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Some Things You Always Wanted to Know About Piranha Records

[But Never Found Time to Ask]

Piranha Records & Publishing...

is an independent Berlin-based label under the Piranha Arts umbrella. With more than 150 album releases and 1,200 copyrights to date, it introduces new sounds and artists from the world to the world under the triad of globalisation, tradition & subcultural understanding.

Piranha Records's core team includes Christoph Borkowsky (director), Christin Kunick (label manager), Yusuf Sahilli (minister of propaganda), Mitko Miericke (label admin) and Dimitra Zina (label assistant).

Physically and digitally the Piranha label is distributed internationally as part of the !K7 network while Budde Music and its set-up of companies and sub-publishing partners administers and protects the Piranha publishing rights worldwide.

Christoph Borkowsky

a.k.a. "Akbar" or "El Presidente", is the director of Piranha Records. From 1988 - 2001 he directed one of Berlin's major annual summer festivals, the HeimatKlänge ("Home sounds ... from home planet earth") and from 1999 - 2006, WOMEX - the World Music Expo.

In the 90s, he initiated Bands United, Clubs United and Féte de la Musique in Berlin. From 2004 - 2007, he headed the jury of the local Karneval der Kulturen and in 2006, he co-chaired Libero, a cultural network for the FIFA World Cup in Germany. In 2008, he received the "German world music Oscar", the Ehren-RUTH. In 2009, he took part in the jury of the 11mm Football Film Festival and was jury president for the National Creole Music Competition.

From 2007 - 2012, he served as a board member of the Berlin Music Commission - a local music industry cluster of labels, clubs, music publishers and event producers. His most recent initiative is the WOMEX WORLD TOUR to present leading music platforms to meet local players in Africa, Brazil, The Caribbean, China and Latin America.

Piranha Arts...

is an independent creative company made in Berlin since 1987. From the very start, music has been our driving force to increase the value of crossing borders - be they cultural, political or commercial. Drawing from more than 25 years of experience as cultural innovators, technical developers, curators, partners and multipliers, the Piranha Arts tree now has 6 dynamic branches:

It all started with Piranha Records and Piranha Kultur, staging cutting-edge festivals and providing programming and production services for events worldwide. International music networking events such as WOMEX - The World Music Expo, and Classical:NEXT - the global meeting for all art music innovators, came next.

Latest additions are Piranha Research, re-thinking and re-searching the relationship between music & IT; and Piranha Consult, providing international expertise for a diverse range of partnerships, such as Atlantic Music Expo [Cabo Verde], Sound of the Xity [China], Primera Linea [Cuba], Circulart [Colombia], Porto Musical [Brazil] and more.

Piranha Arts is an independent shareholder company, represented by CEOs Frank Klaffs and Michael von Petrykowski, and supervised by a board consisting of "1st generation" Piranhas Christoph Borkowsky (President), Brigitte Bieg and Ben Mandelson.

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