Speakers for KIEM Workshops and Symposiums
Laura Bell
Managing Director of BMG Production Music, Bell leads a team of skilled music supervisors and creatives who work with directors, producers, and creators to find, license and/or create the best possible soundtrack for their projects. Previously Laura worked exclusively with hit repertoire, syncing the latest music in films and commercials for BMG and working with the likes of Ferrero Rocher and Corona. In Australia, Bell was Executive Producer & Manager of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Classics & Jazz record label, recording and releasing award-winning albums marketed and distributed via Universal Music. Laura has studied music at both the Sydney and The Hague Royal Conservatorium and completed a Master of Management from the Australian Institute of Music, based in the Sydney Opera House boardroom.
Marg van Eenbergen
For some fifteen years, Marg van Eenbergen was frontwoman of bands such as Seedling and GRAM. She played her music on many prestigious stages and media, from Lowlands to BBC Radio 1. While being an artist, she also enjoyed taking on the role of the producer, and five years ago, she finally chose a life as a full-time producer. In her own recording and mixing studio in Amsterdam, she has worked on various TV commercials and film music, but ‘producing records’ is her Big Love. Recently (co-) she produced releases of Dési Ducrot, Vive La Fête, Charlie Dée, LÖNA, and Kiri Mioki, among others.
Cissy Joan
Cissy Joan was born and raised in Groningen, but her roots extend beyond the borders of this city as she is of European, Caribbean and Surinamese descent. Following the musical footsteps of her father, grandfather and great grandfather, she is a fourth-generation musical artist. From a young age, Cissy started singing and writing her own music and later on added spoken word to her repertoire. She is now working as an artist, host, workshop teacher, and coach. This February, Cissy released her new EP: Wat Is Liefde? She is also freelancing in cultural education, performing arts, programming and acts as a jury member for talent contests.
Marion Leonard
Marion Leonard is senior lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Liverpool where she is also a member of the Institute of Popular Music. She is author of Gender in the Music Industry (Ashgate) which drew on in-depth interviews with women rock musicians to explore how they negotiated gendered cultures within their working lives. Her recent work in this area has looked beyond musicians to consider how gender structures the experiences of women working in other areas of employment in the music industries. She has published numerous articles and chapters in the field of popular music studies and is co-editor of The Beat Goes On: Liverpool, Popular Music and the Changing City (Liverpool University Press) and Sites of Popular Music Heritage (Routledge).
Kristin McGee
Kristin McGee is Associate Professor in Popular Music in the Arts, Culture and Media Department at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. She is also the current chair of the board of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music Benelux. In 2018, she received a grant to organize a number of workshops on the Gender Dynamics in the Music Industry with the KIEM project Women Assistants and Male Executives: Exploring the Gender Barriers in the Dutch Music Industry. She has written on the subject of jazz, gender, popular music and audiovisual media within a variety of articles and books, including her monograph Some Liked it Hot: Jazz Women in Film and Television (Wesleyan University Press 2009). She is currently completing a manuscript for Routledge’s Transnational Studies in Jazz Series entitled Remixing European Jazz Culture.
L.J Müller
L.J Müller finished her* studies in musicology and cultural studies at Humboldt-University of Berlin in 2014. In 2016 she* received the Maria Hanáček price from the German-speaking section of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM D-A-CH) for the best presentation of a young researcher at the biennal IASPM D-A-CH conference. In 2018 she* published a book based on her* M.A.-thesis named „Sound und Sexismus – Geschlecht im Klag populärer Musik. Eine feministisch-musiktheoretische Annäherung“. At present she* works on a PhD on the sound of gendered performances in popular music, where she* is interested in the sonic aspects of sexuality, desires, and discrimination.
Chris Moorman
Chris Moorman is responsible for marketing, communication and promotion of the traveling festival and talent platform De Popronde. Since this year, he shares the same responsibilities at Welcome to The Village in Leeuwarden. In addition to Popronde & WTTV, he also organizes FestiValderAa, appears regularly on panels, juries or in the academic world as a guest lecturer. You can also find him at festivals as a tour manager or simply as a visitor.
