Big news! OSKA has just won the MUSIC MOVES EUROPE AWARD 2023! The coveted award was presented at Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) on January 19th in Groningen!
Schmyt (Germany), July Jones (Slovenia), OSKA (Austria), Kids Return (France), and Queralt Lahoz (Spain) are the winners of the Music Moves Europe Awards 2023. The prestigious Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Sans Soucis (Italy) and the Public Choice award was won by Jerry Heil (Ukraine).
Quote from the jury report: “The international potential is there, OSKA has a lovely voice, something very sweet about it.”
The annual EU prize for popular and contemporary music (co-funded by the Creative Europe programme) celebrates emerging artists who represent the European sound of today and tomorrow. The Music Moves Europe Awards ceremony was organised on 19 January in Groningen (NL) at the ESNS showcase festival and conference. Previous winners of the awards include Rosalía, Dua Lipa, Stromae, Hozier, Meskerem Mees, Blanks, Pale Waves and Christine and the Queens.
The Music Moves Europe Awards are organised by ESNS and Reeperbahn Festival, supported by Liveurope, Yourope, Live DMA, IMPALA, Digital Music Europe, ICMP-CIEM, International Music Managers Forum (IMMF) and European Music Exporters Exchange (EMEE).
Prize package
Out of 15 nominees, five Music Moves Europe Award winners will receive €10,000 each. The winner of the Grand Jury Award will receive €10,000 and a green touring voucher worth €5,000. The winner of the Public Choice Award will receive €5,000, and a Deezer session. All fifteen nominees were invited for the education programme, with best practices in the music industry to strengthen their knowledge for their careers.
ESNS showcases and artist education
After the awards ceremony, all 15 nominees perform in front of music professionals and enthusiasts at ESNS, the world’s largest showcase event for European music. Alongside the 2023 nominees, ESNS will feature performances by 2022 winners Blanks (NL), Francis of Delirium (LU) and Alina Pash (UA). Furthermore, an education and professionalisation event was organised for the 2022 and 2023 MME Awards nominees and their representatives. In this programme the attendees will receive training to improve their daily business. The topics include sustainability (how to organise a CO2 friendly show or tour).
Jury Members
The jury of the 2023 Music Moves Europe Awards consists of five people that earned their stripes in the music industry. Each year the Public Choice winner of the previous year joins the MME Awards jury. This year this seat is taken by Jacqueline Baghdasaryan, the singer of Armenian artist Ladaniva who won the MME Public Choice Award last year. The other jury members are: Cindy Castillo (MadCool festival), Gemma Bradly (BBC radio), Brian Johnson (Spotify) and Kevin Cole (KEXP).
OSKA
OSKA moved to Vienna at 18 to study pop and jazz singing. She started busking in the street, signed to the Canadian label Nettwerk in 2020 and released her debut EP ‘Honeymoon Phase’ to critical acclaim. She was the winner of the XA Export Award in 2020 at the Waves Festival. On her 2022 debut album, ‘My World, My Love, Paris’, OSKA weaves together tales of her family life and the experiences of a young person growing up in this strange world. She made her Great Escape debut in May and is the support for Tom Odell on his European Tour.