In this meantime, some more festivals have been cancelled, others events are still going on. Some parts of the world are on fire, others have been destroyed by floods or by recurring earthquakes, and we are all very scared about the situation in Afghanistan. Sometimes it makes you want to go into the bush and cut yourself off from the world so as not to hear about so much suffering. But it would be too selfish for someone like me who, after all, can decide most of what concerns me.

My Vigüela are right now in France, performing 10 concerts in little and mainly open air venues. I have a concert by Albaluna in FolkPlasencia, Cáceres, next Friday, and I will travel to Greece on day 25th for the Cosmopolis Festival in Kavala. It will be my first international trip since January 2020. I hope to be able to complete a flight with a stopover, after such a long time without practising! ?

New connections continue to be created, chances to reflect, and I hope that the initiatives I share with you here will be as interesting to you as they are to me.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

The Migrants Music Manifesto (MMM) event seems to me to be of such depth that it deserves its own space in this newsletter.

I think the best way to present it is through its own presentation, which you have on the website (that is in German but you can use the automatic translator inside and it works quite well):

As you know, I am in Spain and the situation here, as far as these issues are concerned, is much more backward. And I think the same happens in many other countries. That is why I believe that what happens in Cologne during those days can be very important. I will try to capture the maximum value of all the knowledge and reflection that will take place there, also to share it.

The MMM includes debates, workshops and concerts and a group of 28 musicians will become the MMM Project Orchestra, that “will be dedicated to contemporary music from other perspectives than the European one. The 28 members of the orchestra are young, talented musicians as well as award-winning master musicians with many years of playing experience and international experience, who all understand their artistic work explicitly as part of the current contemporary music creation of European metropolises. These musicians with roots in diverse non-Western musical cultures will present a joint concert programme with new compositions by Bassem Hawar, Hindol Deb, Rebal Alkhodari and Kyriakos Kalaitzidis.”
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MMM is organised by alba Kultur, directed by Birgit Ellinghaus (in the picture, by Johan Morin, from alba Kultur website). By the way, she gave us some very interesting insights in February 2020, in a short interview which you can find here.

Apart from this specific event in Cologne, the MMM, a consortium of several European organizations is working from 2020 to 2022:

SCHEDULE AND TICKETS FOR MIGRANTS MUSIC MANIFESTO (CLICK THE LINKS FOR THE COMPLETE PROGRAM OF EACH SECTION): 13 – 15 of September of 2021 MMM WorkshopLab   15 – 18 of September of 2021 Program support more concerts, MMM MedienLab, network meeting and September 18, 2021         concert MMM Project  Orchestra 17 to 19 of September of 2021 General debate – Int. Conference on the future of musical diversity     All the activities of the project week are public and take place in the old fire station in Cologne. All tickets for the project week online here

Forward to a friend right from here

It was a wonderful coincidence that I was contacted this morning by Jane Polubotko, the International Marketing Manager of Kanjian, to tell me about the IMX, just in time to include their fall in this August’s edition. This event is organised by Kanjian and IMCO. 

I think China could be an interesting market for the music we work with in this global community, but, well, what could China not be an interesting market for, with the magnitude it has and how it is transforming itself? The fact is that their presence in the fairs organized in the West has not been very extensive so far, and it seemed very difficult to me to generate connections in the country, so I found this initiative very interesting. I hope you find it interesting too!

The website is in English and is very easy to navigate to find the information you need, so I invite you to visit it and here is a brief summary.

IMX, in this online edition, includes:

• The conferences Music Ally China Digital Summit, three days for talking about topics for the Chinese music industry (7-9 September, in Chinese) and the IMX Sessions, with a series of panels, that will take place from 11 to 31 of October, at the same time as the showcases and the expo. 
• The showcases (pre-recorded): IMX Main Stage, with free application for any artist, and the IMX Primetime, with cost. Check the details here.
• The expo: “The IMX 2021 Expo runs for a first time and is supported by a number of GOs, NGOs, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations from around the world. The event will be streamed online for free across all major platforms internationally and in China.” There are 3 Expo Packages, with a cost from 49 dollars. Check the details here.

