Summary 👇
Editorial
🔸Recent memories with Vigüela at the Sur Jahan Festival, West Bengal
🔸Farewell to Erasmo Treglia
Music Equality’s Geographical Underrepresentation research and related reflections
IndieBalkans
European Folk Network in Babel Music XP
Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
Open calls and professional events: WOMEX, Premio Andrea Parodi, Mercat de Música Viva de Vic, Babel Music XP: accreditation and stand bookings
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🔸Recent memories with Vigüela at the Sur Jahan Festival, West Bengal
A month ago I set off on a trip with Vigüela to Kolkata. The reason was their participation in the Sur Jahan festival, organized by the social enterprise Banglanatak. This is how they define themselves on their website: “We are a social enterprise working across India with a mission to foster inclusive and sustainable development using culture-based approaches. We work for protection of rights of women, children and indigenous people.”
I have known their work for quite a few years. I was already at this festival in Kolkata in 2014, and also in Gorbangha, where there is a meeting space for the baul, and in several other locations, where we were able to learn about Banglanatak’s work with diverse communities, mainly from quite rural areas, in the professionalization of their traditional arts and crafts. In the previous edition I already mentioned the patachitra singing-storytelling tradition.
On this new visit I was blown away again. In this case, the festival took the groups from five countries (Spain, Denmark, Latvia, a group of Hungarian culture in Transylvania (Romania), and India) to the great metropolis of Kolkata, to the very rural area of Bannabagram (in a “baul ashram”, a meeting point for the baul, where they gather regularly and which has space to host other visitors in some beautiful little houses) and to the cutting-edge Kharagpur Institute of Technology. Three places that provided us with radically different experiences.
🔸An aside: This short video will give you an impression of what the baul ashram in Bannabagram is like.
🔸 And one more aside: If you are not familiar with the concept of baul, this is a definition by UNESCO: “The Baul are a group of mystic minstrels of Bengal, constituting both a syncretic religious sect and a musical tradition. Their practice blends elements of Sufism and Vaishnava Sahajiya, and despite being a small portion of the population, they have had a considerable cultural influence in the region.” Their art was inscribed in 2008 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2005).
I am sharing here the text that Juan Antonio Torres and I wrote together to explain what is happening at this moment and how it was possible for this collaboration to be generated almost immediately after listening to one another:
“After briefly listening to Vigüela developing several stanzas in peretas genre, at this point in the video Girish Baul listens to the peretas prelude and comes in, placing his stanzas from the baul tradition in exactly the right place. How is this possible? We explain it. Peretas and, more generally, many traditional styles have a harmonic code that unfolds over metronomic rhythms, that is, rhythms characterized by a constant regularity of pulse, comparable to the tick-tock of a metronome. This also happens in baul music and in many other musical traditions around the world, as a globally shared principle.
On this metronomic basis, and listening to the harmonics of the guitar as it develops the peretas genre, Girish starts singing his melodies, moving them within the pulse, just as he does in his own baul music.
Later in the day, a musician with a cajón was introduced, marking the rhythm from a different concept. This musician tried to identify the “rhythms” of baul music and to “guide” the baul musicians to follow that pattern. This caused the baul musicians to have to alter their performance, modifying the places in the melody where they placed the accent in order to try to constrain themselves to what the cajón was doing.
Girish Baul placed accents in his music in positions that seemed illogical to the cajón player from their perspective of meter understood as a pulse divided into closed bars. They seemed illogical because they did not fit into those bars, but the accents Girish used are, for him, completely logical. By trying to force the melody into a meter of closed bars, baul music stopped working in the same way, because a rhythm that is not its own was imposed on it, thus forcing the baul musicians to do something that is not the music according to their tradition.”
The situation reminded us of the collaboration with Maria Siwiec, a folk artist from Poland, from the Radom region (we had the opportunity of doing this collaboration also thanks to Janusz Prusinowski and his team). She knew almost nothing about Spain and of course did not speak Spanish. But she knew exactly where to strike the tambourine in Vigüela’s music, something that is not so predictable for musicians who approach music from an academic or modern perspective.
This is Maria Siwiec singing in Granada with Janusz Prusinowski and his colleagues, the beautiful song “W ciemnym lesie ptaszek siada.” The concert was in collaboration with Vigüela, but at that moment Juan Antonio Torres and I opted to dance — you will see us doing so — like many others. This video brings back vivid memories. |
I have a dream. For now it is just that, a dream. To further develop this collaboration between Girish Baul and Vigüela. We also fell in love with the flautist, Mohan Patra.
