This month👇

◻️Editorial
    🔸Exporting Music in Minority Languages

◻️Songs in Motion: Stella Papalamprou on Identity, Displacement and Endangered Languages

◻️Interview with César Olivares, Capibara Music

◻️Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects

◻️Open calls and professional events:
    🔸Global Toronto
    🔸Afro Pepites

◻️Meet me at ✈️

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➡️ This is the subscription link

Hello, how are you? 

I’m doing well. I’m writing this from home, with August about to begin—a month when many people will be on holiday. I won’t, actually. I won’t have to travel by plane, but the next few months will be hectic. In August, Vigüela will be recording their eleventh album. Stella Papalamprou will release her debut recording in September. Hudaki Village Band have their new album ready, and we need to start making some noise about it. Ali Doğan Gönültaş will also release his third album next autumn. There will be many opportunities to introduce more people to the wonderful art of all these musicians.

In the photo, I am with Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Arles on 13 July, the evening before the workshop he led there over the following three days and his concert on Friday the 17th, which sold out. We also sold a great many records. It was a beautiful event, held in the remarkable setting of the Alyscamps necropolis.

Before all that, however, I was in Sofia, as I mentioned previously, for the A to JazZ World Music Showcase and jazz festival. There, I had the opportunity to take part in a panel entitled “Exporting Music in Minority Languages in Europe”. This is an area I work with every day through Ali Doğan Gönültaş, whose mother tongue is Zazakî, Stella Papalamprou, whose debut album is entirely in Pontic Greek, and Xabi Aburruzaga, whose songs are in Basque. I have summarised my presentation below.

 

Exporting Music in Minority Languages: Breaking the Visibility Barrier

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“The death of a language inevitably leads to the disappearance of various forms of intangible cultural heritage such as performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events, traditional crafts and the priceless legacy of the community’s oral traditions and expressions, such as poetry and jokes, proverbs and legends.” Preface of the Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO at the time of publication

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Before the event, I asked Ali, Stella and Xabi what singing in their own languages means to them. You can read their answers here and download my presentation, here.

At A to JazZ, I presented the talk “Exporting Music in Minority Languages in Europe: Breaking the Visibility Barrier”, a reflection on the difficulties faced by music performed in languages with little presence on the international circuit.

The starting point of my presentation was an apparently simple question: is language really the barrier?

Not all languages described as minority or minoritised are in the same situation. Some examples: Basque (Euskara) benefits from significant institutional and community support; Wolof is a major language in its territory of origin but becomes minoritised within the European diaspora; Zazakî, meanwhile, is vulnerable, politicised and frequently overlooked, even within the Kurdish context itself. Speaking of “minority languages” as though they all represented the same condition prevents us from understanding the different power relations that determine their visibility.

However, when music performed in these languages attempts to circulate internationally, the market tends to react in much the same way: it is considered difficult, overly specific, local, risky or suitable only for a niche audience. The barrier is not merely linguistic.

Listeners of K-pop do not need to speak Korean in order to connect with the songs. Music is not a comprehension test or a reading exercise: it is voice, rhythm, sound, body, emotion and atmosphere. The real difference lies in exposure, repetition and the desire that the market manages to create around particular kinds of music. Some languages are presented again and again as global, while others are confined to the local sphere before audiences have even had the opportunity to hear them.

To illustrate these different realities, I drew on the work of three artists. In the music of Ali Doğan Gönültaş, Zazakî is not a decorative element or an added colour: it is the ground from which his work grows. In contexts where language and literature have been suppressed, songs preserve words, memories, rhythms and ways of telling stories that institutions have failed to protect. Some languages do not travel through institutions: they travel through songs.

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“In a non-state, whose language and literature are suppressed, everything is sung to be remembered and saved.” Eleni Ziliaskopoulou, M.A., Planet Radio 90,6.