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Eduardo Quezada: I believe that the hyper connectivity that we live in today, caused by technological developments, greatly favours the generation of international networks and the building of relationships at a distance, to a certain extent, the pandemic has contributed to accelerate certain processes that have allowed us to connect even more through technological tools and communications, such as the different social networks, etc. I also believe that these phenomena have contributed to the “democratisation” of knowledge in certain areas, which helps people to be more critical (in some cases) and to leave their place of comfort.In relation to the difficulty of sending artists to Latin America from other regions of the world or vice versa, I believe that the difficulty in accessing Latin American markets can be produced by different factors, mainly linked to language, politics, economics or culture (topics that are too extensive to develop in this opportunity). In my opinion, one of the main barriers to penetration and access to Latin America, is not knowing the territory and the markets and industries that inhabit it (which are many and behave very differently), and also, as you mention, the political uncertainties in several Latin American countries, contribute greatly to making it more difficult to enter or leave our countries, this may be due to visa processes and their high costs, among other determining factors.

Undoubtedly we still have some barriers and challenges to overcome that allow us to move forward in a better way. This is why it is important to generate instances of knowledge, information and exchanges that allow us to know and understand each other. We have seen this more frequently in recent years through the creation of different Music Fairs and Markets such as MAPA and BIME, Circulart, IMESUR, among many others, focused on generating instances of business and knowledge between Europe and Latin America and in which I recommend participating frequently.

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EQ: We are well aware that the global music industry has changed enormously over the last 20 years, due to technological change and advances, to a large extent, among other influential factors, such as the pandemic for example, which has accelerated some technological processes and phenomena, among others. This has meant, today more than ever, that artists have to take on different roles or become even more involved in the administrative, organisational and commercial processes of their musical projects.

In post-pandemic times, I believe that the music community in much of Latin America (musicians, agents, etc.) and the world have realised this and have begun to change their habits. It is because of these phenomena that a great number of international initiatives of meetings, markets and training instances have arisen, focused on covering different needs that have arisen and evidenced by the aforementioned.

I personally believe that it is very positive that the artist, in addition to carrying out the creative and compositional processes very well, has knowledge on administrative and organisational issues or in other areas, which allow him to have a broader view of the commercial area, better directing his musical project and managing to maintain a professional team that accompanies him in his growth and allows him to develop the artistic process in a better way.

MM: This question is closely linked to the previous one: How is your training offer received by the artistic community and is its usefulness well understood? 

EQ: Since we launched Emprende Musical LATAM at the beginning of 2020 until today, we have had a great reception and interest from the Latin American community, we believe that this is because the valuable content we have created and offered, have managed to solve, to some extent, the needs and doubts of the different agents who have participated in our courses, seminars and meetings. although we still see resistance to understand the usefulness of some knowledge or areas of the industry from some sectors of musicians, but that has been decreasing over time.

MM: From the time you launched Emprende Música LATAM until you managed to make it financially sustainable, what was the process like? Was there already a demand or did you have to bring the need to light? 

EQ: Emprende Música LATAM (EML), born in 2020, mainly as a result of the difficulties generated by the pandemic in our industry, we try to provide different solutions through access to valuable content by professionals in the field of music from different parts of Latin America. EML arises as an opportunity to provide knowledge and tools towards the professionalization and improvement of conditions of our musical community that are part of different Latin American countries, and also, we try to make known different markets of countries not so well known, such as Paraguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, among others, in order to generate spaces for knowledge, reflection and connection between the different participating agents.

In this process of creation and implementation of the platform, we realised that there was not a very developed demand, we realised that the existing training projects were quite local and developed very similar topics, mainly focused on digital marketing and / or copyright. From EML we try to give a broader and deeper look at the music industry and the different markets, understanding it from a specific territory and the processes and agents that determine it, developing topics ranging from the cultural policies of each of the participating countries to understanding the ecosystem of the industry and making a deep x-ray in each of the countries that make up the region. We do all of this through the participation of leading professionals and experts in different areas, of different nationalities, from both the private and public sectors, in order to obtain quality information from the first source.

Since we started EML we have managed to have interesting Latin American seminars, workshops, training programmes and our most emblematic project which is the Latin American Music Industry Meeting LATMUS, which I will tell you more about later.

