The German Music Council is a limited non-profit project company, which promotes numerous renowned, efficient and proven music support actions and projects. The organization was founded on September 1st, 2003. It has arisen from the German Music Council Deutscher Musikrat e.V., which was founded in 1953 in Bonn by prominent personalities of the German music life and which, being the national music committee of the Federal Republic of Germany, became part of the International Music Council, a "non-governmental organization" of the UNESCO. The German Music Council is under the patronage of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. As the top association for all areas of music life, it is formed by 91 cross regional specialized organizations, the 16 federal music councils as well as 48 honorary members and 68 individual members. Hereby it represents approximately 8 million citizens, male and female, who are related with music either professionally or as laymen. Thus, the German Music Council is the top association of the music life in the country.

 

The German Music Council non-profit society GmbH makes a special effort for the further development of important areas of music life by means of focused, sustainable, long-term and public-oriented measures and promotion programs: musical artistic new generation ("Jugend musiziert", chamber music courses, national youth orchestra, national jazz orchestra, national youth jazz meeting, SchoolJam, national selection of young artists concerts, German music competition, conductor forum), contemporary music (the promotion project “Concert of the German Music Council”, the “Contemporary music edition” CD series, the CD documentation “Music in Germany 1950-2000”), layman music (German choir competition, German orchestra competition) as well as music information and music politics (German music information center and music yearbook).

 

The German Music Council is financed by contributions from the Federation and the Länder, as well as by contributions from individual municipalities, donations, private sponsors and patrons.