Li Sang Ong
As a program coordinator for the department of the Conservatory of Amsterdam, Li Sang Ong has assisted many great musicians over the past fifteen years and helped them achieve their artistic potential. Her responsibility is to ensure that the curriculum of each student is tailored to their professional needs, so that maximum growth and development goals are achieved in and outside of the academic environment. The department focuses primarily on developing talents to make new and innovative music. The bar has been set high in terms of experimental and ground-breaking music. With perseverance, humor and strategy she helps young talent to win their place in the music industry.
Jo Shadow
Over eight years and across two continents, Sandow has established a solid career in the sync, licensing and music supervision business with industry heavyweights Mushroom and Sizzer. After spending five years as a creative agent in the Sync Department at Australia’s largest independent music company, Mushroom Group, Sandow packed up life in Australia and made the move across the world. As a self-employed entrepreneur in the Netherlands, she started New Slang, a Sync Agency working with international artists, publishers and labels to help them navigate the sync world in Europe. It was through these previous roles that she fostered her relationship with Sizzer, where worked as a Music Producer and now works as a Creative Strategist, focusing on music strategy and concept development for award-winning work such as Diesel (Gold for ’Best Use of Adapted Music’ Eurobest 2018), Ariston, KPN, HEMA and more. On the side, she loans her voice to occasional shows on Amsterdam’s Red Light Radio and to making after-movies for some of Sizzer’s more bizarre output.
Hilde Spille
Hilde Spille – in 1988, after a bachelor studying Theology and Philosophy in Frankfurt a.M. (Germany). Hilde came in 1988 to the Netherlands to study Feminist Theology. Within a few months, she switched her study to Psychology and stayed in the Netherlands. With her Master degree in Cultural Psychology, she started in 1995 to work at Paperclip Agency. She books shows and tours for artists from all over the world, as their European agent or as Dutch booker, amongst them are Pussy Riot, I Muvrini, Balkan Beat Box, Sass Jordan and many more. Since 2002, Hilde has worked as talent buyer for Conincx Pop Festival in Elsloo (Lb.)/NLD. In 2012, Hilde started her blog Compass for Creatives to address the mental challenges that musicians encounter. In this, she can combine her knowledge of psychology with her experience in the international live music industry. Now she has been asked as guest lecturer on a regular basis. She also offers individual coaching and mental training to musicians. After the #MeToo campaign, Hilde developed a mental training programme in ‘Mental Self Defence” for musicians.
Ann Werner
Ann Werner’s PhD in the field of cultural studies examined teenage girls’ uses of popular music while attending the institutions Linköping University in Sweden and Western Sydney University in Australia. From 2009, she took various posts in music, media and gender studies at Södertörn University, Stockholm University, Auckland University, and Linnaeus University respectively. Her research interests include projects on first people’s music online, dancing within YouTube, and draws from concepts from education, music and gender studies. She has also researched music related media such as music streaming as well as the relationship between music, gender, feminism and anti-racism more broadly. Her latest publication in the journal Per Musi is titled “What Does Gender have to do with Music Anyway?” (2019 forthcoming). In 2018, she published the book Streaming Music on Routledge, co-written with Sofia Johansson, Patrik Åker and Gregory Goldenzwaig.
Tom van Wijk
Throughout his career, Tom van Wijk (1985) has been your go-to person for the best club and festival line ups. Tom has an eye for musical talent and innovative ideas in musical genres. Fifteen years ago, Tom began his professional career setting up his own event production company and started organizing electronic music events across the Netherlands. Soon after this successful start, he also incorporated booking agency Alter Music to his business. In 2005 he joined leading club and festival promoter CHemistry as a producer and communications manager. In 2010 club AIR opened its doors with Tom being responsible for all things creative as Head of Music. Soon he became promoted as Creative Director of AIR Events at ID&T, one of the key festival frontrunners in the Netherlands with festivals such as Amsterdam Open Air, Valhalla, Fiesta Macumba and Milkshake Festival.
