DNB and Kongsberg Jazz Festival are renewing their collaboration.
DNB and Kongsberg Jazzfestival have a long collaboration that stretches all the way back to the establishment of the festival in 1964. DNB stepped in as one of the festival's main sponsors several years ago, and is now renewing the agreement until the anniversary year 2024, when the festival turns 60. An exciting collaboration, where diversity and culture will go hand in hand going forward.
For Therese Askeland, bank manager at DNB Kongsberg, it is important to be present in the local market, and beyond taking care of customers on a daily basis, ensure that activities take place in the city. Together with Bodil Buch, head of the corporate department at DNB Buskerud, customers are invited to a relationship event during the festival. All DNB customers are also invited to DNB Hagen - a separate area on Kirketorget with a lounge, own bar and toilets, as well as opportunities to create a photo memory from the festival. Perhaps an artist or two will appear as well.
Are you a DNB customer? Get discounted tickets to the Kongsberg Jazz Festival here.
The musician award will be the DNB award
The DNB prize is back, after a few years with the name Kongsberg Jazzfestival's big musician's prize. The price of NOK 200.000 should be high, and be the highest prize a Norwegian jazz musician can receive in 2022. The DNB prize is awarded for the 26th time, and goes to a performer who has made his mark on the Norwegian jazz scene, and who at the same time shows potential for further development - both nationally and internationally. The jury sits festival manager Ragnhild Menes, a representative from the festival's program committee, and Therese Askeland, bank manager at DNB Kongsberg. The award recipient will have a central role in the festival's program the following year, and will have the status of resident artist.
Together with the festival, the award recipient must prepare an overall award-winning project which, among other things, must consist of newly written music and/or new collaborations. Efforts should be made for the award winner to leave a clear mark on the festival's program with up to three concerts. One or more of the projects should have a clear international dimension.
#huninvesterer scholarship
Statistics show that there is a large economic gap between women and men. DNB calls this the capital gap, and through the #huninvesterer campaign, women are encouraged to take greater control of their own finances and investments. Such gaps can easily be transferred to the music industry. The statistics show, among other things, that of Spotify's 50 most played songs in 2020, 12% of the songwriters and 0,7% of the producers were women. Every fifth Norwegian composer (19%) is a woman, but their works are rarely played. Only 2% of the music in Norwegian orchestras is written by women (Norwegian Composers' Association 2019). Among festivals and year-round organizers in 2018, women made up 5 percent of performers on stage during blues concerts, 16 percent during rock and pop concerts, 22 percent during jazz concerts and 40 percent during classical concerts and contemporary music concerts. This is just a small excerpt.
The #huninvester grant is a development grant of NOK 100.000, which will go to a performer in the establishment phase of their career, who has shown a significant will and uncompromising commitment to their own artistry. The scholarship is to be used to invest in one's own career, it can be recordings, tour/travel, investments in equipment, composing, etc. The candidate can also have demonstrated the ability to reach a new audience through new communication methods, and the ability to collaborate across national borders , spheres and/or expressions. The jury sits festival manager Ragnhild Menes, a representative from the festival's program committee, and Therese Askeland, bank manager at DNB Kongsberg.
- Through the new #huninvesterer grant, DNB and Kongsberg Jazzfestival together want to focus on the capital gap between women and men that we see both in private finance, but also in the music industry, says Aina Lemoen Lunde, marketing director at DNB. This is also in line with the festival's work to improve gender balance and diversity in the industry, and the festival committed itself in 2021 to Key Change. The #huninvesterer scholarship will help to set a clear agenda for this, and the prize will be awarded at Bebop & Business – the meeting place of business, culture and politics during the jazz festival.
Are you a DNB customer? Get discounted tickets to the Kongsberg Jazz Festival here.
