Candela Carrera – EJN Staff Exchange 2025

Sending EJN member: Taller de Músics / JAZZ I AM (Spain)
Hosting EJN member: Ha Concerts (Belgium)
Dates of the exchange: 1–3 April 2025

On 2 April 2025, I visited Ha Concerts’ facilities, which include a 350-seat auditorium and an impressive backstage area. The venue also features a restaurant, meeting rooms, and offices. The team is currently exploring the possibility of offering standing concerts in order to increase capacity and connect with a younger audience. Ha Concerts runs around 110 programme days per year, alongside approximately 70 rentals.

I then met with Evelien Den Jaeger and Jaïr Tchong, who collaborate on festivals in Ghent and run concert and music audition programmes for children. Their work strongly focuses on social engagement and reaching new audiences, particularly younger ones. They were surprised by the scale of our activities at Taller de Músics. We later had lunch together and reviewed Creative Europe documentation, which I saved for future reference.

On 3 April 2025, I attended a team meeting conducted in English for my benefit. The meeting takes place every two weeks and lasts exactly one hour, with one team member acting as moderator and another taking notes. The discussion was very open, covering rental costs, programming, audience results, and annual financial losses. After the meeting, I had lunch with the whole team.

I then met again with Evelien to discuss details of the Creative Europe project and to confirm that their annual expenditure figures are comparable to those of Taller de Músics. Later, I met Charlotte Huyghe from Ha Concerts to explore possible joint communication actions within a future European project.

That afternoon, I travelled to Mechelen with Jaïr, continuing our discussions and outlining potential collaborations. We also visited Kunstencentrum Nona, where I met Mik Torfs, coordinator of the JazzLab programme, and Bart Vanvoorden, General Director of Nona. I attended a concert by an emerging Belgian saxophonist who is part of the JazzLab network.

On 4 April 2025, I met with the artist Berlinde Deman, who plays the tuba and serpent, and with Jens Tytgat, an agent at Inside Jazz management. Later, back at Taller de Músics, Jaïr Tchong (Ha Concerts) and Jens Tytgat (Inside Jazz) formally proposed collaborating with us on a Creative Europe project planned for 2026.

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