URAL MUSIC NIGHT FESTIVAL

ANO Association of Musicians of the Urals

https://uralmusicnight.ru/

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One of the largest music festivals in Russia, which has been held annually since 2015 in Yekaterinburg.

The city centre sounds in thousands of voices. World-renowned and young musicians perform their music for everyone.
Up to 100 music scenes simultaneously work in the framework of the festival. Performers are musicians that are well-known to the general audience and aspiring stars from Russia and other countries of the world. The project has a number of unique features: maximum variety of musical styles within one festival, the entire city as the festival venue, free admission to all sites. Today Ural Music Night is an ecosystem that brings together young and experienced musicians from different countries, music industry experts, journalists, representatives of cultural institutions from Russian regions and foreign countries. The festival is a real driver of development of Yekaterinburg, the Sverdlovsk region and Russia as a whole. Every year the project receives awards and becomes a laureate of competitions in the field of culture, event industry and marketing; the festival was twice in the TOP 100 projects supported by the Presidential Grants Fund. The festival attracts attention of the federal and foreign media; the project is recognized in the professional music industry in Russia and Europe.
The festival offers a variety of musical directions: from extravagant folk-jazz to glitter-pop, from poetic metal-punk to smiling hip-hop, from post-minimalism to Krautrock. Participants: Imaginary Friends Orchestra, NUGGERS, qaynar, ANDREGROUND, Kickin’ Jass Orchestra, Settlers, ALKONOST, AETERNA, SHOO, Sobachy Lie, Luz Kinder, OMMAJ, Ragi Gangi, theabc, TIHOTIHO, Sny Salamandry, passmurny, Parnishka, WATERFALLS, Elona Miller, Oshibsya nomerom, LEELOO, Mika Vino, Ekaterina Yashnikova, PINE RIDGE, GAFT, Makodzeba, Sergey Suvid, Anatoly Ice, Marat Taturas, MIMIKO, ON ROBOT, Close to Monday, DJ Peretse, Genning, Lynh, Bugs & Mike, ERKOFF, Old Cadillac and many others. Festival headliners were: Theatre “Theatre” with the musical “Crimson Sails”, Vadim Eilenkrieg, Teona Kontridze, MakSim, Tatiana Ovsienko, VIA Pesnyary, Melody Orchestra directed by Garanyan, Nike Borzov, Kurara, Laud, Forbidden Drummers, Timur Shaov and many others.

How do you come up with a cool cultural project idea in the digital industry? What needs to be done?

- If you already have successfully implemented projects, we would advise supplementing them with a digital component and adapting them to the online format. It’s pointless to deny the impact of modern technology on all areas of our lives, so the best solution is to evolve and adapt to change. Art and culture are areas that should be accessible to everyone from anywhere on the planet, so digitalization is a great opportunity to expand the audience! Of course, any development carries a costs and requires due courage; for instance, in our case, we needed to organize high-quality online broadcasting from more than 10 sites throughout the city. If you don’t have a project yet, don’t be afraid to experiment! Create something very bold and modern, because we all set limits for ourselves. We believe that the brightest and most memorable projects are the implementation of the most daring fantasies into real life. We decided in favor of an online broadcast of the festival because we realized that its geography is much wider than it seems. It’s not just Yekaterinburg, but other cities as well. The festival transcends the borders of Russia and we want to give people from all over the world the opportunity to enjoy high quality, essential music of different genres!

What challenges did you encounter during the project?

- It is difficult to highlight the challenges of any particular stage of the project, because Ural Music Night is the largest open-air festival in Russia. The number of artists and visitors is not only our pride, but also the challenge we face year after year. We want to make the festival comfortable, accessible and convenient for every guest, but when it comes to hundreds of thousands of people, it is certainly a scope that has an impact.

What does your project do for people?

- The goal of Music Night is to make music accessible to everyone, and we think we are succeeding! This is the music of dozens of genres and styles which can be heard by every resident of Yekaterinburg, Russia and the world if you come to any of the free venues around the city or open a broadcast on the official site or in the project’s community on VKontakte. Do not do a project just to do a project. Everyone has problems that concern them or their loved ones. Think about how you can solve this problem, what can be improved, changed? Then the idea will come up by itself.