Anyone who has been following this blog over the last few weeks would have noticed I have been attempting to keep up to date with how the Welsh music industry has been responding to Covid19. Off the back of this work, I am delighted to announce that I am now doing some research for the Culture Welsh Language and Communications Committee, who directly challenge Welsh Government on policy. Aside from some time that I am taking off over August, this is the project I will be placing most of my attention on over September and October.

So, first and foremost can I ask anyone who has any questions for Welsh Government in terms of what we need to do better to safeguard our stakeholders in the music industry and our ‘bricks and mortar’ infrastructures, to please drop me a message and I will try and build it into the narrative of the report. I gave some evidence in October on the committee’s enquiry into live music, so am so pleased to be helping out with how that very industry can respond to Covid19.

The main thrust of the report will be examine how we can learn from practices and policy elsewhere in the world, so please drop me a line of exemplars you hear about. Also, aside from the assistance currently available, what policies and funding can Welsh Government, Creative Wales and the Welsh Arts Council continue to implement that assist the music industry recover from Covid19? In a Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee evidence session on June 25^th, the Music Venue Trust praised the initiatives that had already being developed in Wales, so I am keen to ensure this narrative continues.

Despite the deviation this pandemic has caused, I also want to explore how music as a cultural artefact, can engage with Wales’ local and national recuperation in terms of ‘wellbeing’ and community engagement? In what ways can we empower this to take place when social distancing is still instigated?

It has been somewhat bizarre writing some of these posts recently-hard to believe that the live industry I love so much has been decimated-and that much of the work done in the aforementioned enquiry into live music, is in the short term at least – irrelevant. We are living in dystopian times, but musical creativity is something even a pandemic can’t stop. Musicians will continue making music, so I hope to play a tiny part in providing as good an infrastructure as possible to monetise the fruits of their labour.