Thanks to our great network, project and funding counselling can take place at ON Cologne again from this May!
Once a month, an expert with many years of work experience is available to provide feedback and advice on applications or project plans. The counselling time slot comprises a total of 3-4 hours per counselling day; appointments of up to 60 minutes (90 minutes in exceptional cases) can be booked in advance by sending an email to support@on-cologne.de. Appointments are limited.
Dates for project and funding counselling in 2025:
28 May, 2-6pm
Eva Maria Müller & Georg Dietzler
23 June, 12pm-4pm
Eva Maria Müller & Georg Dietzler
11 July, 10am-2pm
Christina Messner & Georg Dietzler
End of Aug / beginning of Sept (tba)
Georg Dietzler, Eva Pegel or Christina Messner (tba)
Sept (week 38/39) (tba)
Thomas Gläßer
October (tba)
Eva Maria Müller
November (tba)
Eva Maria Müller
December/January (tba)
Christina Messner or Eva Pegel (tba)
Each expert brings a different focus of work and practical experience from the independent scene:
Eva Maria Müller
Counselling focus
• Supporting musicians and ensembles from the field of contemporary music in applying for project funding
• Selection of suitable funding programmes
• Examination of cost and financing plans
• Clarification of formal requirements.
The aim is to increase the chances of success for funding applications and to reduce uncertainties in the application process. The service is aimed at people with initial questions as well as those with specific projects or pre-completed applications.
Vita
Eva Maria Müller studied cultural studies at the University of Hildesheim. Since 2011, she has been working freelance with institutions, musicians and composers from the new music scene (including Manos Tsangaris, Ensemble Ascolta, Marco Blaauw) in project planning and fundraising. Together with her colleagues from the production office littlebit (Cologne), she regularly takes on the planning, organisation and implementation of festivals and complex individual productions (SPARK/ORBIT, Darmstadt Summer Courses, Bonn hoeren, Wittener Tage). For the 2022 edition, she took over the management of the Donaueschingen Music Days on an interim basis. She has been managing director of Klangspuren Schwaz since 2024.
Eva Pegel
Counselling focus
• Dealing with agencies, organisers and sponsors
• Concrete assistance and answers to questions when planning an event (from application to proof of use; finding a room, obtaining permits if necessary, technical planning, advertising measures, …)
Individual tips for career development (self-management, online presence via website, social media, newsletter, …)
• Arranging contacts in Cologne and throughout Germany
Vita
Eva Pegel has worked in the artistic operations office of the festivals ACHT BRÜCKEN | Musik für Köln and FEL!X Original.Klang.Köln since 2024. From 2017 to the end of 2023, she was project manager of the Forum Dirigieren, the German Music Council’s nationwide support programme for top young conductors. Prior to this, she was responsible for promoting innovative projects in contemporary music at the German Music Council’s concert programme. After a traineeship in project management at the Cologne ensemble Musikfabrik, she worked for several years for the artists’ agency karsten witt musikmanagement, where she mainly worked for composers. She studied French cultural studies and musicology at Saarland University. As a hobby violinist and singer, she was active in various orchestras, chamber music formations and choirs.
Christina Messner
Counselling focus
• Feedback and help with the formulation of text material, be it application texts,
programme descriptions, material for the press or important cover letters.
• Feedback for visual material
• Feedback and critical reflection on concept ideas, as yet undeveloped visions, utopias and larger projects, as well as on already concrete or existing artistic project ideas and plans
• Arranging contacts (as far as possible)
• Support, reflection, targeted enquiries and joint search for solutions to general question marks, fears, doubts or worries relating to being a freelance musician or to certain turning points or difficult decisions
Vita
From the very beginning of her classical music studies (Prof. M. Speermann Würzburg), Christina C. Messner orientated herself towards a creative and performative activity as a freelance musician that defies categorisation in classical pigeonholes. Since then, she has been intensively involved with the combination of different genres and genres and the exploration of interdisciplinary approaches. As a freelance composer, violinist and performer, she has developed, produced and organised projects and collaborated with artists from different genres and styles. Passionate about transdisciplinary projects and new music theatre, she initiated and curates ORBIT, the festival for contemporary music theatre in Cologne.
Georg Dietzler
Vita & Counselling focus
Georg Dietzler – organiser of experimental intermedia music projects and sound art and initiator of the web radio programme FUNKT sessions. Since 1997 I have been working as an advisor for international and local umbrella organisations in the fields of music and visual arts. I am familiar with interdisciplinary funding programmes at local, regional, national and international level as well as multinational cooperation programmes. If I am not familiar with a funding programme, I know who in my network I can ask. I also do public relations work and support artists’ projects.
For counselling, I would like to receive sketches of ideas a few days before the appointments in order to be prepared in a focused manner.
Thomas Gläßer
Vita
Thomas Gläßer is a musician, programme maker and cultural activist. In 2006, he founded the platform Zentrum für Aktuelle Musik e.V. together with other musicians. He curates international concert series (Reconstructing Song, Reverse Exotism, Outskirts, In Between Spaces) in the field of current and contemporary music, organises festivals (Night of Surprise, Invocation, Digging the Global South, Oluzayo), conferences, artistic-educational projects and cultural-political initiatives. He heads the academy section of the Offenes Jazz Haus Schule and advises ensembles, institutions and organisations (including Zinc & Copper, Jazzfest Berlin, Deutsche Jazzunion). He has been a member of the board of ON – Neue Musik Köln since 2008 and of the board of Initiative Freie Musik IFM e.V., the cultural-political platform of Cologne’s professional independent music scene, since 2019.