Author: Press Officer

The organisers of Derry’s Culture Tech festival have today officially released a high-profile and eclectic lineup of keynote speakers including the CEO of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the editor-at-large of technology magazine Wired UK. The announcements round out a programme of events which is already attracting delegates from across the UK, Ireland and North America.

Culture Tech, which takes place in the city between August 29th and September 1st, is billed as a four-day celebration of digital technology, media and music. In addition to the keynote speakers, the event will feature over 50 industry speakers alongside film screenings, digital arts installations, a games tournament and an extensive music lineup.

The keynote speakers announced today include:

• Kath Mainland, CEO of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
• Sir Nicholas Kenyon, Director of The Barbican, Europe’s largest performance venue
• Ben Hammerlsey, Editor-at-Large at Wired magazine and No 10’s Ambassador to Tech City
• Mike Butcher, editor of the highly influential TechCrunch Europe website

As festival organiser, Mark Nagurski, explained:

“Culture Tech is one part conference, one part music festival and one part family-friendly carnival, all designed to celebrate digital culture. As of today we have announced over 50 speakers across TV, music, gaming and digital arts and we’re expecting well over 500 industry delegates and 10,000 members of the public to take part in activities and events across the city.”

“We are thrilled to have so many high-profile speakers and industry experts involved in the event already and next week we will be announcing our music lineup, including dozens of acts and a free, public concert which will take place on the last day of the festival. In other words it’s going to be fantastically exciting.”

Martin Adair from Invest Northern Ireland, who are co-sponsoring the event added:

“The creative industries are hugely important to the Northern Ireland economy and we have truly world-class companies here across everything from TV to games and animation to music. The Culture Tech festival is a really accessible way of both showcasing those companies and inviting the public, particularly young people, to get involved. We’re delighted to be supporting such an exciting new event for Northern Ireland.”

Festival tickets are on sale now via the Culture Tech website at www.culturetech.co, priced at £49 with student tickets available for £29. Individual music event tickets go on sale July 9th

Currently riding the wave of international songwriting success with recent cuts by Professor Green, Avicii and Westlife, RuthAnne Cunningham takes time out from writing and recording her debut album to make a flying visit back to Ireland. Catch a sneak preview of tracks from this album when RuthAnne pops into IMRO for a public interview and live performance later this week.

Date: Friday 13th July
Venue: IMRO, Copyright House, Pembroke Row, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2
Time: 7:00pm

BOOK NOW!    (OPEN TO NON IMRO MEMBERS)

To reserve a place at this event send an email to keith.johnson@nullimro.ie

Limited availability | No admission charge | Booking Essential

Biography

Based between London and LA, Irish-born artist RuthAnne draws on the distinctive energy of those cities to create a dynamic, soulful blend of pop with a rich vocal like no other. The unstoppable singer/songwriter has an impressive line-up of tunes behind her, created for pop-artists including Jojo’s hit single with Billy Steinberg, “Too Little too late,” which skyrocketed from number 66 to number 3 on the Billboard hot 100 chart in just one week in the US in 2007, breaking previous chart records – the biggest leap in Billboard chart history. The platinum smash went on to sell over a million units. And that’s just the jumping off point.

RuthAnne has written songs for chart-topping artists including Katharine McPhee, winner of Finnish pop idol Anna Abreu and winner of South African idol Jody Williams and Australian band Shakaya – and the list goes on. In 2007, RuthAnne had songs on three platinum albums in the US and Europe, and officially became Ireland’s youngest songwriter ever to achieve these honors (she won the Best Pop song Award at the 2007 ASCAP Awards). More stellar cuts and singles written by RuthAnne, including album title track “Turn it up”, album track “My Love”, and hit single “Broken Arrow”, recorded by British platinum-selling popstar Pixie Lott, followed. She then collaborated with Grammy winning producer John Shanks to co-write with Westlife for their recent ‘Greatest Hits’ album.

While she may have been burning brightly behind the scenes, RuthAnne was never content being just a music-industry insider – and now her journey is taking a major turn, into the spotlight.

RuthAnne’s time to shine as a solo artist is now, her undeniable vocal talent, her wildly rich soulful tone is soon to be heard around the world. After honing her skills over the past five years writing for, and collaborating with, many of the UK’s hottest stars and producers, (Leona Lewis, Sugarbabes, Labrinth, Ben Hudson, Ed Drewett, Devlin, X-Factor winning artist Alexander Burke, Cher Lloyd, JLS, Loick Essien, Tinchy Stryder, Professor Green, Westlife, among them), and having worked extensively with many internationally renowned producers (Ron Fair, John Shanks, Julian Bunetta, Jeff Bashker, Red One, Toby Gad, JR Rotem to name a few), RuthAnne is now in Los Angeles putting all of that experience and creativity into writing her own album of infectiously catchy soulful-pop.

Her first artist feature is with Brit rap star Professor Green, on the hook she penned for current single, ‘Remedy’ (June release in UK & across Europe).

She wrote and is featuring on DJ superstar Avicii’s upcoming single “All You Need Is Love” which is set to be a worldwide Summer anthem.

A handful of other exciting features and collaborations in the pipeline whilst working on her debut record.

