Experty.by is a web-portal dedicated to music in Belarus,[3] as well as the associated music awards of the same name[4] of Belarusian music critics.[5][6] Moreover, the portal acts as a coorganizer of another awards, the Rock Profi awards.[7][8]
The site was opened on June 13, 2008.[9] The founders were Belarusian music journalist Źmicier Biezkaravajny (ex-editor of Muzykalnaya Gazeta, BelGazeta), who became the project director, Źmicier Padbiarezski (ex-editor of Belorusskaya Delovaya Gazeta, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), Oleg “О’К” Klimov (ex-chief editor of Muzykalnaya Gazeta, the music magazine “НОТ-7”), and Siarhei Budkin (editor of Nasha Niva, Tuzin.fm). They got together for the systematic reporting and assessment of CDs of Belarusian artists to promote Belarusian music.[10][11]
The basis of the project is the reviews of four regular contributors ("expert staffers"),[12] who evaluate each album. In 2013, the original quartet was strengthened by Alexandr Chernuho (Ultra-music.com) and Egor Tsyvilko (blog "Broken CD").[13][14] Authors write reviews, set ratings, while their average becomes a final score assessed by the mass media. On the basis of these points, full charts are presented at the end of each-half year and year.[15]
Since 2009, the editorial staff of the project was also diversified with the addition of the panel of 8 freelance experts, authoritative representatives of the Belarusian media community.[16] Since 2010, almost all reviewed albums can be listened to on the website as well.[17] In May of the same year the portal conducted its festival.[18] Starting from 2014, the best album winner was being offered support in holding a concert.[19]
For ten years, critics have evaluated more than 500 (including the classics of Lyapis Trubetskoy, N.R.M., Pesniary and some more released in 2007 and earlier) modern albums of Belarusian artists: 59 in 2008,[20] 60 in 2009,[21] 44 in 2010,[22] 63 in 2011,[23] 67 in 2012,[24] 47 in 2013,[25] 38 in 2014,[26] 45 in 2015,[27] 29 in 2016,[28] 33 in 2017.[29]
In 2018 the site was frozen on “indefinite leave,” per its project manager Źmicier Biezkaravajny.[30] At the same time, the portal selected its top-10 albums for 2008–2017 being active, and Port Mone’s «Thou» topped the ultimate chart.[31]
Expert staffers
Staffers
Źmicier Biezkaravajny – (2008–2018)
Egor Tsyvilko – (2013–2018)
Conrad Erofeev – (2016–2018)
Nikolai Yankoit – (2016–2018)
Former staffers
Źmicier Padbiarezski – (2008–2014)
Oleg “О’К” Klimov – (2008–2014)
Siarhei Budkin – (2008–2016)
Alexandr Chernuho – (2013–2016)
Timeline
Experty.by Awards
Experty.by’s annual awards call the best Belarusian album of each year in several versions (tops 10 for each of them are made known too).[32]
“Album of the Year” by expert staffers.
“Grand Jury’s Prize” by the “Grand Jury,” consisting of representatives of the Belarusian mass media (4 full-time authors of the project plus 8 freelance experts).
“Expert Staffers’ Prize” on the basis of the ratings of 4 expert staffers.
“People Experts’ Prize” (since 2009) based on the scores from the users of the site, which were rated at least 15% of the albums of the calendar year.
“Best Debut Album,” “Best Album in the Belarusian language” (since 2009), stylistic categories are also awarded on the basis of points given by expert staffers.
Freelance experts (and members of the “Grand Jury” of the Experty.by Awards)
Siarhei Budkin (since 2016).
Źmicier Padbiarezski (since 2014).
Vitali Drozdov (2008–2012) – Belarusian and Ukrainian FM-specialist, CEO of the radio station Hit FM.
Maryna Savickaja (since 2016) – anchor of music programs over at Radio "Stolitsa".
Sergey Filimonov (since 2013) – author and anchor of the music program «Belarusian: Відзьмо-невідзьмо», which was broadcast on Belarus-1, then Capital TV, now is broadcast on Belsat TV, former journalist of Vecherniy Minsk.
