Per Gessle, Shellback, Karin Dreijer, Håkan Hellström, The Hives, Jill Johnson and many more from the Swedish artist elite have signed a call against the study association’s lowered appropriations.
– I think it’s terrible, I get so sad and touched, says Jill Johnson to SVT Cultural News.
She emphasizes that subsidized rehearsal rooms give significantly more young access to the music – and points out their role as a meeting place. For herself, the start of the study associations’ rehearsal rooms was “crucial”:
– I got a belief that I could do this. I had to practice it and it was not only at home in the girl’s room but in a functional room. I’m pretty sure it laid the foundation for my entire career.
The worst is the countryside
More than 60,000 Swedes play in the study associations’ replacements around Sweden. In 2024 until 2026, one third of these will get rid of their rehearsal room, says the Secretary General of the Study Association David Samuelsson. In addition, the cut beats more strongly against certain parts of the country.
– We generally see that rural and smaller cities are affected much harder than larger cities and there we know that the cultural offering is already the least, says David Samuelsson to SVT Cultural News.
In other words, the possibility of rehearsal room for a young person, without financial backing, will decrease outside the big cities.
– This is a serious threat to music exports and top successes when we so sharply pull down for the breadth business, says David Samuelsson and urges the government to rethink its decision.
Social meeting place
Ludvig Werner, CEO of the industry organization IFPI, and chairman of Music Sweden is also worried about the growth of the Swedish music round when “an important factor” to it drastically reduces, but he sees an even greater concern with the reprocise crisis.
“If Swedish youths lose the opportunity, through, among other things, the study associations, to get a rehearsal room, we lose a social meeting place that is perhaps far more important than the Swedish music wonder,” Ludvig Werner writes in an email.
SVT has been in contact with Minister of Culture Parisa Liljestrand who declines comment and refers to the Minister of Education. SVT is looking for Education Minister Johan Pehrson.