New President For EMO

BRUSSELS (VIP NEWS) — The European Music Office (EMO) officially has announced the appointment of its new President Dieter Gorny.

Professor Dieter Gorny, a leading figure in the German music industry, will take over from Finish composer Otto Donner, who spent 10 years in the position. The change over came into effect at the EMO board meeting today when Prof. Gorny was unanimously elected by the board to take over the position.

Born in Finland, outgoing President Otto Donner has had a glittering musical and professional career. In 1966 he co-founded the influential Love Records whose philosophy focused on using all revenue from the sales to produce new records. He was a member of many Jazz bands as a saxophonist and is credited with having successfully pushed the boundaries of traditional Jazz to unchartered territory. He spent 4 years as YLE's (Finnish national radio and TV channel(s)) entertainment chief and set up the live music association in 1978. He recently retired from his role as Chairman of Teosto (the Finish copyright organization for composers, lyric writers, arrangers and music publishers.)

Speaking at today’s meeting, Mr. Donner said, ”When I took this job 10 years ago, the music sector of Europe was so much different to what it is now. EMO’s position as lobbyists and project organizers throughout Europe has consistently been strengthened since 1999. I will be very interested to see how its influence will spread in the coming years and I’m sure Prof. Gorny will prove to be a wonderful President.”

A classical musician by trade, Prof. Gorny currently holds a range of influential positions within the music sector of Germany and Europe – he is the Chairman of Initiative Musik who are a funding agency for German music, he is also Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Filmstiftung NRW and holds a number of advisory and board membership positions on various executives including the PopKomm music fair (which he helped to found) and the German Music Council. He is also Chairman of the Board of Bundesverband Musikindustrie.

His academic achievements were also recognized in 2005 when he was appointed to the position of Professor of Culture and Media Studies at the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf.

Reacting to his appointment, Prof. Gorny outlined the goals he hopes to achieve during his tenure and placed particular emphasis on continuing to battle for the creation of a specific policy for music in the European Commission. He continued to say that he hopes to pick up where Mr. Donner left off and use his new position to directly influence major political decisions on music and culture at a national and European level.