Cremona, Italy
Monday 23rd to Friday 27th June 2025
Mapping Europe's (Live) Music Ecosystems
Spend 5 days in Italy with students from across Europe learning about live music and developing your data literacy.
(Applications deadline Friday 7th February)
We are pleased to offer suitable undergraduate SotA students the opportunity to take part in this exciting European Erasmus project.
Project Outline
Data collection, collation and analysis is now embedded in every aspect of music industries operation. From registering rights, to promoting projects, to measuring the sustainability of events, most musicians and music industry professionals need fundamental data literacy.
This project is an excellent opportunity for students considering music industries/policy research as a postgraduate degree in a music related field or developing a career in the music or wider creative industries. Students who have previously worked on the Liverpool only project have used the experience and skills gained in successful applications for full time roles at Sentric Music, Ditto Music, and Virgin Records. The added benefit of this international project is the opportunity to network with other European students interested in music ecosystems and collaborate with them to develop a shared practical insight into how the music industries operate globally.
In the past decade, music sector mapping has emerged as an effective research methodology to establish, monitor and evaluate the impact of music industries activity on society, culture and the economy. The Live Music Mapping Project (LMMP) is a pan-European project that uses cases study locations in different countries to compare the similarities and differences and the shared challenges music ecosystems encounter. As part of a European Commission funded European Blended Intensive Programme, the project will bring you together with students from Universities of Pavia (Italy), University of Rotterdam (Netherlands) and University of Porto (Portugal) to participate in training to develop data collection, collation and analysis skills on live music sectors.
There are two phases to the project:
1. An online knowledge building phase with some short sessions on Teams introducing you to diverse digital mapping methodologies and enabling everyone to get to know each other.
These are:
1.1 3.30pm Wednesday 9th April – An introduction to live music sector mapping and the relevance to further study/career development
1.2 3.30pm Friday 9th May – An introduction to social network analysis
1.3 3.30pm Wednesday 21st or 28th May – Analysing data to deliver insights
1.4 3.30pm Wednesday 18th - Information and logistics for the snapshot mapping project (physical mobility in Cremona)
1.5 3.30pm Friday 4th July – Presentations of results from 5-day in person programme (see below)
2. A 5 day in-person programme at the University of Pavia in Cremona (Italy) from Monday 23rd to Friday 27th June 2025. During the in-person workshops (See below), students and trainers will conduct field research and test a workflow designed for the collaborative collection of geospatial data related to urban musical practices. The development of this procedure will be part of the project’s outputs, with plans for future refinement based on user feedback. The project aims to create an open-source mobile app optimized for music research, allowing users to geolocate multimedia content, including recordings, pictures, and interview forms. See provisional schedule below.
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Monday 23/06 |
Tuesday 24/06 |
Wednesday 25/06 |
Thursday 26/06 |
Friday 27/06 |
Morning |
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10:30 / Data gathering walk: Cremona today |
10:30 / Data gathering walk: Cremona in the past centuries |
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10:30 / Group work: Digital mapping and visualization of musical life in Cremona |
Afternoon |
14:00 / Introduction -- 14:30 / Keynote lecture 1 (TBC)
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14:30 / Research presentation: Mapping Musical Life (C. Lanfossi)
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14:30 / Panel discussion: Mapping initiatives between academia and policy making (M. Flynn, P. Guerra, M. Nicastro) |
14:30 / Keynote lecture 2 (TBC) --
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14:30 / Panel discussion: Size matters? Mapping musical life in small and large urban areas (F. Cireddu, M. Mulder) |
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16:30 / Workshop: Collective data gathering workflow (M. Nicastro, F. Brusco) |
16:30 / Workshop: StoryMaps (M. Nicastro) |
16:30 / Workshop: CollectionBuilder (A. Bratus) |
16:30 / Workshop: Palladio and other online tools for data visualization (M. Nicastro, F. Brusco) |
16:30 / Workshop: Data management and data cleaning (M. Nicastro) |
Evening |
Warm-up aperitif |
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A night at Monteverdi Festival (TBC) |
Goodbye dinner |
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Eligibility
- You must be a registered University of Liverpool undergraduate student in the School of the Arts. Students from any year may apply; third years/final year have priority.
- Incoming students on an exchange semester or exchange year are ineligible. Students who have previously been on a departmental GO short trip are ineligible. Students who have been on, or have been awarded, a University/SOTA international experience that is a non-departmental short trip are lower priority.
- You must be able to commit to attending all preliminary training on Teams during Spring 2025 (see above)
- You must be able to commit to the full trip, which includes 5 full days in Italy, plus additional travel days in June 2025 (see above).
- Your application must make clear how the music industry and/or data literacy relates to your studies and career interest and specifically how attendance taking part in this project will support this.
The support you may receive:
- The support offered towards accommodation and/or travel is in line with Turing guidance which specifies a higher amount of support for those with WP status.
If offered support for the trip, you must confirm acceptance within 7 days.
Things to note
Our organising colleagues in Italy have secured shared hostel rooms at £25 per night per person. With return flights from Liverpool to Milan between £80 and £200 attendance from Sunday 22nd June to Friday 27th, accommodation and flights will cost between an estimated £230 - £350 with the option to stay for and additional £25 on the Friday night and travel home on Saturday 28th.
Any student who confirms their attendance but does not proceed with the trip will be required to refund to the University all financial support. This refund must be settled no later than June 2025. Please be aware that graduating students must have any outstanding financial matters settled before they can graduate.
You will be required to complete a short post-trip report within 10 days of your trip. This form will be sent to you in June.
How to apply
Please complete the application form below:
https://forms.office.com/e/ENYy25eXxH