Strasbourg Music Week Festivals and conventions: Springboards for musical diversity

Currently Artistic Director/Programmer of several Francofolies festivals (La Rochelle, Luxembourg, Belgium, New Caledonia, Tahiti, Bulgaria), founder of the “ExtrAA” programming and cultural engineering consultancy for numerous other festivals, and also co-founder of the “ORA” management and publishing company, Pierre PAULY is above all a passionate man, committed to the service of music for over 24 years. Director of venues such as the Zénith du Grand Nancy and the Echonova (SMAC), he has also been behind several major events such as the Jardin de Michel festival, Rêverie Moderne, the Hivernales du Jazz and the Metal Therapy Festival, as well as being very active in concert production in the Grand Est region with Prodige Music, Evolution Prod and Nouveau Monde.

Olivier Rey has been a musician for over 20 years, and has been involved in the cultural world for more than 30 years, organizing festivals and structures. He is director of Babel Music XP, the international economic and cultural forum for contemporary world music held every March in Marseille. A Mediterranean crossroads, the event brings together the international music industry around an international trade show, professional meetings and a festival.

After working as administrator for a theater company in Strasbourg, Stéphane Krasniewski joined the SUDS team in ARLES in 2004, first as administrator and then as co-programmer alongside Marie José Justamond, the festival's founder. He became the festival's director in January 2019. He has also been president of the Syndicat des Musiques Actuelles since 2024, after having been president of the Réseau Zone Franche from 2018 to 2022.

Frank Klaffs holds a master degree in business administration and has gained practical experience in the music business for over 30 years as a copyright and label manager for Piranha Records & Publishing (Berlin) as well as an independent music publicist for Crammed Discs, Hannibal Recrds, Universal Music and artists Taj Mahal, Robert Wyatt, The Klezmatics, Tinariwen and for WorldwideMusicExpo WOMEX. 

Besides his position as CEO of Piranha Arts, Frank is part of the Piranha Records team as well as of WOMEX Academy for clients like Aga Khan Music Programme, Goethe Institute (Juba, South Sudan and Beirut, Libanon), COSCAP and the Creative Europe Project MOST Bridge for Balkan Music.
 

Born in Bremen, Sybille Kornitschky graduated from high school in France and decided to live and play abroad for 15 years ... mainly in Bordeaux, but also in Liverpool, Paris, Freiburg and Cologne - where she was able to turn her passion for culture into a profession as an editor for a Cologne book publishing house for five years.
She returned to Bremen in 2002 with the desire to make a difference in this city – her home town. The cosmopolitan Bremen and her own history were a good match.
The first stage at Messe Bremen was the development of the Bremen Classic Motorshow, and since its premiere in 2006 she has been responsible for jazzahead! trade fair and festival. She is a mother of two daughters.

Jazzahead! is an annual trade fair and festival for jazz, held in Bremen. Since its premiere in 2006, the event has grown to include a conference and festival alongside the three-day trade fair. The international industry meeting is the must-go event for the international jazz industry and the place for high-quality, contemporary jazz from Germany, Europe and overseas, culminating in 38 jury selected showcases with bands from Germany, Europe, Overseas and annually changing partner countries - in fact, in 2025 we have three partner countries as a region as we RECONNECT with Spain, France and Switzerland, all of whom were partner countries a while ago. As the world's largest event where all the protagonists of the scene (musicians, labels, agencies, festival makers, bookers, media representatives and more) meet, jazzahead! is considered by professional visitors from all over the world as the "Family Reunion of Jazz" - despite steady growth, jazzahead! has managed to keep its family character.