A-Pop Castle 2023 is hosted in Finland in Autumn at the turn of October and November. The songwriting experience is organised by Music Finland and brings Asian guests to Helsinki.

A-Pop Castle is a successful international co-writing camp that focuses on K-Pop, J-Pop and C-Pop.

This year A-Pop Castle will bring together around 10 Finnish songwriters with 5-6 artists, lyricists and songwriters from the Asian target markets, as well as their business representatives and labels looking for new music.

Direct cuts from the past A-Pop Castle camps have been numerous. Many artists and groups including Hyolyn, Gugudan, Sunmi, Lee Hyori, TVXQ (Korea) as well as Jolin Tsai, Joanna Wang, R-Chord (Taiwan), Kamin, Shionoya Sayaka, Toyama Mirei (Japan) have released songs written at A-Pop Castle song camps.

Each A-Pop Castle produces multiple releases on the target markets. But it’s not only the direct results, A-Pop Castle has been an important connector of European and Asian music companies within the songwriting industry. The Asian markets have long been a focus for Finnish songwriting. In addition to the aforementioned artists Finnish songwriters have releases with huge pop groups over the years including Twice, S.E.S., EXO, SHINee, and Sexy Zone, Hey Say Jump!, Kumi Koda, Arashi and more.

Read here, what kind of impressions Music Finland's A-Pop Castle made in the year 2017 and watch the aftermovie.

Dates and implementation

Each invited songwriter will work with three different teams on 30.10. – 1.11.
The writing teams will have one working day to finish the demos as the deadline for the finished songs is 2.11. Songs will be written directly to briefs. The songwriters need fair English skills to communicate with their teams.

The song camp includes kick-off sessions with introductions each start of sessions as well as a listening session with all of the song camp writers, representatives and A&R’s on 2.11.