PRESS RELEASE: TRANSFORM! – Most Wanted: Music 2025 invites you to actively shape the future!
- Most Wanted: Music 2025 (MW:M25), the LISTEN TO BERLIN: AWARDS, and LISTEN TO BERLIN: YOUTH will once again take place concurrently in Berlin in 2025
- MW:M25 motto: TRANSFORM! – New Program Director Lindi Delight and first programme highlights between music practice, innovation, and future discourse.
- The MW:M Call for Participation remains open – seeking creative ideas, speakers, and acts.
- MW:M Early Bird Tickets available now – limited quantity
- Most Wanted: Music 2025 and LISTEN TO BERLIN will take place November 11–13 at Kulturbrauerei Berlin.
Berlin, June 19, 2025
From November 11–13, 2025, the Berlin Music Commission (BMC) will once again bring together key music industry events at the Kulturbrauerei in Berlin: the international conference Most Wanted: Music (MW:M) and the Berlin-based conference LISTEN TO BERLIN: YOUTH. These three intense days of events will open with the LISTEN TO BERLIN: AWARDS, which celebrate outstanding creative achievements from Berlin’s music scene.
“We’re bringing together worlds that have long been separate – business, culture, and youth – as equals. Under the motto TRANSFORM!, MW:M25 invites us to reimagine and reshape music as a creative force in social, cultural, technological, and economic transformation processes. But in doing so, the industry itself is changing! While MW:M has focused on the interplay of technology, business, and society, we are now opening up the industry further with LISTEN TO BERLIN: YOUTH. Together, the two formats create a space in which the next generation actively co-creates the future of the music business.”
– Olaf Kretschmar, CEO / Chair of the Berlin Music Commission
As a future-focused conference for music business and music culture, MW:M sees the industry not as a passive subject of change – but as an active driver: a laboratory and stage for transformation. Across four thematic tracks – Business, Social Impact, NextTech, and Scene – MW:M25 tackles the challenges of our time with bold visions, concrete strategies, and innovative solutions.
“Our theme TRANSFORM! reflects what we have all been witnessing across the music business – from AI’s disruption, to shifts in culture funding, and gentrification threatening creative communities. These changes are reshaping our industry in real time. As the new Head of Programming, my focus is to elevate the conference, and ensuring everyone walks away with valuable insights, regardless of experience level, while making MW:M increasingly diverse across all dimensions. TRANSFORM! acknowledges that meaningful evolution requires honoring what came before while consciously building what comes next. The sessions we facilitate won’t only be discussing change, they will create the foundations for our industry’s future. To truly transform the music industry, we need to transform how we have conversations about it.”
– Lindi Delight, Program Director, MW:M
Lindi Delight takes over as Program Director for 2025. The internationally connected curator, event producer, and community builder is the founder of De Light Management and the SPEKTRA ACADEMY – an international platform for exchange at the intersection of music, technology, and diversity. With projects for Boiler Room, XP Music Futures, RSO, and The Beatport Group, she brings extensive experience in brand development, showcase management, and conference curation. Her work focuses on progressive perspectives and global networking within the electronic music scene.
First Programme Highlights: Between Music Practice, Innovation & Future Discourse
In the NEXTTECH session “AI&R,” Dr. Janek Meyn (Co-Founder & CEO, AIDAR GmbH) and others discuss how artificial intelligence is transforming A&R – and the enduring importance of human intuition. In “The Future of Music Journalism,” Martin Hommel (music journalist and author of Ein Song reicht) and fellow journalists examine emerging formats between Substack, TikTok, and fanzine culture.
The panel “Under One Roof: Building a Multidimensional Career in Music and Beyond,” featuring Cecilia Tosh, explores how hybrid, sustainable careers can thrive across DJ booths, studios, and curatorial work. Another highlight: Mankel Brinkmann, CEO of LiveKomm, discusses how the music industry can take an active role in shaping cultural policy transformation.
Each year, over 3,500 professionals from more than 20 countries gather in Berlin for MW:M to exchange insights on developments at the intersection of technology, business, culture, and social change. MW:M is one of Europe’s leading events for innovation in the music industry.
Get Involved: Four Open Calls for MW:M25
MW:M 2025 invites national and international professionals and artists once again to actively co-create the programme. Four open calls are currently running, each targeting different audiences – from speakers and live acts to researchers:
MW:M Speakers & Sessions
For panels, talks, and workshops on the future of the music business
>> MW:M Speakers & Sessions | 2. Juli 2025
MW:M Live
For live acts of all genres – national and international
>> MW:M Live | 30. Juni 2025
MW:M Research
For contributions at the intersection of academia, practice, and art
>> MW:M Research | 14. Juli 2025
MW:M Satellites
Decentralised events across Berlin on November 12 – from listening sessions to networking formats
>> MW:M Satellites | 15. August 2025
Early Bird Ticket Sales Now Open
Early Bird ticket sales have launched today. Discounted delegate tickets for MW:M25 include access to the conference on November 12 and 13, 2025, at Kulturbrauerei Berlin – with panels, workshops, networking opportunities, and MW:M Live showcases. Early Bird tickets are limited and available via: MW:M Ticketshop
LISTEN TO BERLIN – Making Berlin’s Music City Audible and Visible
With LISTEN TO BERLIN, the BMC aims to support the capital’s musical life in its artistic and economic relevance, strengthen it sustainably, and strategically foster networking.
This year-round initiative combines several formats: COMPILATION, LIVE, AWARDS, and YOUTH. Together, they provide Berlin musicians and emerging talents with support, industry-wide visibility, access to key music business networks, direct connections to industry professionals – and the chance to perform at major events in Berlin and international showcase festivals.
As part of LISTEN TO BERLIN: LIVE, performances will include appearances at the Fête de la Musique on June 21 and BERLIN SOUNDS at the rbb rooftop lounge STUDIO 14 on July 26. Details on LISTEN TO BERLIN: AWARDS and LISTEN TO BERLIN: YOUTH, taking place alongside MW:M25, will follow shortly.
Funding
Most Wanted: Music is an initiative of the Berlin Music Commission, commissioned by the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises.
MW:M Live is co-financed by the European Union and GVL as part of the INP III programme by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
LISTEN TO BERLIN is a project of the Berlin Music Commission, funded by the Senate Department for Economics, Energy and Public Enterprises, with support from the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion.
