architect Theo Deutinger, artistic manager for the new Supergau biannual art and performance festival since 2019. Tina Heine creates artistic free spaces and works with improvisation and the principle of responsibility shared between artists, visitors and organisers.

Sarah Herke has been working with cultural workers in Europe and neighboring regions for fifteen years. At MitOst e.V. she coordinates the Department of Cultural Exchange, which focuses on supporting cultural workers as part of civil society. The largest program – Tandem – brings cultural managers and their organizations into new international partnerships and accompanies their joint creative process and exchange through training and mentoring.

Mashanti Alina Hodzode (she/her) is Peace Facilitator, trainer, and counsels companies in diversity-oriented team development and peaceful cooperation. She co-founded GesellschaftSEIN gUG and is operating the MyUrbanology platform together with Stephanie Cuff-Schöttle. Mashanti Alina Hodzode is a communications scientist, meditation teacher (Soulful Meditation according to Kan Yu), and completed further education in personal development (Train the Trainer) and diversity-oriented organisation development (RAA Berlin).

Her current research with the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main focuses on the effects of meditation on leadership competence. She is also working on DE_CONSTRUCT, a further-education platform for racism-sensitive therapy and counselling.

Nate Holder BA (Hons), MMus is a musician, author, speaker and music education consultant based in London. He graduated from Anglia Ruskin University with a BA (Hons) in Music. He moved to Hamburg, Germany and quickly embedded himself into the music scene there, and was soon traveling and teaching across Europe performing with different bands and artists. Moving back to London, he started teaching in various Primary schools while continuing to travel and perform. He founded Holders Hill Publishing in 2017 and completed a master’s degree in music at Kingston University winning the MMus Prize for Outstanding Achievement. After the murder of George Floyd sparked worldwide protests, he began to speak at universities and music education hubs, and consult for music industry leaders. He is currently serving as a Professor and International Chair of Music Education at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Louwrens Langevoort started his managing career at the Brussels Opera House in 1981. After working for Philips Classics, the Salzburg Festival and Leipzig Opera House, in 1993 he switched as head of artistic management to the City of Cologne Opera House, followed by being appointed Intendant of the Dutch National Reisopera. In 2000 he took up the position as Intendant of the Hamburg State Opera. Louwrens Langevoort became Intendant of the Kölner Philharmonie and CEO of KölnMusik GmbH in 2005 as well as General Artistic Director of ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln festival since its foundation in 2011. In 2018 Langevoort’s contract as Intendant of the Kölner Philharmonie was extended for a third time, enabling him to help shape and be part of Cologne’s cultural life until the end of 2025.

Christoph Lieben-Seutter assumed the position of General and Artistic Director of the Elbphilharmonie and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg in September 2007. He was born in Vienna in 1964 and worked there in the computer industry for a few years after he completed his Matura. In 1988 Alexander Pereira hired him as Assistant Director of the Wiener Konzerthaus and in 1991 he became their Operations Director. In 1993 he followed Pereira, who had become the director of the Zürich Opera House, to Switzerland where he became Pereira’s personal assistant. In 1996 he was appointed General Secretary of the Wiener Konzerthaus and also assumed the responsibility for the Festival Wien Modern. Close to ten years after assuming his position in Hamburg he was able to celebrate the opening of the Elbphilharmonie in January 2017. In spring this year, his contract was extended until 2029.

Founder, Artistic and Executive Director of Chineke! Chi-chi Nwanoku has been instrumental in creating opportunities for talented Black and ethnically diverse musicians through the Chineke! Orchestra and Chineke! Junior Orchestra, commissioning new works, championing historical composers of diverse heritage, and establishing scholarships with major UK conservatoires. Professor and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music, Honorary Fellow Trinity Laban Conservatoire and Honorary Doctor at Chichester University and Open University, Chi-chi Nwanoku was awarded the OBE for Services to Music. She featured in the Powerlist of Britain’s 100 Most Influential BlackPeople for the last four consecutive years. Chi-chi Nwanoku broadcasts for TV and radio, including BBC, Sky Arts & Classic FM.

A concert hall turns into a club. Dancefloor instead of rows of chairs.

A maximally danceable frenzy of sound from minimal grooves and live beats meets elements of contemporary music and drives the audience to ecstatic dancing without any electronic sounds at all. A wild experience of music with compositions by Christopher Boehm, Benjamin Scheuer, Kostia Rapoport, and Christoph König, among other people, merges the audience and musicians into a quivering mass. Orchester im Treppenhaus has presented a possible future of classical music with DISCO at Festivals such as FUSION and DETECT already – proving that new dance music exists!

The orchestra MRIYA is the first Ukrainian exile orchestra founded in Germany. Its musicians originally hail from a number of different Ukrainian orchestras (artistic management: Kateryna Suprun) and has developed a platform for integration in the labour market and a system for music instrument for the youngest children.