What happened in Bannabagram was not accidental. It was the result of shared traditional grammars. When those grammars align, collaboration is immediate. When they do not, friction appears.
Throughout almost two weeks in West Bengal we were also able to dance in honor of the goddess Saraswati, whose day caught us in Kolkata. In Kharagpur we attended the talk by Professor Denis Laborde, about the festival Haizebegi, which has a special relationship with Banglanatak and with the tradition of the bauls. We also had precious moments in the workshops in Kolkata and at IIT Kharagpur. I saw in the students and also in the professors a strong desire to learn and share and a curiosity in their eyes that I think moved us all very deeply.
I do not want to fail to mention that both at the Sur Jahan festival in Kolkata and in Bannabagram, the organization facilitated the presence of and spaces for the sale of handicraft products, mainly with the presence of women artisans. And we brought our suitcases back almost bursting with clothes and other textile and basketry products.
Vigüela’s participation was made possible thanks to the Embassy of Spain in India.
🔸Farewell to Erasmo Treglia
On 24 February we were in Kolkata. The first evening of the Sur Jahan festival took place. I returned with Vigüela to the street of our guest house. Just in front of it there was a craft brewery. After two rounds of beers, we went back to the rooms of the guest house. I opened Facebook. I saw the news posted by Gigi di Luca that Erasmo Treglia had passed away, at the age of 65.
The last time I saw Erasmo was in Marseille in 2025, during Babel Music XP. He had to leave the event because of the illness that has ultimately taken his life. It is possible that you knew him, as Erasmo, in addition to his work as a musician, was a cultural manager, director of Finisterre, co-founder of the Festival della Zampogna in Maranola and many other things. In the February newsletter of the European Folk Network (here) you can find the obituary previously published in Rai News translated into English.
I know that his loss has been deeply felt by many people, myself among them. The effect of the craft beers disappeared and I spent quite some time crying and listening over and over again to Tammurriata del Camafro, a piece by his group Acquaragia Drom, which I associate with very beautiful memories. You can listen to it, here.
I know that his wife Clara Graziano and their son Giordano have received countless messages of affection and condolences. Erasmo’s impact and the beauty he created will last for a very, very long time.
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
MUSIC EQUALITY’S GEOGRAPHICAL UNDERREPRESENTATION RESEARCH AND RELATED REFLECTIONS
A few days ago I received an email from Music Equality with this subject line: “Independent policy confirms geographical exclusion in European music“. It was very direct, and it immediately resonated with an idea I have been thinking about and discussing for quite some time with my artists and with colleagues.
I work with Xabi Aburruzaga, a Basque musician. They have spectacular support from Etxepare for touring out of Basque Country. In addition, Xabi can benefit from all the funding schemes available to Spanish artists. I work with Vigüela. They do not receive support from their region. They do have access to whatever Spanish artists in general can apply for. I work with Ali Doğan Gönültaş. In his case… he has my support, and the strength of his art and his trajectory. He does not have institutional backing.
Therefore, I see very directly the effect of these differential resources in terms of what I can do, or in terms of how much more I have to compensate personally in some situations. I know that many colleagues experience what I am describing, but there are also quite a few who work exclusively with artists established in their own region and are not exposed to this inequality.
Further down in the email I read “How Market Structure Is Silencing Parts of Europe’s Music Ecosystem“. Once again, this feels both evident and deeply troubling. You have the email here.
Music Equality is connected with So Alive Music Conference, an event in Sofia, Bulgaria. And the email is about the results of the Music Equality’s Geographical Underrepresentation research. Learn more about them, here. Their focus is the presence of the artists from South Eastern Europe.
They also mention in the email that according to IMPALA, the European organisation for independent music companies and national associations, in their new policy paper “Powering an Independent and Culturally Diverse European Music Ecosystem” that “Geographical underrepresentation in European music is structural, not artistic.” This work is available here.
The documents are available at the links, so there you have them. The issue can undoubtedly be expanded to the international sphere. I do not have a formal study carried out, but I do have some reflections that I would like to share because they trouble me and sadden me. That is why the Music Equality email resonated with me so strongly.
