It's been over a year since I started my work at The British Council and since then, I've learned an immeasurable amount not only about British cultural relations but diplomacy and the "creative industries". My degree was on the Culture Industry and my minor was The British Council (which seems a tad strange for a Canadian, though it gave me incredible insight into arts funding and what I might call patronage), but my major was the music industry, specifically the way music is distributed digitally. Of course you can see the product of my research on this site.

Which leads me, in a roundabout way, to write about the UK Young Music Entrepreneur awards. I've been working on this awards programme across an incredibly interesting spectrum of sectors - all in the creative industries (fashion, communications, design, to name the ones I've been most involved with). But the most exciting, to me, is this year's exceptional list of candidates to compete for the UKYME award.

The longlist is as follows:

Katie Brockhurst – Kdot Online    
Daniel Cross – Record-Play Ltd    
Ruth Daniel – Fat Northerner Records
Polly Eldridge – sounduk
Dave Haynes – SoundCloud
Ian Hogarth – Songkick.com     
Jack Horner – FRUKT
Edward Millett – Connected Limited
Karen Pearson – Folded Wing
Karen Piper – Radar Maker Ltd
Nikhil Shah – Mixcloud
Storme Whitby-Grubb – Little Touring

They'll come in next week for interviews with our panel of judges and I am lucky enough to be able to sit in and hear about their businesses. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll update on the interviews when we announce the shortlist. But one thing's for sure - it's anybody's game.
 


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