 

 

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Stella Papalamprou represents a different situation through Pontic Greek. Her music keeps alive the voices, stories and experiences of people who lost their homeland but not their identity. Here, the risk is not only silence or complete disappearance, but that the language may survive mainly as a beautiful relic: sung, remembered and performed, but used less and less as a living language.

The third example was Xabi Aburruzaga and Basque, a language with a much stronger local structure whose music nevertheless continues to face limited international familiarity. Institutional support can strengthen a language without automatically making the international market perceive its music as exportable.

The central conclusion of the presentation was that the barrier is not comprehension, but circulation. What matters is which music is programmed, promoted, playlisted, reviewed and repeated until it becomes familiar. Many successful songs circulate worldwide without most listeners understanding their lyrics. The problem is not that certain languages cannot be universal, but that the market has not yet learnt —or has not wished to learn— to hear them in that way.

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Remember: if you have any news of interest for our community, let me know. Thank you very much for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82

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INTERVIEW WITH CÉSAR OLIVARES, CAPIBARA MUSIC

Araceli Tzigane: Capibara is the initiative you were telling me about.
César Olivares: Capibara Music, exactly.

AT: It is an association devoted to mapping Latin American artists who are based in Spain.

CO: Yes. We work mainly with migrant musicians —almost all of them are migrants— and with Latin American roots music, regardless of genre. For example, we work with world music, folk music, quite a lot of traditional music and jazz as well. Through different tools, such as booking, production, internationalisation and professional support, we help them and work with them in those areas.

The association is new: we have been operating for less than six months. We are at an initial stage of consolidating our message, recruiting members, establishing partnerships and, above all, making ourselves known. That is why initiatives such as this interview are extremely valuable to me.

Capibara Music grew out of my own experience. I have lived in Spain since 2020; it was the second time I had come to Spain. Because of issues with permits and documentation, I had no job and was not allowed to work, so I took up the violin again. I play the violin and began performing in the street. A friend and I played tangos, sambas and boleros. During those conversations in the street, we talked about the lack of initiatives that could help or bring some order to the scattered Latin American diaspora in Spain. There are some very high-quality musicians, but they do not have access to the same spaces and face many more barriers to entry.

In Catalonia, there is also a language barrier. For us Spanish speakers, it is easy to overcome, but it remains a barrier, alongside the bureaucratic one. In those conversations, we would say that something had to be done: at the very least, we needed to create a legal framework that would allow us to issue invoices, register professionally and, ultimately, become professionals and make a living from this. Not become millionaires, but simply make a living from it. That is why it takes the form of an association: if the aim were simply to make money, I would set up a company.

At Capibara, we work in three areas. The first is circulation. We have an internal roster of around seven bands and are seeking funding to develop an annual professional support programme focused on internationalisation and circulation.

The second area is production. Two other members have recently joined who have contacts and somewhat greater financial resources. This may allow us to invest in bringing artists over on tour, securing dates in Spain or working through the networks of contacts that we gradually build.

The third area, which is very important to me, is training, education and research: being able to publish, conduct research and provide training. I am a teacher and several of the musicians are too, either out of necessity or because they enjoy it. That is where this other dimension of sharing knowledge comes in. Broadly speaking, that is what we do with Capibara or, more accurately, what we want to develop from now on.

AT: Before the interview, we were talking and I was saying that it seems as though there are hardly any musicians from Latin America in Madrid. There are some Cuban musicians who regularly perform at certain clubs, but there must be many more whom I do not know and have no idea where to find.

Sometimes we see posters for Latin American artists coming to perform at a nightclub —I mean posters pasted up in the street. I imagine there is a circuit within those communities that they know and use to communicate with one another, but which is completely unfamiliar to those of us who have spent many years producing world music programmes. What is happening?

CO: Life itself and its problems. Migration is often forced or takes place because there are not enough opportunities in people’s countries of origin. When you arrive in a new place, it is already difficult to establish yourself professionally and deal with bureaucratic matters, so many other things fall by the wayside. Some communities are also very closed.

