About Us

Third Ear is run by Julia Haferkorn and Ed McKeon, two music professionals with extensive experience, expertise and networks across the contemporary music and arts scene. Working on the borderlines where music indisciplines visual arts, theatre, performance, film, and genre, we produce and commission music and mixed media events, festivals and tours of the highest quality. We provide guidance and support as consultants to organisations and other music professionals (for example as Artistic Directors of the British Composer Awards 2014-16), and organise symposiums and events bringing together new music professionals in the UK, Europe and other parts of the world. We aim to explore new directions in performance and collaborative projects and to explore and develop new ways of presenting, programming and producing multi-disciplinary events.

Julia Haferkorn

Julia Haferkorn has been working in the contemporary music sector for the past 20 years. Initially at Peters Edition, she promoted the music of Cage, Kagel and Ferneyhough. In 1998, Julia founded the artist agency Haferkorn Associates. Since then she has worked with a range of new music artists, including the Arditti Quartet, Apartment House, and Loré Lixenberg, and has set up concerts and tours all over Britain and world-wide. She was Project Manager for the Sound Circuit consortium of promoters and carried out the Arts Council England funded research project Mapping Contemporary Music Activity in Great Britain.Last year Julia wrote The Composer’s Toolkit, commissioned by Sound and Music, and she is currently working on a similar guide for producers. She studied at King’s College London, obtaining a BMus and an MMus in Music Theory and Analysis, while moonlighting as Producer for the BBC World Service.

j.haferkorn [at] thirdear.co.uk

Ed McKeon

Ed McKeon is an experienced music programmer, producer and commissioner, presenting over 200 events and commissioning over 100 works and new collaborations in the last 19 years across the range of new music. He is fascinated by the way music affects people and how society affects music. Ed has commissioned research on audiences and on music promotion in the UK, led the independent Sound Circuit consortium of promoters, was Development Manager for the London Sinfonietta, and ran both Oxford Contemporary Music and the Society for the Promotion of New Music. In addition to producing new work, his PhD research at Birmingham City University (School of Media & School of Art) on curatorial theory and musicality is supported by Midlands 4 Cities through the Arts & Humanities Research Council. He is core tutor for the Music Management MA at Goldsmiths, a Trustee of NMC Records, a Trustee of the Hinrichsen Foundation, Vice Chair of the British section panel for the International Society for Contemporary Music, and an occasional broadcaster on BBC Radio 3. It perhaps says a lot that although he comes from Manchester, Ed supports Liverpool FC.

ed.mckeon [at] thirdear.co.uk

 

Previous Partners
  • Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Poland
  • Aldeburgh – Snape Maltings
  • Alexander von Schlippenbach Trio
  • Annie Gosfield Trio
  • Artprojx
  • Arts Council England
  • Artwise Curators
  • Apartment House
  • Athelas Sinfonietta
  • BBC Radio 3
  • Birmingham City University
  • Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
  • Birmingham Institute of Art & Design
  • Birmingham Midlands Institute
  • Birmingham Opera Company
  • Birmingham Town Hall
  • Brighton Festival
  • Camp Bestival
  • Canadian High Commission
  • Central Council of Church Bell Ringers
  • Cobbe Collection
  • Cornerstone Festival, Liverpool
  • Coull Quartet
  • Danish Arts Agency
  • Dartington Arts
  • De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill
  • Durham Cathedral
  • Electric Cinema, Birmingham
  • Ensemble Klang, Netherlands
  • Ex Cathedra
  • FACT, Liverpool
  • Flatpack Film Festival
  • Glasgow Concert Halls
  • Glasgow University
  • Goethe Institut
  • Holland Festival
  • Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
  • Icebreaker Ensemble
  • Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
  • Institute for Musical Research
  • Institute of Composing, Brunel University
  • Jazzlines, Birmingham
  • Kings Place, London
  • Kirkos
  • Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
  • Leeds College of Music
  • Library of Birmingham
  • EFG London Jazz Festival
  • London 2012 Cultural Olympiad
  • Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham
  • Musarc
  • NAWR
  • New Music Biennial
  • Noszferatu
  • notes inegales
  • Oxford Contemporary Music
  • Polish Cultural Institute
  • Polish Radio Choir
  • Post-Paradise
  • PRS for Music Foundation
  • Rich Mix
  • Royal Birmingham Conservatoire
  • Royal Danish Embassy
  • Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society
  • Royal Musicological Association
  • Royal Netherlands Embassy
  • Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester
  • Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
  • Ruhrtriennale, Germany
  • RVW Trust
  • Sage Gateshead
  • Science Museum, London
  • SNYK, Denmark
  • Sound and Music
  • Southbank Centre, London
  • South Hill Park, Bracknell
  • Spitalfields Music
  • Splendor, Amsterdam
  • St George’s, Bristol
  • Stan’s Cafe, Birmingham
  • Stockhausen Stiftung
  • Tate Liverpool
  • The Tetley, Leeds
  • Tin Men and the Telephone
  • Town Hall Symphony Hall, Birmingham
  • Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
  • Turner Contemporary, Margate
  • Turner Simms, Southampton
  • University of Birmingham
  • University College Falmouth
  • University of Leeds
  • Vooruit, Ghent
  • Walled City Festival, Derry
  • Warwick Arts Centre
  • Whitechapel Gallery
  • Wiltshire Music Centre, Bradford-on-Avon