The refugee women organise their programme selection, dramaturgy, and rehearsals on their own, in order to achieve artistic self-determination. At the same time, the MRIYA project is to introduce German concert halls to classical Ukrainian music and establish it there.

So far, they have played, among other places, in the Elbphilharmonie, the Laeiszhalle, the Theater Bremen, the Sendesaal Bremen, and the Berlin Philharmonie since April.

Born in Sweden, based in Copenhagen, with a background in Human Rights studies. Has since 2020 been part of the Human Library’s work to facilitate safe spaces for people to explore diversity. As the Head of the International Office, she is now part of the team working to expand, strengthen and ensure the Human Library’s presence in civil societies around the world.

Dr. Manuel Rivera has been interested in and committed to environmental matters since he was 14 years old. At the Institute for transformative sustainability research (IASS) in Potsdam, he has been dealing, among other things, with the structures of scientific and political sustainability discourses and issues of urban development since 2011. At the moment, the sociologist who acquired his doctorate with a dissertation on “Theatre as political public” in 2015 and his team are increasingly focusing on the societal potentials of artistic communication and cooperation formats. Before his time at the IASS, Manuel Rivera used to work for, among other places, the Federal Government’s Council for Sustainable Development and as an actor both in the Free Scene and at several German city theatres.

Eliza-Maïmouna Sarr (she/her_no pronouns) is a project manager at basis & woge e.V. As education advisor for anti-discrimination and empowerment, her focus areas are countering racism against black people on the one hand and intersectionality on the other hand. She also offers anti-discrimination consulting. Outside of institutional contexts, she supports individuals, couples, and groups with a discrimination-critical and systemic approach, happily facilitating events that strive to value, strengthen, and represent the heterogenicity of our society. Based on her own experience, Sarr is able to use both the potential for strengthening and the exclusions in the context of music and culture as a basis for her work. She is excitedly looking forward to the symposium!

Raphaël Schenkel has been solo bass clarinettist at the Bremen philharmonic orchestra, and a member in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra since 2017. He acquired his diploma at the “Hanns Eisler” university for music in Berlin. In 2012, he founded the “Klang-Labor Hechingen” festival with the objective of not only creating a high-quality chamber music festival but also waking enthusiasm for music in children and teens in the rural area. In addition to his work in the orchestra, he regularly plays as a soloist and in a number of chamber music formations. Raphael Schenkel used to teach at the University of the Arts Bremen and taught at the “Royal Northern College of Music” in Manchester from 2019-2021. He regularly teaches master classes in England, Spain, and China. He will be a guest as “artist in residence” at the “Montafoner Resonanzen” festival in Austria in August 2022.

Carolin Stüdemann, 31, has been the managing director of the non-profit association Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. for more than 3 years now. She took on her first management role at the age of 24, when she ran an inpatient youth welfare service for 3 years. After a stint as consulting, she finally ended up at Viva con Agua, a donation-based Hamburg all-profit organization that promotes worldwide access to clean drinking water. Viva con Agua not only relies on donations, but also on its own social enterprises, such as its own mineral water or the Villa Viva, a hotel which opens in 2023 in Hamburg.

With a background in communications and audience development, Karina Svensson manages education, participation and learning in Konserthuset Stockholm / Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012. One of the initiators of the network Sea of Music with six orchestras around the Baltic Sea joining education forces to involve kids in taking care of the Baltic Sea.

Journalist Andrea Thilo studied communication at the University of Arts in Berlin. After a traineeship with the NDR, she worked as a reporter, editor, and host for ARD and private TV channels. Following her award-winning work as a documentary producer (among other things of RHYTHM IS IT!), she is now working as a freelance journalist, host, and trainer, in particular in the areas of education and culture mediation, sustainability, and digital transformation.

Tine Van Goethem is head of the Audience Engagement Department at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels (Bozar). She studied Political Sciences and Cultural Management in Leuven and Brussels. She works in Bozar since 2003. She collaborates within a team of 6 enthusiastic colleagues to develop learning programs, participation and community projects, within the context of the artistic programming of Bozar with a strong focus on exhibitions and concerts. With a passion for the arts and a heart for the audience, she developed expertise in partnerships on a local, national and international level.

On the international level, Bozar participated in ERASMUS+, Creative Europe, Tandem Europe. Bozar is also part of the network ECHO on education and outreach.

Jasmin Vogel (born 1981) has managed the Culture Forum in Witten as Director since 2019. Jasmin worked in the cultural sector for more than a decade, and was responsible for various innovation programmes on the (digital) transformation of cultural establishments, including the EU’s smARTplaces project. She was subsequently awarded international prizes for her work, among them the European Cultural Brand Award 2016, the Commerzbank Foundation’s ZukunftsGut Prize 2020, and as “European Culture Manager of the Year” in 2021. Her focus in Witten is on the practice-oriented testing of novel governance and business models for the cultural sector, starting from Agenda 2030, which is designed to lead to greater diversity, digitalisation and transformability within organisations.