2011 — Aleksandr Gorbachyov (Afisha, Russia), Jānis Žilde (TVnet.lv, Latvia), Paweł Kostrzewa (Onet.pl, Poland), Konstantin Tregubav (RockYou, Ukraine), Darius Užkuraitis (Opus 3, Lithuania).[39]
In 2009, Tat’yana Zamirovskaya as a columnist over at naviny.by evaluated the first results of the project as such, “An attempt to create an Internet portal where every new CD release of Belarusian musicians is reviewed by a completely variegated four of the country’s best music critics, oddly enough, was a success.”[81] She as an author of BelGazeta noted that by 2012 the site’s music awards had become more significant than the “Rock Coronation Awards.”[65] In 2018, Tat’yana Zamirovskaya wrote in the magazine “Russian: Большой” regarding the freezing of the site, “The remaining text base is even more important than remaining music. After all, when we study a period in art, we primarily turn to text, to archives, to documentation. And when something cool ends, we moan in the first place.”[82]
In 2008, Alieh Chamienka, frontman of the band Palats, emphasized the importance of the appearance of this musical resource, since “we all lacked just such objective criticism signed by professional and famous people in musical circles.”[9]
In 2010, beZ bileta’s frontman Vitaly Artist evaluated the portal via Sovetskaya Belorussiya – Belarus' Segodnya like this, “It is good, by the way, that the site experty.by has appeared – there is interesting content and there are its own music awards too.”[83] In a review of all Belarusian music awards for 2013, Paviel Svierdlov, editor of “KYKY.ORG”, noted the peculiarity of presenting the site’s awards that it “takes place in a chamber setting, without a concert and other fuss.”[84]
Music critic and author of the “Encyclopedia of Belarusian Popular Music” Źmicier Padbiarezski put in a good word for the Experty.by awards among “the most objective of all Belarusian music awards”.[citation needed]
For the Belarusian Telegraph Agency in 2017, Renato Horvath, co-organizer of the Budapest Showcase Hub festival, positively evaluated the portal’s efforts to promote domestic artists abroad, stating that “over the past few years, thanks to the efforts of the Experty.by project, modern Belarusian music has gained a significant presence in international showcase festivals and conferences.”[85]
Illia Sviryn, chief editor of the newspaper Kultura, assessed the usefulness of the portal in 2017 as follows, “Without a doubt, this project will somehow affect the overall musical situation. New, quite exciting and completely different projects appear, and musicians rake the last denarius out the pockets to make a high-quality recording because they know that it will be evaluated – meticulously and by the Hamburg score. And the audience will learn lots of new things.”[86] Two years before, by evaluating the work of the Port Mone band, he referred to the results of “the most qualified and clear music awards in Belarus,”[87] echoed the opinion of Alexandr Chernuho, editor of Ultra-music.com, who called it the most thorough “in terms of criteria for selecting the strongest releases of the year” in 2012.[66]
In the retrospect of 2010–2019 in 2019, Lesha Gorbash from 34mag called the portal, whose experts “patiently listened to and evaluated all the albums and selected the best of them” for 10 years, the only one who was cataloguing Belarusian music.[88]
↑ Карпицкая, Катерина (2011). "Пациент скорее мёртв, чем жив"(PDF). Read Me (in Russian). 2 (2): 28–30. Archived(PDF) from the original on 2019-09-15. Retrieved 2019-09-15.
↑ Замировская, Татьяна (2013-04-22). "Сами себе "Грэмми"". BelGazeta (in Russian). 16 (892). Archived from the original on 2013-06-26. Retrieved 2020-02-15.
↑ Замировская, Татьяна (2016-03-21). "Всем "Жніво"!". BelGazeta (in Russian). 11 (1036) (published 2016-03-27). Archived from the original on 2018-02-08. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
↑ Замировская, Татьяна (2011-03-14). "Музон оцифрованный". BelGazeta (in Russian). 10 (784). Archived from the original on 2020-02-14. Retrieved 2020-02-14.
↑ Замировская, Татьяна (2010-02-22). "Нужен переводчик!". BelGazeta (in Russian). 7 (730). Archived from the original on 2020-02-13. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
↑ Замировская, Татьяна (2018-07-23). "Почему не нужен критик" (in Russian). Журнал «Большой». Archived from the original on 2020-03-30. Retrieved 2020-03-30.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
