Music Current 2026: New Music Communities (Panel Discussion)

Discussion on new models of community organisation in contemporary arts and music.

Each year at Music Current Festival we invite music audiences and the wider public to engage in debates and discussions concerning how music making is affected by technology, social changes and the political environment. Continuing our discussion from Music Current 2025, which focused on sense of ownership in contemporary music making and listening, this year we consider the modes and models that contemporary artists and music fans use to organise themselves, and create their own communities, networks and festivals.

In contemporary media the ubiquity of digital technology is matched by the increasing concentration of communications resources in the hands of a trans-national corporate complex. The trend raises profound concerns regarding ownership of the means of communications. For musicians and audiences this impinges directly on the ownership of copyright, means of production and distribution. And despite the ubiquity of easily accessible streamed music, the situation creates a distance or remoteness concerning the ownership of musical material, both from the composers' and listeners' perspective, and displaces the communal nature of music making and listening.

In this discussion four music makers share insights into their personal experience of how they have taken practical steps to build their own communities around festivals and events and how that impinges on their ownership of their own material. The discussion is open and accessible to public participation, and contributions are welcome from the audience.

This event is hosted in collaboration with the Contemporary Music Centre, Ireland. The discussion is moderated by Jonathan Grimes (CMC Head of Content) and will be recorded for the Contemporary Music Centre's podcast amplify.

The discussion will be followed immediately at 7pm by a Music Current Festival Launch Event, where attendees are invited to join us for refreshments.

PANELISTS

• Michael Maierhof (DE), composer and organiser with vamh and blurred edges, Hamburg

• Tadhg Kinsella, multidisciplinary sound artist, founder and director Dublin Modular

+ more TBA

Tickets

The event is free to attend, but booking is required at Project Arts Centre.