It is always a pleasure to see that a project is successfully moving forward, but to measure such success we have to put into practice all the theory that we have been developing in the last years from EU SMART Composer.

From September 12th to 17th we held our LTTA in the impressive city of Matera (Italy). Materahub welcomed us with open arms and the city became one more element of our project, because of its vibrant activity, the hospitality of its people and the wonderful heritage that surrounded us.

As you know, EU SMART Composer is a biannual Erasmus + project that is developing a practical tool to facilitate knowledge transfer between music teachers and their students to improve their employability.

The international consortium behind EU SMART Composer consists of Coompanion Göteborg ek. för (Sweden), the coordinating entity, Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e Creative (Italy), Abbaye aux Dames - La cite musicale-Saintes (France), Le Laba (France), RESEO- European Network for Opera and Dance Education (Belgium) and Wazo Coop -Social cooperative (Spain).

This time it was not only an internal meeting of the project partners, but from each organization we had the pleasure to invite several people from our different countries to receive the training that we had finished developing and defining in our previous Transnational meeting, held in Saintes (France).

Our guests (trainees) were going to become a fundamental element of our project, since their relationship with musical composition, their professional background and their different points of view, would be decisive to improve our methodology.

On Monday the 12th, we welcomed all the trainees who were going to share 5 days of training and discussion. We met informally at dinner to talk about the activities of the following days, as well as to get in touch with the city of Matera.

On Tuesday 13th, the activities started in the morning with Coompanion & Reseo and we had the opportunity to get an overview of the EU SMART Composer method of vocational education and training (VET).

Coompanion welcomed all participants to the working week.

We also started with the experiential learning process devised for contemporary composition students in Europe.

Module 1 ("Introduction & Approach") by RESEO served to put the participants in context with the reality of contemporary composers and familiarize them with the EU SMART Composer Competence Framework through the analysis of composer case studies.

We were able to de- and re-construct the concepts of entrepreneurship, marketing and branding for composers.

At this point, participants were given the basic theoretical principles and introduced to social economic models that can provide composers with more appropriate ways to build their business in line with their values.

During the afternoon we continued with Module 2 ("Empowerment & Leadership") by Coompanion, a very inspiring and interactive module. We learned about the importance of empowerment and awareness when developing a solid project.

Wednesday 14th was the day dedicated to exploring cases and experience. We developed this through practical activities, useful tools to develop a more balanced and socially relevant entrepreneurial project such as a more gender balance in one’s organisation or working with others and techniques for collaboration.

This led the participants to Module 3 (“Cooperative entrepreneurship”) by Wazo Coop and Matera Hub , which after an introduction to social economy, focused on entrepreneurial and business tools to stimulate a more entrepreneurial and cooperative approach to music business.

During this module we were able to develop practical tools that clarified many concepts, in addition to being able to debate and of course, have fun learning.

We arrived on Thursday 15th full of energy to face the second part of module 3, more focused on the business model and the tool "Social model Canvas", where trainees could clarify their ideas, their projects and their goals.

In the afternoon it was the turn to introduce the last module, Module 4 (“Branding & Marketing)” by Abbaye aux Dames and Le Laba, which, building on the previous days, concluded the training course by making the trainees reflect on their own personal and business narrative.

The last day of the LTTA, Friday the 16th was a special and emotional day for many reasons.

We dedicated the morning to explore the tools to elaborate a communication plan for each participant/brand with the help of RESEO.

We wanted to dedicate Friday afternoon to a general recapitulation and discussion on the quality of the training and on the real possibility of implementation of our project.

This day turned out to be a unique experience where all the participants expressed themselves about their learning acquired during the week. But not only that, it was also a special moment, full of emotional testimonies that filled us with energy and gave us strength to face the last part of our EU SMART Composer project.

See you soon!

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EU SMART Composer - LTTA Matera (Italy)