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MA Hoe werkt het eigenlijk?

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Mon

27.04.2026

Are you about to complete your studies at the conservatoire or have you recently graduated? Do you have questions about how the industry works or about your career? During MA Festival 2026 you get the chance to talk to musicians and experts about what's on your mind. You will also get a look behind the scenes by joining the volunteer crew for a few days.

Tuesday 28/07 & Wednesday 29/07: Workshops

We will spend two days discussing important aspects of your professional career with experts and musicians.

Part 1: Inform

Legal consultant & business leader Robin Goossens will give two workshops:

• Statutes & institutions:

o You will get an overview and explanation of dierent statutes (self-employed, employee, art work aestation, etc.) and the institutions you can turn to with questions, e.g. about writing grant files or copyright regulations.

• The business side of a project:

o We will discuss the different structures you can use to organise a project (NPOs, grant makers, etc.). We also discuss some examples of project budgets.

Part 2: Reflect

Together with several guests and the MA Festival management team, we will discuss the following topics during four workshops:

• How is your network doing? with Xavier Vandamme & Adèle Querinjean

o The importance of networking is often stressed. But how does a network actually come about? How is your network doing? How can you strengthen it?

• Do you have a good grasp of your finances? with Gert-Jan Dreessen & Adèle Querinjean

o As a musician, your income often comes from various sources and varies from month to month. How do you manage this eectively? How do you approach this in the long term?

• How do you run an ensemble or chamber music group? with Adriaan De Koster & Jan Van den Borre

o Setting up and managing a group requires many skills. What can you do yourself, how do you divide tasks, what do you ask external help for?

• Setting up a project, how do you go about it? With Wim Pelgrims & Jan Van den Borre

o You have an artistic idea and a group of musicians who want to go for it together. What to do next?

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Thursday 30/07 — Sunday 02/08: Experience the festival from the inside

By volunteering at the festival, you will get to know the sector from a dierent angle. You will help with the following tasks:

• Setting up concert venues

• Welcoming audience and artists

• Transporting artists and equipment (if you have a driver’s licence)

What we offer:

• Two days of workshops with experts and guests (depending on who the participants are, the working language will be English or Dutch).

• Catering: we will provide meals for you from Tuesday 29/07 until Sunday evening 03/08. The experts and musicians we invite for the workshops will join us at the table so you can get to know them better.

• Accommodation: you will be accommodated free of charge in Bruges at boarding school Palaestra (check-in Monday 27/07 - check-out Monday 03/08).

• For the time you volunteer, you will receive an expense allowance of €11 per 4-hour shift

• You will receive a ticket for the opening concert of MA Festival on 01/08

What we expect from you:

• You are available and present in Bruges from Tuesday 29/07 to Sunday 02/08.

• In preparation for the workshops, you will engage in conversation with a musician per topic from the ‘reflecting’ section (see above). You will make notes of these conversations so that you can discuss them as examples during the workshop. You will receive more detailed information about this.

For whom:

• You are a performing musician

• You are pursuing a master's degree or have just graduated as a musician

• You are building a career in Flanders or Brussels. Because some of the topics we will discuss (such as the different statutes or developing projects) are tied to a specific context, we believe the workshop will be most useful for those who work or will work in this context. Specifically, the workshop is intended for those who:

• have studied or are studying at a Flemish or Brussels Conservatoire.

• want to build a career in Flanders or Brussels.

• You work with early music