After canceling its 2020 edition because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian Music Week (CMW) is returning this month with a comprehensive virtual offering.
Canadian Music Week 2021 will kick off on Tuesday, May 18th and conclude on Friday the 21st, complete with both a talent-packed (and free-to-attend) performance portion and a multifaceted virtual conference. Velvet Starlings, The Commotions, and Jaimey Hamilton are among the more than 200 artists who will play the former, which fans can register to attend here.
Moreover, CMW organizers have booked all manner of high-profile professionals for their event’s conference component, as part of a broader effort to provide meaningful insight to artists and behind-the-scenes experts alike.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Nile Rodgers, Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis, and Verzuz co-founder Timbaland represent some of the many prominent figures who will speak during the virtual happening.
CMW’s opening day will touch on everything from the state of the live-entertainment space – and its path forward as lockdown restrictions ease – to managing creators in the contemporary music industry.
Performance experiences amid the pandemic, music-listenership developments, and the nuances of co-writing tracks represent just some of the other topics that the day-one conference component of CMW is set to cover.
Additionally, Merck Mercuriadis – whose Hipgnosis song-investment fund has quietly acquired catalogs from Shakira, Lindsey Buckingham, L.A. Reid, and Chrissie Hynde, to name just some – will interview Timbaland and Nile Rodgers on this opening day.
The 57-year-old Schefferville, Quebec, native Mercuriadis will also host “an in-depth fireside chat” about songwriting partnerships on the event’s third day – and describe his vision for Hipgnosis and songwriters in a separate panel yet on the final day of CMW.
Canadian Music Week’s second day will then explore the steps that indie labels and artists have taken to adapt during the COVID era, ways in which musicians can hone their livestream-performance skills, how creators can attract the attention of agents, and more.
Plus, higher-ups from Amazon Music will discuss their platform’s trends – and the wider implications for the music community – while Island Records founder Chris Blackwell will shed light upon the knowledge he’s acquired throughout his more than six-decade-long career in the industry.
Next, SOCAN interim CEO Jennifer Brown on day three of CMW will highlight the modern-day relationship between songwriters and publishers, whereas Primary Wave team members have been invited to elaborate upon the work that comes with making acquisitions financially viable during the pandemic.
Attendees will also have the chance to hear professionals speak of the fast-growing sync licensing space’s specifics and the importance of music metadata. Canadian Music Week 2021’s final day encompasses panels pertaining to the music industry’s exciting present and promising future, including expert insight on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), artificial intelligence, and how to market tomorrow’s hit songs on TikTok.
Evidence suggests that the full-scale return of crowd-based live music will arrive sooner rather than later. And by networking, exchanging ideas, and absorbing knowledge via events like Canadian Music Week, assets to the music community can assure that this comeback is as successful and universally beneficial as possible.
For a complete list of Canadian Music Week 2021 conference guests, check out the four-day-long event’s website.
I’ll take CMW over SXSW any day.
Wish they could bring it in for the real thing but happy Neill’s bringin’ this baby back
Hypnosis FOUNDER!!! Wow so cool
You mean the guy who is scooping up all the licencing and publishing rights after squeezing musicians out of money via Spot-a-lie now wants to be heralded with honors?
Wait wait he wants to be seen as a rock star as a musician! He’s a star maker an impresario… not as the common garage sale scavenger that he is.
Your all the same lawyers dabbling in art removing the artists turning is into strippers on a pole dancing for fractions of pennies. Congratulate me he says honor me he says.
I will not stand in your honor you repugnant putrid vulture. I will however remember you and all your ilk and we will do our best to remember you comfy and we’ll fed lounging in your self important office as you will one day be served and an investigation will begin on all these dealings and we will through this lawsuit investigate how you and your minions coordinated this hostel takeover. You will on that day wish you had kept your name and face out of the like light you are panting for
Disgusting the entire lot including this rag should be ashamed of what you have done here. You helped them keep us in down so they could do this to us.
You don’t understand what Merck is doing.
He’s doing several things:
1. Merck is paying off major legacy artists who are near the end of their lives for a lifetime of work. Nobody’s getting ripped off.
2. Merck is advocating that all songwriters get a bigger piece of the pie. Why is that? Because the big record labels also happen to own the biggest music publishing companies, and the big labels are OK with shortchanging songwriters so that the labels earn more money.
3. Merck accurately describes how streaming has saved the industry because it’s turned music consumption into a utility. Downloads weren’t going to do it. And physical media will always be niche.
Merck Mercuriadis is a good advocate for the industry today and what the future should look like for songwriters. I don’t know what your beef is with him.
1. They have been scammed out of their positions You obviously know nothing about the blockchain which will keep ownership under the control of the artists UNLESS THEY SELL THEIR RIGHTS!! DUH
2.Merick does not want songwriters to get their cut because the grapevine is rumbling already with song writers who have not received payment from Merick since he purchased all these catalogs… Look up a convenient fire at the storage facility where all the masters were burned in a arson fire by the industry to keep royalties ambiguous
3. Streaming did not save the music industry it consolidated it and kept the numbers hidden obscured and misdirect… Look up how spotty owes Eminem 2 BILLION We’ve been taken by the old squeeze
4. He’s an opp and so are you!!!
The end of days is upon the lawyering lawyers who have guided our industry like looting soccer hoodlums ie Cardi B strippers thugs and coked out lawyers dizzy from the strip club dazzled by Megan ( she’s a stallion I hear)
Study and understand the block chain and do not sign
I remember reading about that fire didn’t they find some of those masters hidden away!!!! Lol Busted!!!!?
It’s amusing to be lectured by somebody who can’t type, can’t spell Merck’s name correctly, thinks that Spotify owes Eminem $2 billion, and goes off on a tangent about The Blockchain and conspiracy theories about fires.
I should do more research?
You should think about quitting meth. Maybe get out of your mother’s basement and get a real job. Kiss a girl.
No, you don’t understand what Merck is doing. The items you presented are PR. The reality is a bit more sinister. Do more research.