Calvi’s ETEP Dozen

UK singer-songwriter Anna Calvi has held on to her lead and topped this year’s European Talent Exchange Programme with 12 festival shows.

Having impressed Europe’s festival bookers with her performance at Eurosonic-Noorderslag in January, the Mercury Music Prize nominee was chosen to play major outdoor shows in Germany, The Netherlands, France, Spain, Austria, Sweden and Norway.

Steve Backman from London agents Primary Talent reckons ETEP produced the leads for nearly half of Calvi’s summer festival shows.

In a Brit-dominated final league table, London-born James Blake ran Calvi closest with 10 shows. He shared second place with Crystal Fighters, which flew the Spanish flag but would have equal claims to have come from east London.

Belgian singer-songwriter Selah Sue was third with nine shows and Agnes Obel, who recently scooped five of her native Denmark’s top music awards, was fourth with six.

SBTRKT and White Lies, two more British acts, also scored six shows.

In a record-breaking year, 79 acts from 14 countries shared 208 shows that were spread across 60 festivals from 20 countries.

The announcement of the final results for ETEP 2011 coincided with a steady ramping up of the marketing campaign for next year’s Eurosonic-Noorderslag, which is in Groningen, The Netherlands, Jan. 11-14.