Our top masterclasses from 2022 at BIMM Institute Hamburg
We were excited to host all the amazing industry guests at BIMM Institute Hamburg last year for another round of exclusive masterclasses. Our guests shared their incredible wealth of knowledge and gave students unique perspectives on life as someone working in the music industry. Here are our favourite workshops and masterclasses from last year:
Lisa Weller – Music & Business Director @ White Horse Music
Ever wondered what makes a certain song get featured on a TV commercial? Masterclass guest Lisa Weller from White Horse Music cleared up myths and shared the facts on how it all happens. Through a case study presentation of a Vodafone commercial featuring Alice Merton, she explained how many advertisers hire companies to find the exact type of sound they are looking for and work with the artist to develop that sound for an upcoming project.
Throughout the masterclass, Lisa answered questions from students, gave 1-on-1 sessions with individual students, offered advice on how to get on advertisers’ radars, how their ‘ears work’ and some dos and don’ts of working as a musician in advertising.
For over 10 years, Lisa Weller has been involved in all kinds of music related projects. Starting on the music business side, in Synch & A&R departments at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Imagem Music, she switched to the agency side at the Berlin-based Styleheads Agency for Lifestyle Communication in the Music & Brand Events Department.
After pursuing various music projects – such as creating a music concept for the Millerntor Gallery with Viva con Agua – she returned to the agency world in 2016, first as a project manager, later as a Music Consultant and now Music and Business Director at White Horse Music, which is located just around the corner from BIMM Institute Hamburg.
In addition to working on original music projects, consulting and managing productions, her responsibilities include rights management, the coordination of the team and client support. In this role, she is also a frequent speaker at a wide variety of panels. Her main clients include Vodafone, BMW, Erste Bank and Bosch.
Katja Ruge – Photographer, DJ and Music Producer
Before her masterclass, students were asked to pre-submit their current press photographs and Katja then discussed them in-class. Giving words of creative encouragement and stylistic ideas for the future, students walked away with a better understanding of what stands out to the trained and untrained eye.
She also shared that photos for press or use on social media can be stylish and individual, but they should also be distinctive and brave, regardless of if you’re working with a professional photographer or a friend with a camera.
Following her masterclass, she wrote and shared a guide titled ‘Technically Perfect’, which was offered exclusively to BIMM Institute Hamburg students and featured tips on photo composition as well as industry-standard practices when it comes to digital image sizing and labelling.
For photographer, DJ and music producer Katja Ruge, portraiture, music and pop culture are inextricably linked. Studying her intense photographs, it feels like you’re discovering the inner core of the person portrayed.
She learned her trade from scratch at a graphic design school and photo lab, and internationally as a photo assistant, music promoter and art director. She then dedicated herself entirely to photography & music, creating portraits of hundreds for the likes of ÂME,Nina Kraviz, the Beastie Boys, Aphex Twin. Her portraits are defined by a clear and bold visual language and have been featured in magazines and used by labels.
She constantly works on female photo projects (Amelie Lens, Helena Hauff or Afrodeutsche included already in her Electric Lights – Women in Electronic Music or for her Ladyflash – a retrospective of 100 Female Artists she showed pictures of Peaches, Robyn, Lykke Li, Björk, M.I.A., Beth Dito, Charli XCX or Janelle Monaé) to empower Women in Music as much as she is doing it as a mentor, speaker and in workshops. Her book Fotoreportage23 about Ian Curtis & Joy Division paid tribute to her time in Manchester featuring Mogwai, Johnny Marr, Peter Saville, Jarvis Cocker or Genesis P. Orridge and many more.
Laura Josczok - Digital Marketing Manager at Believe Digital
Social media has proven to be a low-cost way to build an often-unreachable audience for musicians and creatives, but how do BIMM Institute Hamburg students make it all happen? In Laura’s masterclass, she dove deep into all the social media platforms relevant to musicians trying to reach their audience today. By showing key statistics and walking students through past campaigns, she explained how artists currently position themselves for the best chance of success.
She gave strategies students can follow to build an audience on their social profiles and based on real cases she talked about a variety of topics from defining the core audience to finding an appealing content mix. She discussed the importance of balancing authenticity and keeping up with trends and went through what modern release campaigns entail.
Laura also presented current cases of how influential TikTok has become for music creators. Serving as a springboard to newcomer careers, she showed how TikTok empowers artists to bypass the traditional methods of promoting their music all while giving the potential to gain massive amounts of followers in such a short period of time.
Laura Josczok is the digital marketing manager in the Artist Service and Development unit of Believe Digital, one of Germany’s leading music distributors. She has worked with artists of all genres and professional levels, helping them to build and maintain online audiences and execute meaningful marketing campaigns in the ever-changing world of social media.
