After three years and as many calls for projects, Fund Belgian Music is ceasing its activities. The fund, which was set up to deal with the corona crisis, supported a total of 191 music projects for a total amount of almost 400,000 euros. The founders will donate the remaining amount to Live2020, the fund that supports the live sector. 

“Fund Belgian Music has responded to a real need among artist community. For many musicians, concerts generate the main income. With the loss of that, for many of them, investments in the creation and production of new music were at risk. We would like to explicitly thank all donors for their support. Thanks to their donations, our local music talents were able to release new music recordings,” explain Michael Schack of the Muziekgilde and Fabian Hidalgo of FACIR.  

To continue supporting artists and their music projects, PlayRight and Sabam have decided to continue working more closely together. Their respective culture funds, PlayRight+ and Sabam for Culture, will meet regularly to provide the creation, production and distribution of new music with the necessary additional resources.  

“We found that artists we supported with Fund Belgian Music were mostly members of both PlayRight and Sabam. The aim of closer cooperation is to create leverage. That way we can even better valorise the creations of our members,” explain Jan Hautekiet, chairman of Sabam, and Steven De Keyser, CEO of Sabam.  

“The crisis had the merit of bringing us together around the same project. The cooperation between the Sabam for Culture and PlayRight+ funds within Fund Belgian Music thus proved its relevance and effectiveness. It will not stop there. In the future, we will continue to join forces to jointly support our respective members. For singer-songwriters, copyright and neighbouring rights are ultimately two sides of the same coin,” concludes Christian Martin, chairman of PlayRight.  

Fund Belgian Music was founded in full corona crisis by FACIR, the Music Guild, PlayRight+ and Sabam for Culture in collaboration with the Koning Boudewijnstichting – Fondation Roi Baudouin. The aim was to compensate for the lack of funds due to strict corona measures and to financially support the creation of new music recordings.