We all know that there are countries that are over-represented at international events. We all know that there are international festivals that only consider bringing artists if those artists can secure support from their home country to cover flights, but that they do not actively work with embassies or other on-site institutions themselves to take the initiative in accessing those resources. It is perfectly understandable that these festivals want to save those costs.
I cannot demand that this situation change, because I do not want, for example, Etxepare’s support to be removed, nor do I know what I can do so that Vigüela can obtain other forms of public funding. But I would at least like this question to be raised, and for festivals with institutional resources, public funding and relevant infrastructures at their disposal to be aware of whether they are increasing inequality in access to the market for artists from certain geographical regions where there is no support, and at the same time preventing audiences from accessing that talent, which also contributes to the much-invoked diversity.
This raises a structural question: how can the principles of free competition and equal access to the internal market be reconciled with asymmetrical public support mechanisms across different European regions and states? It is difficult to understand how these two dynamics can operate simultaneously without producing measurable distortions in market access and visibility.
Institutional support for the arts is an aspect of countries’ and regions’ cultural policy, associated with the maintenance and/or construction of a national brand and cultural diplomacy. Music Equality includes, for example, Romania within its framework. It is the paradigmatic example I always mention when we discuss this topic. A country from which artists such as Taraf de Haidouks or Fanfare Ciocărlia emerged, genuine stars in the world music field for several decades — where is it now?
Another paradigmatic example is Albania. It does not even appear in the WOMEX search engine when you perform an advanced search using country as a criterion. Gaurav Narula once explained to me that someone from Albania had attended, but must have registered under the country in which they were based. So, since no one has registered in WOMEX as being from Albania, the country does not even appear in the list of companies for search purposes.
A country with a musical tradition declared in 2005 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity — folk iso-polyphony — does not appear with any presence in the WOMEX search engine.
This search engine does have one positive aspect: it contains historical data since WOMEX began compiling this information in its virtual database. Most of the companies listed no longer exist, but it still gives us a global idea of how represented some countries have been. I will use this database, which is accessible to me and which I consider particularly meaningful in this context.
Initially I included countries such as Egypt, Bolivia and Madagascar. They are very poorly represented. I do not think that is a surprise. Even much of the music that reaches Mundofonías and TWMC from artists from Madagascar — and it is not insignificant — comes from artists who live in Europe or partly in Europe, especially France. Egypt and Bolivia are very scarcely present in the world music sphere, despite being countries with wonderful musical traditions.
But let us focus on Europe, since WOMEX takes place in Europe. In this graph, the X-axis shows the countries ordered by number of inhabitants, and the Y-axis shows the number of registered companies listed in Virtual WOMEX.
In this graph, countries above the red line have more registered companies in WOMEX than would be expected if representation were strictly proportional to population size. In that sense, they are relatively overrepresented. And countries below the red line have fewer companies than would correspond to their population size. They can therefore be considered relatively underrepresented.
The red line is a benchmark that illustrates what proportional representation would look like. It is useful because it provides a visually intuitive way to discuss structural imbalance. It does not describe the empirical trend of the data, but rather a hypothetical proportional scenario against which actual representation can be compared.
Most overrepresented countries, ordered from largest to smallest percentage deviation:
Finland → +369% (+233 companies)
Denmark → +265% (+179 companies)
Portugal → +249% (+289 companies)
Sweden → +180% (+217 companies)
Norway → +168% (+102 companies)
Belgium → +149% (+202 companies)
Netherlands → +126% (+256 companies)
Spain → +117% (+633 companies) – Be aware that WOMEX has been held in Spain on multiple occasions, so it is normal that Spain appears relatively overrepresented. Anyway, check the note in the next model of calculations.
UK → +106% (+838 companies)
France → +30% (+233 companies)
Ranking by percentage deviation (intensity of underrepresentation), ordered from largest to smallest percentage deviation:
Albania → −100% (−34 companies)
Ukraine → −93% (−460 companies)
Romania → −88% (−188 companies)
Slovakia → −66% (−41 companies)
Poland → −53% (−232 companies)
Serbia → −52% (−41 companies)
Bulgaria → −47% (−35 companies)
Czech Republic → −43% (−51 companies)
North Macedonia → −43% (−9 companies)
Croatia → −32% (−15 companies)
Italy → −31% (−207 companies)
Lithuania → −28% (−9 companies)
The data reveal a clear structural imbalance in representation within the European music ecosystem. When comparing the number of companies registered in Virtual WOMEX with national population size, Western and Nordic European countries appear systematically overrepresented, while Eastern and South-Eastern European countries are consistently underrepresented. In some cases, countries show two to four times more presence than proportionality would suggest, while others fall dramatically below what their population size would indicate.
