How many times in the last 12 months have you been to a concert? In Europe, 35% of you at least once, according to the findings of a recently published Eurobarometer survey on cultural access and participation.
Though, a ballet, a dance or an opera have been visited by 18%.
These findings raise the suspicion that concert and opera are losing audience. Lack of interest, lack of time and expense were supposed to be the main barriers to participation in cultural activities. It's time for us to take a closer look at the field of music education: Out now our current newsletter no. 119.

A lot of things have changed at Arts Management Network during the last months! Being ourselves involved with investigating new organisational structures and workflow we have decided to focus on employment-related topics in our latest newsletter. We will take a closer look at human resources, which means at the dissonances between different stakeholders, not only highlighting the entrepreneurs perspective but also giving voice to those having not (yet) reached the executive suite today.

The manual provides guidance for States Parties and all those involved in the care of World Heritage cultural properties on how to comply with the requirements of the World Heritage Convention.

Since the World Heritage Convention was adopted in 1972, the World Heritage List has continually evolved and is growing steadily. With this growth, a critical need has emerged for guidance for States Parties on the implementation of the Convention. Various expert meetings and results of the periodic reporting process have identified the need for more focused training and capacity development in specific areas where States Parties and World Heritage site managers require greater support. The development of this series of World Heritage Resource Manuals is a response to this need.

Culture means change. And every cultural organisation should have the ability to change itself for many reasons: challenges in the society, expectations by the audience or stake holders, or sometimes even dissatisfaction by staff members. Our 117th edition of Arts Management Newsletter cares about change management.

We spoke with Martin Redlinger, director of marketing and sales at the Konzerthaus Berlin, who plays a leading role in an ongoing changing process. The interview shows how close the relationship is between the brand and the entire strategy of an arts organisation, and how long it takes to get results. Redlinger explains why the Konzerthaus needed a new positioning in the vibrant Berlin arts market, and how the team developed a new cultural brand. We also spoke with Julia Strysio about what the future of music festivals will look like? What has to be changed in a cultural format, which is probably the most flexible one?

The 17th edition of the Journées de la culture will be held on September 27, 28 and 29, with the theme: Participating is protecting culture. For three days, the general public is invited to immerse itself in the arts, to celebrate creativity and to help protect and promote culture by participating in the thousands of free activities taking place throughout Quebec.

The numerous workshops, guided tours, talks, performances and demonstrations will draw participants into the cultural heart of their community. This profusion of activities is put on by cultural organizations, artists, schools, municipalities and businesses, which are all gearing up to offer their fellow citizens a unique and inspiring experience in the various artistic disciplines.

In this newsletter you will read an interview with Julia Draganovic, who is the new director of the exhibition center Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany. She speaks about the profession as curator and art manager, her strategy to en- gage the audience, and her approach how to connect art and new media.

We also publish - as every year - the Summary Paper of the 4th Kufstein Summer School for Arts Management in Palea Epidavros/Greece, which took place in May 2013.

A Closer Look at Museum Studies Programs

While an increasing number of post-secondary institutions have begun to offer museum studies programs, many current graduates, however, are faced with dwindling job prospects due to a shortage of opportunities in the profession. Nancy Villa Bryk, an Assistant Professor of Historic Preservation at Eastern Michigan University, suggests that program administrators should consider implementing a system akin to that of American Bar Association, which requires accredited law schools to follow post-graduate placement, and make the information available to prospective students. Addressing these caveats publicly, she says, may enable prospective students to make more informed university choices.

We were saddened to hear of the death of Professor Colin Mercer on 4 July 2013. He was the United Kingdoms first Professor of Cultural Policy and Director of the Cultural Policy and Planning Research Unit at The Nottingham Trent University from 1999-2003.

With the last calls for Culture 2007-2013 closed, cultural and creative industry organisations are eagerly awaiting the launch the new framework programme for culture: 'Creative Europe'. This article gives an overview of this new programme, describes its funding priorities, and gives some pointers for organisations that already want to prepare for the next call.