We Latin Americans share a language and tend to gather among ourselves, but we are scattered and disorganised. What you find is a great deal of musical quality, but also considerable dispersion, little professionalisation and limited access to something as important as visibility.

Part of our work involves mapping each person’s situation. Through making music, for example, I was taken in by the Argentine community: I play a great deal of Argentine folk music and, through that, I also got to know that community. Through the band I work with, I met the Peruvian community, while I am Chilean. That is how we gradually come together and discover that, in fact, we are all looking for something similar.

The problem is that we do not have the tools that exist in other countries, as they do here in Europe, because in Latin America, culture often does not receive the institutional support it deserves. Culture tends to come into conflict with institutions, so the two do not usually work as allies, as they do elsewhere.

The Argentine community is very large in Europe and especially in Spain. There are also many high-quality artists and very active communities from Colombia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

Juan Antonio Vázquez: These communities you describe seem like somewhat separate islands. Is there any point or scene where they come together? Or does it work in such a way that someone might know the music circulating, for example, in the Ecuadorian or Venezuelan communities, but not know what the Argentines are doing?

CO: Yes, although there is a common thread. In Argentina, people talk about peñas, places where folk music is played. In Chile, they are also called peñas and there are jam sessions as well. In Barcelona, where I live, these kinds of gatherings are becoming somewhat more structured. They are really occasions for people to come together because they miss their homeland, and there are things we will not compromise on, such as food and music. We will preserve them wherever we are.

Each community has its own celebrations. The Bolivian and Ecuadorian communities are among those I have found most difficult to get to know from the inside. Bolivia, in particular, has a very strong tradition and a great determination to preserve it. It is not so much that they do not allow anyone else in, but rather the idea that they are the ones who play that music. That is also respected and understood.

Folk music has that positive side, but also that difficulty: it is often not very permeable because the aim is to preserve it. To find out what they are playing and where they meet, you have to look for those gatherings, those peñas or what might they be called in Spain?

AT: A ronda, going on a ronda.

CO: With food, drink, family, friends and the guitar playing afterwards.

AT: It would be a ronda in central Spain.

CO: In any case, folk music performed by new generations is undergoing a revival and, in many cases, is strongly influenced by jazz. Afro-Peruvian jazz, with all the rhythmic mixing it incorporates —the festejo, the cueca and other rhythms— is producing some very good musicians and bands, for example.

Later in the interview, César mentions this Barcelona-based duo, Músicas Migrantes. In the video, they are joined by a double bass player. If you feel like listening to something calmer than Cholo Chicha, or simply enjoy Ibero-American song, make sure you give it a listen:

Thank you, César!
➡️ And you can follow Capibara Music on Instagram

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

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🔸#1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in July of 2026 has been: Fatoumata Diawara’s Massa (Nø Førmat!)

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🔸Beyond the Spotlight – a new editorial in partnership between WOMEX and TWMC.
From the website of WOMEX: “We have been working on a new regular feature for Backstage – Beyond the Spotlight. In partnership with Transglobal World Music Charts, this section will highlight scenes, labels and projects that might not get as much attention as they deserve, shining a light on exciting sounds from around the world.” 

Learn more and read the first issue, about Buh Records, here.

🔸Mundofonías: the favourites of July have been Raúl Cantizano & Sebastián Cruz’s Inmediato (Lovemonk), Remon Nakanishi’s Yoakegarasu no wataru made / Till the ravens rise at dawn (Doyasa!) and Nubras Ensemble’s Nubras (Liburia)

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MEET ME AT

• 4-5 September, Tavira (Portugal). Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş at the Feira da Dieta Mediterrânica. World premiere of the collaboration between Ali’s trio with Mario Pousada.
• 25-26 September, Budapest. Hungarian Heritage House Days
• 8-10 October, Bayonne (France). Workshops and concerts of Vigüela with Sara Cano at Haizebegi Festival.