Drenthe pop music advisor Jan Stam and the GigaGfestival in Pesse are rewarded with an honorary award for their contribution to the northern music scene. Jan Stam (65) receives the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award 2025’ for his many years of dedication to northern pop music. The organization of the GigaGfestival deserves the award as an ‘Inclusive initiative of 2025’.
The awards will be presented on Tuesday, January 14 during the Popgala Noord, the annual party in honor of the music industry in the Northern Netherlands, and the northern award show on the eve of the Eurosonic Noorderslag (ESNS) music festival.
Every year a person is put in the spotlight who has been committed to the northern music industry his entire life. The honor goes to Jan Stam. Last year he was officially employed for forty years as an advisor to Pop Drenthe, which later became Kunst & Cultuur. But Stam started as a volunteer in 1977 with the festival ‘The North is not so dead yet’. With the festival in the Tamboer he offered performance spaces to bands from Drenthe, Groningen and Friesland.
In her forty years as a pop advisor, Stam was in many rehearsal rooms, helping young upcoming bands find venues to play and subsidies. “Jan Stam lives for the talent development of musicians in the Northern Netherlands. We bow deeply to that,” said the jury. Tomorrow afternoon Jan Stam will be a guest in the RTV Drenthe program Cassata.
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