Liverpool musician Dan Astles shares his experiences

“In 2017 I received an email from Alice Moser, the Coordinator of Hanover’s Culture Bureau, inviting me to play a festival in her city. The idea described to me was that an artist from each European UNESCO City Of Music (a status that Liverpool and Hanover share) would travel to the city, where they would stay for a week in a house with musicians from all over Europe. When I arrived, the situation I found was pretty special: a beautiful house in the suburbs of Hanover surrounded by long green fields, filled with art and with an out-of-tune piano in the corner. I had my own room in a sprawling house, which was my home for the week alongside musicians from Poznań, Rouen and Glasgow.

The aim of the project was for us musicians to collaborate over the seven-day period we were together, to play each other’s songs and to generally learn from each other. The city of Hanover kindly gave us access to the MusikZentrum, a multi-purpose music space in the city centre which houses the offices for those organising Hanover’s biggest music events, as well as containing rehearsal spaces, a venue and a recording studio. I worked alongside Roland Loy, a local vocal coach and musician, whose advice made sure that I left a better musician than when I arrived. Throughout the week we spent time chatting, jamming and sharing both music and stories, which was really enriching on a musical and a personal level. I spent a lot of time with The Sharkettes and Popping Hole from Rouen, who both learnt and covered my songs at the festival at the end of the week, as did Hanover’s own Emerson Prime; I reciprocated by covering Popping Hole’s track No Matter (It’s OK).”

Excerpt from Dan’s experience. To read the full article on BidoLito, click here.