Metropolia UAS’s Music Department hosted one of the first Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme’s (BIP’s) in Finland and Europe during the last week of November 2021 when the House of Europe International Songwriting Project took place in Helsinki.  Altogether in Helsinki we had 20 students, 4 guest musicians and 10 teachers working together - this was a great opportunity to meet new people, learn more about other cultures and increase skills in writing music and networking professionally.

The BIP and intensive week of the project is in turn hosted by each of the six participating music institutions: Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (Helsinki, Finland), HKU Utrechts Conservatorium (The Netherlands), Conservatorio di Musica "Luisa D'Annunzio" (Pescara, Italy); Música Creativa (Madrid, Spain), VMI - Vienna Music Institute (Austria) and University of Tartu, Viljandi Culture Academy (Estonia).

The idea of ​​the BIP House of Europe songwriting project is to bring together European higher music education students and musicians from non-European backgrounds. The project gives possibilities to get to know each other, learn from each other about songwriting and collaborative music making, to learn from each other’s cultures, and to network. The students and the guest musicians work together for a week in small teams writing and performing new songs they have written together. The intensive week is coached by teachers from the participating music institutions. Each intensive writing week culminates in a public concert where the new songs are performed by the participants of the Intensive Week.

Here is the Youtube-link to the House of Europe Helsinki concert from Friday 26 November 2021. Enjoy the concert - Music is the language that unites us all!

The BIP hosted by Metropolia consist of three periods:

1. The online Introductory Course 15/10 – 5/11, 2021
2 The Intensive Week at Metropolia Music in Helsinki 22–26 November 2021
3. The Post-Production Period (implemented using online tools and communications) for students who participated in the intensive week, December – January 2021–22

For more information about the Helsinki BIP programme, please contact jere.laukkanen@metropolia.fi