Marjan Wynia
Marjan Wynia has worked as a marketing & communications manager in the creative industries for many years. For over a decade, she has worked for the GRAP foundation, an organisation dedicated to helping talented music artists in kickstarting their careers. She was responsible for the marketing of Muzikantendag, Amsterdams Bevrijdingsfestival, Amsterdamse Popprijs and many more. She has written an online guide to the music industry (Muzikantendag Academy) and edited De Waarde van Pop. She is also one of the co-founders of female network organisation Chicks in the Bizz. Recently she started as a freelance copy writer and next to that she is researching gender dynamics in the music industry alongside other instrumental individuals associated with KIEM.
Rita Zipora
Singer songwriter Rita Zipora is Busy a with a capital B. Recently she has released the first EP of her album ‘Wolken’, a collection of electronic pop songs, in cooperation with poet and singer songwriter Robin Block. She has graduated at the Amsterdam Conservatory and written her master thesis on musical copy right in the digital domain. Rita is also on the board of BAM, Beroepsvereniging Auteur-Muzikanten and member of Buma/Stemra’s Raad van Rechthebbenden. As a member of Buma/Stemra’s task force on gender equality she will shed light on Buma/Stemra’s research on women music creators.
Jorien Stravers
Jorien Stravers is the director of the Dutch talent platform Popsport. This platform aims to offer young talented musicians a tailor-made program and to connect them to music industry professionals who can help the talents with launching their careers. Musical artists, bands, acts, singer-songwriters, hip-hop acts, and producers receive personal coaching (artistic and business), are offered workshops and are introduced to local, regional and national networks of musicians and relevant professionals and industry parties. Talent development at Popsport is all about learning, inspiring, guiding, experimenting and meeting.
Emma van Meyeren
Emma van Meyeren is a writer and DJ. She writes about music and feminism for, among others, Noisey, Broadly, Glamcult and Resident Advisor. In 2018 she started the All Men? Nein Danke! sticker campaign together with Fenna Fiction, to show the male dominance in festival line-ups.
Noémi Prent
Noémi Prent is a sociologist, journalist and hobby guitarist. For years, she has been wondering the gender inequality in music. That is why she dedicated her master’s thesis this subject and tried to unravel the causes of the inequality of professional female musicians in the Netherlands. Following her thesis, she wrote journalistic publications for Atria and Opzij, where she works as an editor.
Silvina Munich
Silvina Munich is CISAC’s Director of Repertoires and Creator Relations, a role that she has held since 2004. In this capacity, Silvina has been responsible for developing and supporting CISAC’s international creators councils, reinforcing the influence of authors in national, regional and international policy-making bodies. She is also in charge of the Women@CISAC and CISAC creators ambassadors’ programs. Prior to joining CISAC, Silvina held different positions at PEMA Music, CAM and Disney, and has worked in artist relations, production and copyright since 1990. She holds a master’s degree in political science from the Catholic University of Cordoba in her native Argentina, a post-graduate diploma in international economic relations and a master of advanced studies in cinema, television and audiovisual from the University of Paris-Sorbonne.
Natalia Vergara
Natalia Vergara is the Founder, Producer and Director of “Señoritas On Fire”, the only collective of female composers in the world which aims to promote female songwriters and singers, having managed tours in London, New York, México, Berlin, Madrid. Vergara is also the President of AMCE (Association of Spanish Women Music Creators), member of the Gender Group in CIAM (International Council of Music Creators), member of the Gender Group in ECSA (European Composers & Songwriters Alliance), and a member of the board of Directors of the Spanish Society of Composers AMA (Associated Music Authors). Natalia’s works have been published by Warner Chappell Spain and Televisa Mexico. Natalia taught Music Business in the European School of Economics ESE Madrid, she got her post-graduate Diploma in Music Management at ESE LONDON and graduated from Complutense University, Spain on Gender Gap in the Cultural and Creative Industries. She holds a degree in Media Studies from URJC Spain, and she is also a lawyer with a specialisation in Entertainment Law (CEU and IE SPAIN).
Aafke Romeijn
Aafke Romeijn studied composition at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and Modern Dutch Literature at Utrecht University. She released two electro-pop albums and played at Noorderslag and Lowlands Festival in 2017. In 2018 she made her debut as a novelist with Concept M, a political science fiction novel published by renowned literary publisher De Arbeiderspers. In 2019 she releases a new full-length album that will function as a soundtrack to her novel. As a journalist, she writes for a wide range of newspapers and magazines.
Anna Oosterling