Innovation in the Russian Music Industry: The Development of Government Support

This paper discovers the phenomenon of ‘music innovations’ and studies the development of their support by Government in Russia. To illustrate the place of music industry innovations as a part of National cultural economy, the author provides a case study of ‘music innovation’ con-cept by semi-structured interviews with the composers and musicologists of Russian Composers Union and other experts engaged in national music industry and cultural development, and chal-lenges existing Russian cultural innovation policy, searching for government support incentives in Federal Target Program “Culture of Russia 2012-2018”, Federal Decree on Cultural Patronage (2014) and other legal instruments. Chapter I «Defining ‘music innovations’ in the Russian context» describes explores the key definitions of ‘music innovations’ concept in country-specific environment of Russian cul-ture, distinguishes the roles of major stakeholders in related fields of national economy and dis-cusses role of music innovations in cultural development, bringing the rationale for government support of related activities of population. Chapter II «Policy framework for (cultural and) music innovations government support» provides an overview of strategic documents of Russian feder-ation related to cultural innovations and represents author’s analysis of such document’s target indicators aligned with practical experience illustrated by case-studies and survey results. The author thinks, that cultural policy makers and governance officers, consultants, crea-tive media teachers, composers, sound engineers, producers and other music artists and profes-sionals whose activity is affiliated with music innovations, may find something of value in what is written here.