The New/Open music festival was held in Yekaterinburg

From February 9 to 11, concerts of the New/Open showcase festival were held in Yekaterinburg. The winners, who won festival grants and prizes from partners, were Bogdan Kiyashko, “Sirin Krai”, Index Trio, Excite Quintet, “Oh! Margo” and other musicians. This year New/Open retained its status as a showcase event, supporting young artists with money, engagements, promotional activities and studio time. Tells Igor Gavrilov.

You can’t ignore New/Open if you’re involved in the real music industry, which includes concert activities, social media subscribers, and streaming. Such bright musicians as POLE, Settlers, Hodila Izba, Naum Blik, “Gaft”, Ilya Mazo, The OMY, Parnishka, “Mytishchi on Fire” and “Volvo” passed through the festival at one time. The team of the annual Ural Music Night festival turned out to be perhaps the only one in the country that helps new artists not in the interests of any one media company or label, but simply because they need help. It is symbolic that this is happening not in the capitals, but in Yekaterinburg, at the intersection of industrial, touring and creative vectors.

In 2024, the program included not only performances by 50 expertly selected artists, but also a music conference, a lecture program and a professional fair. The festival is supported by grants from the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs. But the funds allocated by the state cover only organizational expenses: cash prizes are provided by the festival’s partners and distributed by industry experts. Prize grants this year amounted to more than 1 million rubles. This money should go towards studio sessions, video shooting and promotional campaigns for releases.

Bogdan Kiyashko, a Moscow performer of gloomy indie pop with extensive experience in musical theater, received 300 thousand rubles according to the decision of experts. (from “VK Music Springboard”), as well as the “Musicians’ Choice” prize. Kiyashko is an artist who deserves a more respectable place in Russian music, and perhaps it was the last “golden kick” that he lacked. The lyrics of his most famous song, “Brother,” are a good example of how pop music can be, as it should be, infectious, but without pretending that everything in the world is sweet and cloudless.

At New/Open, artists who interpret Russian folklore and classics in the categories of contemporary music are always appreciated. Among the latest laureates, these include the instrumental group “Sirin Krai”. It consists of wide-ranging musicians with international experience. The material on her latest album “Sirin Cry” is most similar to film music in the best traditions of Soviet cinema, although “Sirin Cry” is also appreciated in jazz circles. The judges gave them a grant in the amount of 300 thousand rubles. (from the head of the Victoria group of companies, Boris Eduardovich Schwartz, as the official website of the project clarifies).

296 thousand rubles. from the mining and metallurgical company Evraz, experts awarded the Index Trio. The group includes titled professionals: saxophonist and, as he calls himself, pseudo-journalist Arkady Pikunov, the country’s most sought-after session drummer Pyotr Ivshin and sound designer Pavel Pankovsky. It’s hard to remember where else sponsorship money goes to experimental jazz. Another 297 thousand rubles. The group Excite Quintet received from Evraz, whose VK profile says: “This is what modern author’s jazz sounds like.”

These are only the main awards; in general, almost every participant in the final stage of New/Open received some kind of encouragement or valuable business offer. The most attention went to Margo Lebedeva and the group “Oh! Margot.” She received the “Choice of VKontakte Users” prize, and along with it – a promotion for her community on the social network for 300 thousand people. But most of all, the singer was pleased with the subsequent invitation from the St. Petersburg festival “Stereolet”. “If the producer of the Stereoleto festival, Ilya Bortnyuk, had not been at New/Open and he had not watched my performance, I would never have gotten to Stereoleto,” says the performer. The group “Oh! Margo” also became interested in club promoter Pavel Kamakin in the context of his annual Music Race regatta. Margo Lebedeva is not new to the scene, despite her young age, she is well acquainted with the mechanisms of the music industry, feels comfortable in the field of online promotion, but still believes that New/Open is a new start for her career.

There were no wedding generals among the experts. In addition to cash prizes, participants had the chance to attract the attention of those on whom their careers directly depend. The fate of the contestants was decided by PR specialists, journalists, Telegram channel hosts, editors of streaming platforms, publishers, and promoters. New/Open is not a TV show or a sponsorship project, but an active part of the market. Despite the turbulence in show business, the festival appears to retain this status for now.