Tórshavn, Faroe Islands
Impact Report | March 2025
Local lead contact:
Dánjal á Neystabø, Chair of Faroese Music Association
Updates from Tórshavn
Tórshavn has elected a new mayor – the youngest mayor ever at 29 years of age. They are optimistic as she really appreciates culture and is environmentally aware.
Specific impact from MPRN
A new grant, Økistónar, has been launched that all municipalities in the Faroes put money into, enabling venues to pay musicians an agreed minimum wage. While still in its infancy – it is a trial period until next year – it will probably be permanent. Venues apply to the scheme, and this enables them to take greater risks in terms of programming, reducing the need to cover costs and generate income via ticket sales. This is related to the MPRN work, it has been inspired by MPRN masterclasses. Establishing this support structure has taken three years.
Lifelong membership of the network is appreciated, with Torshavn continuing to engage at monthly masterclasses which are enjoyable and inspiring.
The Minister of Culture has read the report. The Faroes will still produce a new cultural policy and the findings of the report will feed directly into this when the time comes – this is extremely valuable as the research is already in the language needed by politicians. There is no other existing research which has the same, comprehensive approach: the fact that MPRN takes both a zoomed out and macro look at the situation and offers concrete solutions is highly valued.
It was presented at the General Assembly for the Faroese Music Association visioning day where they could meet up and say what they wanted to work on. There was a great response – the Faroes have little statistics where they want to make a cultural policy – no statistical information to base a policy on – the reason is people have been involved in delivery, rather than evaluation. And this is also to do with cultural activity, much of it being traditional so not professionalised – this is part of the reason – although compared to Shetland their music environment is more professionalised.
The final report was distributed widely amongst the municipality and local politicians and has inspired thinking.
They need to report attendance at concerts and other data. In a couple of years they will have good benchmarking and an idea of what it looks like in data terms. So the awareness of a need for quantitative data is a real impact from MPRN.
The Faroese Music Association has used the work of MPRN a lot in planning their work – i.e. when writing their new three year strategy – it has fed into their strategy and missions.
Ongoing engagement with MPRN:
Positive about staying in the network and wants to kept in the loop about masterclasses.