This dedicated section of Music Connections offers a closer look at Belfast City Council’s extensive efforts to nurture talent, foster innovation, and promote the City’s rich musical heritage since Belfast’s official designation as a UNESCO City of Music on 8th November 2021.

Working in close collaboration with the city’s cultural trailblazers and residents, Belfast City Council has supported and executed a wide array of events, festivals, and community-focused initiatives that reflect the city’s dynamic—and historic—relationship with music.

Many of these events are part of Belfast 2024, a wonderfully ambitious programme by Belfast City Council that aims to celebrate the city in new and exciting ways. By shining a bright light on Belfast 2024 and various other Belfast City Council projects in music, we hope this section serves as a gateway to understanding how the city’s creative identity is evolving and expanding.

The Belfast 2024 programme is a city-wide celebration that invites people to come together to reimagine the future of Belfast. Through a series of events and creative projects, this initiative seeks to foster collaboration and co-creation between residents, artists, cultural organisations, and non-cultural groups across the city.

The goal is to inspire a renewed understanding of Belfast’s identity and its place in the world, driven by imagination, experimentation, and a closer relationship with nature. Belfast 2024 encourages the community to think about new spaces, new stories, and new experiences that will shape the city’s future, with music playing a vital role in this collective exploration.

As Belfast continues to grow as a global music hub, Belfast City Council builds on the city’s prestigious UNESCO City of Music designation to strengthen its creative capacity and facilitate innovative cultural expression.

In essence, this section of Music Connections celebrates Belfast’s UNESCO City of Music status not just as an accolade, but as an ongoing movement toward a more creatively enriched and globally recognised future. Through countless projects, Belfast City Council is not only fostering local talent but also empowering the city’s music community to imagine a new cultural landscape for generations to come.

Explore Council’s commitments to music and cutlure through Belfast 2024, A City Imagining and Music Matters: A Roadmap for Belfast.

Keep up to date with Belfast City Council’s Belfast City of Music channels:

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Below, Nikki MacRae and Chris McCreery, Culture Development Officers at Belfast City Council, share insights into the important work they’ve been leading as part of the Music Matters roadmap and the UNESCO City of Music initiatives.

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On 8 November 2021, Belfast became a UNESCO City of Music, celebrating the city’s rich musical heritage and recognising the importance of music to its future. Belfast is only the third city in the UK to become a City of Music, with Liverpool receiving it in 2016 and Glasgow in 2008.

Gaining this status provided Belfast City Council with the opportunity to meaningfully invest in the development of our local music economy and the outstanding individuals within it. Beginning with recruiting a dedicated Music Officer and a Belfast Region Music Board, our UNESCO journey over the last three years has offered us significant opportunities to fulfill many of the priorities within our Music Matters roadmap. Below is a selection of highlights of what being a UNESCO City of Music has offered Belfast so far.

• Through a partnership with the Music Venue Trust, five Belfast venues were awarded grants to buy equipment and undertake training.
• Interweaving music and showcasing local talent in all city and civic events including a UNESCO City of Music stage at Belfast’s Maritime Festival and local talent featured in Christmas and St Patrick’s Day celebrations
• Major funder and supporter of the Output Conference, Ireland’s biggest one-day music conference and live music showcase
• Supporting the delivery of the NI Music Prize, celebrating some of Northern Ireland’s best talent, both established and new.
• Direct support for venues and festivals to improve disability access
• Regular City of Music Industry Sessions were provided and continue to roll-out, offering free advice on a wide range of topics as well as industry connections at 2 Royal Avenue.
• A dedicated Belfast Music social media supplier was engaged, offering regular artist spotlights and information sharing for the sector.
• Eighteen local musicians were provided grants to undertake creative practices through our partnership with the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival on their music bursary scheme.
• A dedicated Music Heritage programme supporting 4 major projects featuring over 30 musicians focused on contemporary expressions of traditional music
• Funding for the Gradam Ceoil bursary scheme supporting 3 emerging traditional musicians annually
• Six artists were provided support to perform at Soultrane, Belfast’s first soul and jazz festival.
• The development of major music events such as a concert with the Ulster Orchestra and the BBC celebrating the centenary of the BBC in September 2024.
• Bidding for major music events including hosting the Fleadh Cheoil, the largest music event in Ireland which will welcome over 1m visitors in 2026.

Together, these initiatives will help unlock the potential of our UNESCO status by supporting and strengthening our homegrown talent and music industry, giving them the tools, skills and opportunities to develop their careers, here at home and further afield. Through our work with the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, we are proud to connect our world-class talent with a global network of 70 other music cities across the world.  Highlights of these connections and exchanges include:

• Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble represented Belfast at Classical:NEXT in Berlin with support from the city.
• Numerous exchanges took place with Hannover, Germany – jazz artists jazz artists Steve Davis and Scott Flanigan collaborated with experimental orchestra Tonhallenorchester, documentarian Elspeth Vischer and indie-punk band Cherym took part in Take Space festival, and more.
• Gradam Ceoil recipient and expert accordionist Catriona Gribben took part in an exchange with UNESCO City of Music Brno, Czech Republic, and collaborated with artists from Bydgoszcz, Katowice, Varazdin, Ghent, and Daegu.
• The first UNESCO day partnership with Belfast International Arts Festival saw Canadian country duo Aimee and Aaron Allen come over, with 2024’s partnership bringing Kansas hip-hop artist Kadesh Flow and R&B poet Jass to join us.
• Folk artists Ciara O’Neill and Niall McDowell took part in an exchange with London, Ontario, during which they performed at a 50,000-capacity festival, were interviewed on air by CBC and took part in a songwriting camp with artists from London, Ghent and Brazil.