Red Bull Music Academy

The Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) is a world-traveling series of music workshops and festivals, founded in 1998. The main five-week event is held in a different city each year. The public portion of its program is a festival of concerts, art installations, club nights and lectures by influential figures in contemporary music. The other part of the program is by invitation only, held in a building which has been custom-fitted with a large recording studio, a lecture hall, a radio booth and between eight and twelve bedroom-sized studios. There, 60 up and coming producers, singers, sound artists, DJs and musicians from around the world learn from and collaborate with top industry professionals.

Year-round, the Red Bull Music Academy maintains an online magazine, radio station (RBMA Radio) and lecture video archive. The Academy hosts additional music workshops and club nights and curates stages at festivals in around 60 countries worldwide.

The Academy was initiated in 1998 in Berlin and has taken place annually in subsequent years in Toronto, London, São Paulo, Seattle, Cape Town, Rome, London, Melbourne, New York, Madrid, Barcelona and Dublin. While the first few editions saw a greater emphasis on DJ culture, the program and recording facilities now accommodate all genres and aspects of the musical spectrum.

Prospective applicants to the Academy must prepare a demo CD of their work, be it original productions, songs or a DJ set, along with a completed questionnaire, and mail it to a Red Bull Music Academy office in Cologne, Germany. From there, each application is taken into consideration, with no quota on country or musical genre. From these applications, 60 are selected and broken down into two groups of 30. Each group of 30 is flown in to the location of the respective year's event for one of two fortnightly “terms”. In 2012, the Academy received over 4000 applications to take part in the 2013 New York City edition.

For two weeks, the participants have the opportunity work in up to twelve studios specially designed for every edition of the Red Bull Music Academy. There, they have access to a range of the latest gear as well as analog equipment for music production and performance. There are no deadlines or set quotas, and Red Bull does not own the music produced in the building. These collaborative sessions are in part facilitated by the Academy’s "Studio Team", all experienced music producers in various fields. Twice daily, participants attend lectures by guest speakers who range from composers, producers, sound engineers and technological pioneers, to rappers and industry professionals. Lecture attendance is the only compulsory part of the program.

The Red Bull Music Academy does not seek to select or create “stars”, instead bringing together music makers with a wide range of talents, skill levels and cultural backgrounds. Notable former participants include Aloe Blacc, Branko of Buraka Som Sistema, Bahrainian oud player Hasan Hujairi, Juan Son, Natalia Lafourcade, Nina Kraviz, David Eriksson of Teenage Engineering, Blackcoffee, Flying Lotus, Salva and Andreya Triana.

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