No prize for children's music at Grammis next year

There will be no award for children's music at the prestigious Grammys Gala this year. In an e-mail to the Cultural News, organizer Ifpi writes that for the Gala 2020 they will no longer have the category. The decision justifies, among other things, that the number of grants submitted over the years has been too low.

But the decision draws sharp criticism. The organization Sweden's composers and copywriters (SKAP) chair Alfons Karabuda believes that it is a bad decision, which gives the wrong message about the importance of children's music.

- It is the children's music creators that we should raise to influence other composers and others in the industry. We need more children's music and then I mean children's music that is actually given the opportunity to be created under the same conditions as other music. Children's music should not go faster or be cheaper to do, and children's music should not be the only category that is not lifted when paying tribute to the musical year that has gone by, says Alfons Karabuda and continues:

- There is a symbolic value in saying "we have a number of different categories but we pick away the children's music". I really don't understand it.

Another argument that Ifpi points out is that there is a difficulty in a jury of adults judging music aimed at children. At the same time, they open up for the category to be re-picked in recent years:

"We would like to talk about the child category in recent years, but then we think that the definition, procedure and criteria must be rewritten from the ground up," writes Communications and Marketing Manager Lisa Cronstedt at Ifpi via Grammis in the email.

Artist Britta Persson, who earlier this year released the acclaimed children's album Folk, agrees with Alfons Karabuda that the decision to abandon the category risks negatively affecting children's music in the longer term.

- It is sad that children's culture has such a low status overall, and then it is tragic that an institution like Grammis chooses to lower the status even more by not even including it as a category. Children's culture gets less money and people don't care, says Britta Persson, and continues:

- Most people agree that the music they heard as a child has been important, so I think it is strange that you do not want to pass the legacy on and make sure that the people of the future can enjoy a varied and wide range of music.

She sees the decision as part of the fact that children's culture already has a low status, and that that status now risks being lowered even further:

- I think it will have a negative impact on children's music. I think a sense of alienation will emerge. There is no reason to make music for children unless you reach it, and Grammys is such a channel, says Britta Persson.