Born in Limassol, Cyprus Michalis currently running Cyprus Music Information Centre, a small cultural organization with the task to promote music by Cypriot composers and musicians. He hold an MA in Arts Management from the the City University, London and the first degree was on Music from the University of Athens.
Q: I know that this the second edition of this project that you took part in, what do you think about the results? Do you like how this project has turned out?
A: About the summit, about the conference I think that every year is getting better and better. It s a hard thing to say about starting a project like that. It started as a project that we grew, it started from scratch and now we see more and more people coming, a lot of experienced speakers from around Europe. It s a great project and it should continue.
Q: Are policies in your domain an obstacle for musicians? Did they ever put you in a difficult situation?
A: Some policies are kind of, like not for me personal but artist have troubles with them. The policies that have something to do with social insurences, health insurences in each country. When artists travel to a country to another they experience very different situations, they don t have the mean to learn about these other things. In most of the time people find obstacles in travel. For me personally I never experienced because I ve never work in this sector but I think that common policies around Europe, especially for visa etc they need to be harmonize for the better.
Q: What s your favorite personal project that you feel it had an impact on society in some way?
A: My personal project, I think it was in 2019 when we started a project back in Cyprus and it was called Music Moves Europe, a project initiated by European Commision to support the music sector in Europe. You have a project there that was one of the ten projects I was selected by commision on a european level and it was focus on capacity building and training for young music profesionals. This was a project that brought me to meet Ovi from here, from Romania and a lot of people that now I m working with them on different projects. This program was initiated from us knowing each other from different projects.
Q: Does politics affect music industry?
A: Politics not only affects music industry, but it affects art industries and society in general. They have a lot to do with artist because of local legislation like who gets licence for music venues,copyrights, how you get licenced to present music. This things are not decided on the sector itself but on a political level. It also affects sustainability and financial matters , how things are done and how culture is made and consumed.
