Ten festivals from all over Europe have joined forces in the festival collaboration project MusMA – Music Masters on Air: European Broadcasting Festival. After one year of cooperation, the initiative shares its ambitions and first results in a newly released video clip. “We have to do more for young composers,” stresses Jan Briers, representative of the Flanders Festival, initiator of MusMA. MusMA is a platform for new music created for young composers. Composers of the new generation, masters of the new era, take a flight to present their work abroad. Participating festivals provide a platform to welcome this new, unknown contemporary music. 10 - and soon 15 - major European festivals, with the support of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Festivals Association (EFA), pitch these contemporary composers beyond the borders, straight into the air: Flanders Festival Brussels; HUNGAROFEST - KLASSZ Music Office; Emilia Romagna Festival; International Festival Wratislavia Cantans; Estoril Festival; BEMUS – Belgrade Music Festival / Jugokoncert; Festival Ljubljana; Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada; and International Ankara Music Festival. “We have to try to create the best conditions with good performers, people who believe in the works, people who believe in the music, and try to transmit this enthusiasm to the audience,” says Enrique Gamez, Director of the Festival Internacional de Música y Danza de Granada. Each year, MusMA commissions ten compositions in the frame of an artistic theme (2010/2011: Music and Environment; 2011/2012: Liszt & Landscape; 2012/2013: Exoticism in Music; 2013/2014: Man and music). Each festival selects a composer who then works with the musicians on their compositions. “Here we have an ideal surrounding: we were not only meeting the composer, we also met all the pianists who bring their own skills stories and point of views. This can be so inspiring,” underlines Nina Presicek, pianist (Slovenia). Every festival programmes around five MusMA compositions. Each festival’s classical broadcasting channel records the MusMA concerts and offers them to the EBU. These collaborating radio stations design international formats to broadcast and insert the MusMA material into their own programmes. “The blend of the radio and the festival really goes together,” says Gregor Pirs, radio station RTV Slovenija, ARS Programme. “If we join powers, this project can have an infinite power.” More information on composers participating in the project, artistic themes, events and participating festivals can be found at www.musma.eu.