CHANGES Music Summit puts a focus on Fitzroy in its second year of interrogating the current state of the international music community.
This year, the conference and showcase elements of CHANGES has been overseen by Emily Ulman, who brings a vast wealth of experience to the role with her background in venue management and programming.
“I feel like all roads have led me here to programme CHANGES because it doesn't just have the live showcase element involved, it has the conference and I feel like it's a really good collation of all my music experience to date,” Emily says.
In collaboration with curatorial partners such as 123 Agency, Anti Fade Records, Bad Apples Music, Barely Dressed Records, Chapter Music and more, showcases have been designed that spotlight the talent of Melbourne's flourishing musical community.
“This year we are focussing the live music showcase element just in Fitzroy,” Emily says.
“We want to make the footprint of the showcase element flawless so people can move around from venue to venue, and to encourage people to see as much music as possible and not spend as much time in transit moving between the spaces.
“As far as the conference side goes, that will be held at the Abbotsford Convent and the focus is really about the future of music. It's very forward-focussed and coming together as an industry to look at what's in store and what's changing, with a focus on music, talk, tech and ideas.”
Click here to read the 2019 CHANGES live music and speaker programme.
In her first year as Programmer, Emily says she has strived to make access to CHANGES a top priority so that attendees get the most out of their time regardless of their career status.
“I'm making sure that I cater to the three streams of the industry, being: emerging, mid-career and established, and making sure there's lots on offer for people no matter what stage of their career they're at,” she says.
CHANGES also seeks to engage with and strengthen the connection between overseas music markets by inviting Brazil as this year's Music Passport key target country, broadening the scope of the event far beyond national borders.
“It's very much with a view to exchange ideas, to compare the market, to showcase our artists with a view to being exported, how to access the Brazilian market and also just to learn from the Brazilian community about how they consume music,” Emily says of the Music Passport initiative.
“There's such a huge music market and I feel there's a lot of differences and some similarities between the two music communities that we can deep-dive into and see how we can learn from one another.”
After last year's inaugural event, Emily hopes this year she can build on its success and help bolster the music industry both here and abroad. “An ideal outcome for me would be to grow the festival,” she says, “and to have some really healthy discussion and debate, look at the future and hopefully change some minds.”
