Toulouse
About the Creative City:
From mediaeval lyric academies to Rio Loco, an internationally renowned world music festival, music occupies a special place in Toulouse. The city boasts a varied musical heritage, combining urban music, world music, traditional music and much more. True to this music-loving tradition, the city actively supports local artists through its METRONUM programme, aimed at supporting and helping musicians in their professional projects, by facilitating dialogue with concert hall managers and local councillors, and in particular by supporting women in the sector.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Toulouse stood by musicians with the creation of an emergency fund to support the local cultural sector. At the height of the pandemic, the city set up the performance support scheme, "Les Instantanés", to enable open-air concerts to be held in the city. Toulouse is committed to making access to music one of the priorities of its cultural policy.
With its dynamic citizen-led initiatives, the city links music to urban development. Examples include Tactikollectif, which works to support disadvantaged neighbourhoods through musical expression, and Court-Circuit, which poeticizes urban public spaces through music.
By devoting half of the budget earmarked for culture to music, and by supporting infrastructure, educational schemes and associations that invite the local residents to forge a "Convivencia" (sense of community) experienced as a shared creative resource, Toulouse is leveraging music as a key tool in building a sustainable city.
Added value:
As a Creative City of Music, Toulouse is dedicated to:
Supporting the creation, production and distribution of cultural goods and services;
Facilitating access to artistic practices and creativity for the most vulnerable, harnessing the transformative power of culture;
Initiating debates on music and its potential for social innovation, by bringing together artists, cultural operators, musicologists, ethnologists, sociologists and civil society to address contemporary needs; and
Strengthening its cultural ecosystem by fairly redistributing social and economic benefits among the various stakeholders of the cultural sector.
Music
2023