The 115th edition of our Arts Management Newsletter is published while we are in Berlin at the 7th Federal Congress for Cultural Policy in Germany. The last congress two years ago covered the importance of digitalization for the arts sector - from copyright issues via archival storage of cultural heritage to the huge communication and marketing opportunities possible with media and web 2.0. However, the upraise of the German cultural policy 2011 in the digital age seems to be already weak again. There is no living online debate with the community, although the topic of this year - cultural planning - fits to invite arts professionals and other people to discuss about. Perhaps the community have totally different preferences and priorities, what they like to support more or less. We were somehow impressed about a comment by Bill Flood yesterday, who answered our question about his experience with cultural planning in Portland. He said, culture at all has a creative power to support communication in a community. So it is necessary at all to make communication possible including those among the arts professionals and cultural policy makers themselves. Enjoy the interview with Bill Flood on page 2.

The overall topic of this issue, Music A Public Affair?! allowed the EMC to include a wide range of approaches. This resulted in a broad spectrum of topics covered in the articles from the EMC's member organisations which reflect the diversity of the areas of activity they are engaged in. An introductory note by Doris Pack (Chair of the Culture Committee of the EU Parliament) as well as an interview with representatives of the EU Commission give a political viewpoint on the topic Music A Public Affair?!.

Are you an employer looking for skilled and creative workers? Are you a talented artist or cultural worker looking for a job? CultureWorks is a new job board for the cultural sector administered by The Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC). CHRCs mandate is to strengthen Canadas cultural workforce through leadership, support, representation and involvement. CultureWorks represents our commitment to those of you working in Canadas cultural community.

Among those responsible for bringing these new awards, "The Operas", to life were John Allison, editor of the renowned "Opera" magazine and British businessman Harry Hyman, Managing Director of the worldwide Nexus Group. Hyman is also a knowledgeable and passionate opera fan: "Opera hides its light all too often under a bushel, so we hope our awards will help bring the genre to a wider audience." Hyman also works hard helping to support young talented artitsts and encouraging people and companies to sponsor the arts in general. In November John Allison announced in Opera Magazine that he would welcome nominations for the awards. They received more than 1.500 replies from music specialists and opera lovers from 41 countries. Short lists were drawn up in 23 categories by a jury chaired by John Allison. Members of the jury included journalists Hugh Canning, Rupert Christiansen and Andrew Clements, soprano (and Bayreuth Brünnhilde) Dame Anne Evans, intendants Peter Alward (Salzburg Easter Festival), David Gockley (San Francisco Opera), Joan Matabosch (the Liceu in Barcelona) and Guus Mostart (Reisopera Enschede) and the Director of Opera Europa, Nicholas Payne. They were joined in the final round by Kathryn Harries, Director of the National Opera Studio in London, and the writer Barry Millington.

Creative Communities: Art Works in Economic Development is a new publication based on a series of papers commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts to stimulate more rigorous research on the arts and economic development.

The publication stems from a first-ever collaboration between the NEA and the Brookings Institution. The two organizations co-hosted the May 2012 symposium titled "The Arts, New Growth Theory, and Economic Development, where leading economists explored theories and empirical findings about the role of arts and culture in the U.S. economy. Archived video of the symposium is available at the Brookings website.

Do US-American Opera Houses operate more efficiently than German ones? Mounir Mahmalat, who studied at the Northeastern University in Boston, USA, as well as in Dusseldorf, Germany, investigated on the basis of twelve opera houses in both countries, if German institutions might take an example on US-American performing arts organizations who are said to operate in a more entrepreneurial manner. You can read this case study exclusively in our latest issue of the Arts Management Newsletter, the bi-mohthly magazine for the global perspective on arts and business.

Furthermore we can provide inside views with two totally different interviews. Our correspondent Kira Potowski met Koh Won-seok, an art curator in Seoul, who actually work for the new Arko Art Center in the capitol of South Korea. He takes our attention to a number of smaller Asian countries with art markets, which grow along the economic boom. Nikos Tsouchlos, the artistic adviser of the most important concert hall in Greece, underlines the current situation and role of the arts in a country, which suffer massively from the continuing economic and financial crunch. But Tsouchlos describes in the interview with Sven Scherz-Schade, how new practices can flourish and the roles of sociability and sharing are being re-examined.

Jazz musicians are often regarded as chronic loners, as individualists who fully concentrate on their art and work in ever-changing formations. However, to make that possible they need a fully functional, and in the best case, an internationally organized artistic network. In our latest newsletter, we exclusively publish a case study by Prof. Martin Lücke from Munich, which offers insight into how a European-wide partnership can look in practice.