Simon Broughton (UK)

Simon Broughton is the Editor-in Chief of Songlines, the world music magazine. He is also the co-editor of the Rough Guide to World Music (Penguin) and world music critic for the London Evening Standard.

Simon has worked in the media since graduating in Russian and Music in 1981 – as a radio producer with BBC for eight years, a TV director and producer for seven years, after which he freelanced as a filmmaker and journalist.

He has also written for the Guardian, Independent and other publications, including Tehelka.

Songlines, running since 1999, is the leading magazine covering world music in English. It is based in London, but read all over the world. There are eight issues a year, each with a print run of 20,000 copies. Each issue comes with a free CD featuring tracks from the top ten reviews, plus five tracks selected by a well-known personality. There is also an online edition. They also run the Songlines Encounters Festival in June, the Songlines Music Awards, and Songlines Music Travel, which takes trips to Cuba, Morocco, Romania and India, amongst other places.

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WORKSHOP:

Music Journalism. What’s the Point?
Duration: 1 hour

Someone once wisecracked that writing about music was like dancing about architecture. But music journalism has a long and distinguished history. A music writer or critic is a crucial interface between an artist and the public. They help create new audiences and give an artistic and cultural perspective. But whether it’s in blogs, articles or reviews, a writer needs to be interesting or entertaining, informed and informative and trustworthy.

Simon Broughton will hold a workshop which will look at some samples of writing about Indian music and and try and outline some guidelines.