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LoS for professionalism in music

 

The Lake of Stars (LoS) Festival has called on artists listed to perform at this year’s event to manage their music as a business if they are to reap dividends from the event.

LoS, in partnership with M-hub and Master Your Ability, is running a series of workshops for artists in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu.

Some of the artists who attended the training in Mzuzu
Some of the artists who attended the training in Mzuzu

Speaking in Mzuzu on Wednesday, Master Your Ability director Annelies de Bruine said artists can make a living out of music if they are trained in music business.

“If one wants to make a living out of music, one has to treat it as a business. With Internet facilities, it’s easy to run music as business. One can sell music, contact organisers or promoters. It looks easy to do this, but in actual sense it is not.

“So, through the workshops, we want artists to have that knowledge and be able to market themselves before and during the festival,” said Bruine.

She said some of the topics to help artists market themselves include networking, social media, biography writing, photography and website making.

“The talent of people is amazing here [in Malawi]. But the challenge is that, unlike in UK, Malawian artists are not 24 hours online. This makes it difficult for them to conduct business. We want artists to have accounts on internet and be able to manage them 24 hours a day,” she added.

Artists trained in Mzuzu were Lusubilo Band, Body, Mind and Soul, Gasper Nali, Michael Mountain and The Moods Malawi.

Nkhata Bay-based Michael Mountain, who is managed by UK-based Spare Dog Records, admitted that most artists in Malawi do not run music as a business.

He said the challenge is that most of them lack knowledge in information and communication to conduct business online.

“This workshop has helped me learn things about the computer and be able to advertise myself,” he said.

LoS is scheduled to take place between September 25 and 27 at Sunbird Nkopola Lodge in Mangochi.

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