RuthAnne’s unprecedented foundations in the industry along with her songwriting pedigree and irrepressible ambition, talent and unique vision have marked her a rising star to watch.

http://www.iamruthanne.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ruthannemusic
https://twitter.com/#!/ruthannemusic

CISAC to improve the Professional Rules governing authors’ societies worldwide

At its recent General Assembly in Dublin, CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) unanimously decided to launch a thorough review of its Professional Rules governing authors’ societies worldwide.

The review’s objective is to further strengthen CISAC’s Professional Rules, guaranteeing that authors’ societies continue to operate under the highest and most appropriate standards of governance, business efficiency and financial transparency. The revisions will be presented for approval at the next CISAC General Assembly in Washington DC in June 2013.

Key improvements to be covered by the review of CISAC Professional Rules are:

 Increasing the frequency of distribution of royalties to creators and rights holders. As a first major step in that direction, CISAC General Assembly adopted in June 2012 the principle of a quarterly distribution of royalties between authors’ societies.

 Ensuring better financial transparency through a reinforced and harmonised yearly declaration of societies to CISAC.

 Streamlining the compliance verification process. In order to guarantee that authors’ societies are trusted organisations within the creative sector, CISAC will improve its compliance verification process, while staged and escalating sanctions will be considered for societies which do not comply with CISAC Professional Rules.

“CISAC Professional Rules,” said CISAC Director General Olivier Hinnewinkel, “serve as a sort of code of conduct for authors’ societies internationally and contribute to establishing a fair system for everyone where creators get the benefit from their creations by getting paid for the use of their works – and where users have equal access to the worldwide repertoire.”

The Professional Rules are a binding code of governance, administrative, business, financial and data management principles, first laid down by CISAC in 2007 and adapted to each of the creative repertoires – music, audiovisual, dramatic, literary and visual arts. CISAC Professional Rules aim to streamline relations between authors’ societies, their members and users as well as to provide an assurance of the good governance, credibility, transparency, efficiency and legitimacy of authors’ societies that are members of CISAC.

After five years of implementation, CISAC decided it was time to revisit its Professional Rules in order to maintain high standards of governance and transparency in line with the interests of rights holders, users, governments and the general public, while taking into account the extreme diversity of situations among CISAC members.

About Authors’ societies and CISAC

Authors’ societies exist to ensure that creators’ rights are licensed, collected, managed and distributed fairly. They play a key role in licensing legitimate services and collecting and distributing royalties to creators and rightsholders worldwide. They also promote cultural diversity by facilitating worldwide access to cultural works.

Presided over by legendary singer and songwriter Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees (until his death on May 20, 2012) and internationally recognized visual artist Hervé di Rosa, CISAC – the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers – is the leading worldwide network of authors’ societies protecting and promoting the interests of creators and rights holders. CISAC’s fundamental mission is to enable authors’ societies to seamlessly represent creators across the globe and, in particular, to assist them in ensuring that royalties flow to authors for the use of their works anywhere in the world. To this end, CISAC provides the highest business & technical standards to protect creators’ rights and to support the development of the international network of collective management societies.

With 233 authors’ societies from 122 countries as its members, CISAC indirectly represents around 3 million creators and publishers of artistic works in all genres (music, drama, literature, audiovisual, photography and the visual arts). In 2010, the royalties collected by CISAC’s member societies in their respective national territories topped 7.5bn EUR.

CD Release and June 28 gig at Oh Yeah.

The first graduates have emerged from a special programme, ‘Scratch My Progress’, at the Oh Yeah music centre in Belfast.  These are: Katharine Phillipa, Conor Mason, 20 Second Century and Everyday Superheroes. At the end of this six month course they have each recorded a track for a compilation CD and will celebrate their completion of the pilot scheme with a gig.

This live event takes place at Oh Yeah, 15-21 Gordon Street, Belfast on Friday June 28. The compilation CD will be available on the night and a special guest will also feature.

Scratch My Progress is the first version of a talent development project, supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Invest Northern Ireland and promoted by the Citybeat radio station. One acts was chosen from a public vote and the others were selected by an industry panel.

The musicians were then introduced to vocal coaching, PR, photo sessions and meetings with a series of industry professionals. These included a specialist lawyer, a music industry accountant, an executive at Domino Records and a former A&R chief at Virgin Records. They learnt about copyright, film synch and survival skills on tour.

All of the acts have now been profiled by BBC Radio 1 Introducing. Meanwhile Katharine Phillipa appeared with the Ulster Orchestra in a live BBC broadcast from the Ulster Hall on May 22.

Katharine says:

” I think I need a surrogate musical family.  In Northern Ireland, I’ve seen it for sure – in other musicians, BBC Radio Ulster folk, and of course, at the Oh Yeah Centre, which is such a necessary base and nucleus within the music scene. With this kind of nurturing at the onset, a more stable musical growth can occur, just as the opportunity for music to be heard by as many ears as possible deepens.”

More info:

http://www.ohyeahbelfast.com/scratch_my_progress/view/katherine

http://www.ohyeahbelfast.com/scratch_my_progress/view/conor_brown

http://www.ohyeahbelfast.com/scratch_my_progress/view/20_second_century

http://www.ohyeahbelfast.com/scratch_my_progress/view/everyday_superheroes

The second series of Scratch My Progress will be launched in the second half of 2012.