 

MM: The third edition of the Encuentro LATMUS took place earlier this year, in May-June. It has been an open-access event with workshops and conversations with professionals from a wide range of backgrounds. How was the result?  

EQ: The LATMUS Meeting (Latin American Music Industry Meeting) was created with the intention of giving access to privileged information, first hand, to the Latin American music community, the event has been completely free access for people, in order to democratize access to information and reduce knowledge gaps.

Through workshops, talks and conferences we have had the opportunity to share knowledge and reflections with representatives of Ministries of Culture from different countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Panama, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Guatemala, among others, We have debated and understood issues related to the importance of correctly implementing cultural policies in each country (mainly in the field of music) and what tools the ministries have at their disposal to support the music sector. Important international organisations, guilds and federations have participated, explaining to us in a better way what their role is within the industry and the music market and how it affects us, we have talked about important issues such as associativity and its importance for the growth of our sector. We can conclude that these have been extensive days of reflection and learning.

We can say that in 3 editions of the LATMUS Meeting, where we have had many representatives of ministries of culture, private sectors of the music industry, among others. We have contributed to raise awareness and reflect on different issues that are necessary for the growth of our sector, achieving a much broader picture of what is happening in Latin America.

In general conclusions we can say that the music industry must be built by all of us, and knowledge is a fundamental part of doing things in the right way and building stronger foundations.

If you want to know more about the Latin American music industry and markets and its actors, we invite you to follow our youtube channel at Encuentro LATMUS or at www.encuentrolatmus.com.

MM: I haven’t found much information about Red Iberfest. I think it’s because it’s quite recent, right? Can you explain briefly what it is and what it does (or what are the ideas to do when the pandemic is over, as it might have affected your plans)? Who are the current members? .

EQ: Red Iberfest is an Iberoamerican Network of Festivals, Theatres and Cultural Agents from different parts of Iberoamerica. We are a group of people with a common goal, to generate international channels at Latin American and Ibero-American level, to facilitate the international circulation of artistic content. We do this by obtaining valuable information from the different countries involved to facilitate circulation. Since 2017 we have created different circuits of tours, where we have simultaneously taken artists from different countries in different regions of Latin America and the world. This is because we have managed to bring together festivals, theatres, clubs, communications agencies and other agents in the music industry value chain.

Due to the effects caused by the pandemic, we have seen a reduction in our activities and live concert circuits in recent years, but we have continued to make progress in the generation of networks and knowledge through our Encuentro LATMUS. We are also reactivating and preparing some projects of intercontinental exchanges with Asia and Europe that we have been advancing at the foot of the pandemics and we hope to start from the second half of 2022.

Credits:

Do you have a call of interest for our community that you want to share? Let me know asap

Right now we are 483 delegates registered for the 2021 edition. Many people may be waiting to see how the pandemic data evolves.

In parallel, Nod Knowles, administrator of the European Folk Network, will lead a networking session. And as you know, Mapamundi Música has the honour of presenting Hudaki Village Band. See you there!

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Some of the calls are close to the deadline. For instance, the networks one. This document is a very good summary. 

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As mentioned above, this fair organised by the Chinese organizations International Music Collaboration Organization (IMCO) and Kanjian Music, will take place from 11 to 31 of October.

Final applications for showcase (for free) and for IMX Primetime (with cost) close on September 8, 2021.
Expo applications close on September 8, too. The price of the Standard registration is 49$ until day August 22 and 59$ from then to September 8.

For applications and more details, visit their website.

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I am almost there! Unbelievable! Two of my collaborating artists are scheduled: the Polish Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and the Spanish Entavía. 

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About this you have more information above and I invite you again to visit the website of Migrants Music Manifesto event in alba Kultur’s website. It is in German but for sure the automatic translation will allow you to understand most of it.

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Another date that thrills me very much. This festival is organised by my much admired Bojan Djordjevic, who is producer and manager of bands and member of the World Music Association Serbia and also radio journalist and member of the World Music Charts Europe.

Feel free to check the little interview that was published in October 2019 with him, here.

• WOMEX, Porto, Portugal (27-31 October)