Young musicians from Serbia have won three out of four awards in the region awarded by Runda. Zhiva best new artist; Butch Cassidy Best Performer; Ljubičice best album

The tenth annual edition of the biggest “showcase” festival in this part of Europe – Ment in Ljubljana, brought great visibility and success to the Serbian music scene, which presented itself with the support of the Serbia Creates Music platform. More than 20 music organizations and 50 professionals from Serbia presented themselves, while for the first time the entire program at one of the festival locations was dedicatted to the performances of young Serbian musicians!

The highlight of the entire performance was the absolute dominance of the musicians from Serbia, who won three of the four awards in the region at this year’s Round of Awards – Zhiva in the category of best new artist; Buč Kesidi in the Best Performer category; Ljubičice in the best album category.

The tenth edition of the Ment festival gathered more than 7,000 music lovers and 700 experts from the music industry from all over the world. As part of the now traditional program “Meet the Serbian Music Professionals” 10 organizations from Serbia participated and held more than a hundred meetings with representatives from Great Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia , Slovakia, Hungary, Portugal… As part of this program, the following festivals participated: Exit Festival, Arsenal Fest, No Sleep Festival, Foundation Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture: Kaleidoscope of Culture, Flags of the Future, Welcome, Feedback Club, Hali Gali, Universal Music Group Serbia , Kontra Rights, MMF Divčibare, Uzlet Festival, Lovefest, SKC Kragujevac. Also, there was a record number of panels, as many as nine, in which music professionals from Serbia participated this year, speaking on numerous current topics in the domain of promotion, copyright, music trends and artificial intelligence.

For the first time so far, the alternative Serbian collective Hali Gali had a presentation in the format of a special, during which they performed: Cactus Fields, Wizelj, Ubili su battlera, Nadya, Andria, Stevie Wander, while our young pop star Iva Lorens had the opportunity to present herself at another festival location.

“Over the past year, a special emphasis in the platform’s strategy has been placed on the music sector and the presentation of local performers and music professionals at professional festivals, and there are almost no music conferences in Europe where we do not have representatives from Serbia, and that in a much larger number than in previous years. Participation in such music events is extremely important for the development of the domestic music sector because they are opportunities for exchanging experiences and networking, but also for presenting domestic artists and organizations in front of the most important players in the music industry – agents, bookers, festival organizers, publishers. These are places where future international music stars are launched, and the effects are numerous – from the promotion of Serbia, cultural exchange to economic effects,” points out Zorica Tepić, music advisor of the Serbia creates platform.