Let’s check another graph. Compared to the previous chart (absolute number of WOMEX-registered companies vs population), this version normalises the data by population size. I left the very little countries because this graph is clearer and the data are relative to the inhabitants. Luxembourg functions as a high-density outlier.
Click to download it bigger:
Instead of showing volume, it shows density: how many WOMEX-registered companies a country has per million inhabitants. This removes the scale advantage of larger countries and makes it easier to identify structural intensity (or weakness) in representation. In the absolute chart, large countries tend to dominate simply because they are large; in the per-million chart, small and mid-sized countries can emerge as highly represented ecosystems, while some larger countries may appear underrepresented once population size is taken into account.
Click to download it bigger:
Removing microstates such as Luxembourg and Estonia reduces the statistical dispersion of the dataset and produces a more stable regression model. These countries have extremely high per-capita densities, which stretch the vertical scale and exert influence on the regression slope. Once removed, the cloud of points becomes more compact and the negative relationship between population size and density becomes slightly less pronounced. Importantly, however, the structural pattern does not disappear. Western and Nordic European countries still cluster above the trend line, while Eastern and South-Eastern European countries remain consistently below it. What changes is the intensity of the extremes, not the overall imbalance. The argument therefore becomes less dependent on exceptional cases and more grounded in a broader systemic pattern.
| Overrepresented countries, ordered from most to least overrepresented, according to deviation from the regression line:
Luxembourg |
Underrepresented countries, ordered from most to least underrepresented:
Albania |
What is going on here? What are the reasons? That requires a deeper analysis that goes beyond my capacity for now. But I believe there are several possible explanations.
One obvious factor is institutional presence. In some countries, public institutions actively support international visibility. In Spain, for example, there are several structures — Sounds from Spain and other regional initiatives — which are usually present with their own stands. In my case, I have to pay for the table at the stand, but there is a stand and they deal with the production and the design (and also support economically the artists selected for a showcase). At the same time, our domestic market is not particularly welcoming to world music proposals, despite the fact that we have very strong artistic projects with considerable international potential. Spain’s national brand is internationally powerful.
However, Portugal appears even more overrepresented than Spain, and they do not have the same kind of institutional export structures. Why Portugal is a private-sector initiative. But they have fado, a very strond brand. In the case of Italy, its presence in recent years has been huge, but this is a relatively recent development and does not compensate for the historical data. Italy, however, has a strong national brand. In pop music, it has exported extensively — at least from my perspective in Spain, through artists such as Eros Ramazzotti, Laura Pausini or Franco Batiatto — but in world music there is not such a globally dominant equivalent to flamenco or fado (with all due respect to tarantella or pizzica, which I greatly admire).
And Greece? It appears among the underrepresented countries, despite having rebetiko, recognised by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Is it not exportable? It may be that the domestic market provides significant work for folk artists. I know several cases of excellent musicians who prefer to play at weddings on weekends rather than travel internationally and earn less money. Ireland appears among the underrepresented countries as well (though the least underrepresented), and perhaps for similar reasons. If there is a strong internal market, the need to export may be lower.
Another clear aspect aligns with Music Equality’s initiative: all countries in South-Eastern Europe appear on the underrepresented list. I imagine the reasons may be largely economic, because their musical traditions are fascinating, and I am sure there is both the desire and the need to export.
For now, I will leave it here. I wanted to offer a few preliminary reflections on possible reasons — more impressions than data. I hope you have found this interesting, and I would very much welcome your thoughts.
INDIEBALKANS
I learnt about this from Ruth Koleva, who is involved in So Alive Music Conference and in Music Equality. According to the website, “Bridging Balkan Borders is an online platform that brings together the best venues, studios, media outlets, and labels to connect the indie music scene in the Balkans. Our mission is to bridge gaps and build opportunities for artists and music professionals alike.”
The website provides a database of labels, media, studios and venues and news about open calls for artists & music professionals (check it because they mention some of them that I have not included below because they are generalistic or focused in different styles of music than the ones I work with). They organice Songwriting Camps for Balkan artists.
EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK IN BABEL MUSIC XP
This year EFN will be present at Babel Music XP with its own stand, which the network and several members have jointly reserved: Sierra Contratación Artística, alba Kultur and Mapamundi Música. Other members will also be present (Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, FolkOrg and Music4You). Several Board members (Nod Knowles, Steven Vanderaspoilden, Eric Van Monckhoven, Ann Helen Erichsen and I) will attend this edition as well, so if you are coming, it will be a pleasure to welcome you there.
In addition, continuing the discussion we began in last year’s panel, New Narratives of Traditional Music in the Face of Current Political Challenges in Europe, we will once again take part in developing this topic (ACT 2), with a representative of FAMDT.
BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 
🔸#1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in February of 2026 is: Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino’s Il Mito (Ponderosa)
🔸Mundofonías: the favourites of February have been Neba Solo & Benego Diakité’s A djinn and a hunter went walking (Nonesuch); Jocelyn Mienniel’s Les instruments migrateurs (Buda Musique) and Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino’s Il mito (Ponderosa)
🔸Balkan World Music Chart. On this occasion, I was not able to vote. It was impossible for me to devote the time that listening to the albums deserved in the period before travelling to Kolkata and during my stay there. Even so, I would like to highlight the results of the 2025 annual chart. You can find the full chart here.
My congratulations to Širom (#1), Divanhana (#2) and Raphael Rogiński & Ružičnjak Tajni (#3), as well as to all the artists included in the chart.
Do you have a call of interest for our community that you want to share? Let me know asap
OPEN CALLS & PROFESSIONAL EVENTS
This section is open for news. It is free of charge. You can let me know if you have any open call of relevance to the community.
The following calls are new in the newsletter:
🔸WOMEX
The call is open until midnight Friday, 27 February 2026 (CET). This edition will take place in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, where it was already done in 2018. This is the most known showcase and conference in the field of world music. Even so, for those who may not be aware, I should mention that submitting showcase proposals has a fee: it is currently €25 (until February 6 it was €15). The payment must be done via Paypal.
Selected artists have, in previous editions (as I cannot say with 100% certainty whether this will remain the case), their dinner on the night of the concert covered, as well as the transfer from the accommodation to the stage and the return transfer after the performance.
Accommodation, travel expenses and fees are not covered. However, technical production is provided, meaning the stage, technical equipment and the necessary staff are covered.
I have had artists selected four times (indeed, five times, but one was in 2020 and it could not take place). This year, I have submitted three proposals.
What do I think about charging a fee to submit proposals? I understand it as a way of somehow reducing the avalanche of applications. In the context of WOMEX, it is clear that any artist who can seriously consider attending and performing needs far more money than 25 euros.
I am currently serving as a juror for another showcase, which I cannot announce yet until the selection becomes public, and I have already received fewer than 100 pre-selected proposals to review. Some of them are quite amateur and have little or no real chance, yet several hundred applications were submitted to the open call. It has meant quite a few evenings on my part, listening, watching, reading and applying different criteria. It cannot be done in a superficial way.
In my experience, I have worked with artistic projects whose trajectory might have been very different if, at a specific moment, they had received the support of a relevant showcase. In some cases, not having that support was decisive in the project gradually fading away.
If those 25 euros help reduce noise — meaning proposals that are submitted just on the off chance that something might come of it — then I think it makes sense and is reasonable in the context of WOMEX. In other words, those 25 euros are negligible if you have a project with real potential to attend and perform.
🔸19th Premio Andrea Parodi (Cagliari, Sardinia)
It will take place from 15 to 17 October 2026 at the Teatro Massimo in Cagliari. Note that “The award is dedicated to Andrea Parodi, a highly regarded Sardinian musician in the world music scene who passed away on 17 October 2006. He is honoured every year at the event through performances of songs from his repertoire by the finalists and guests.” In this competition, the focus is on specific songs: the artist’s own compositions and their interpretation of an Andrea Parodi song, which is mandatory.
The new call for entries is available at www.premioandreaparodi.it/premio, with registration free of charge until 9 May 2026.
What do the winners get?
- “The overall winner will receive a €2,500 scholarship, as well as the opportunity to perform at some of Parodi’s partner festivals in 2027, including the European Jazz Expo (Sardinia), Folkest (Friuli) and the Festival del Torto (Sicily), as well as at the Premio Andrea Parodi itself.
- The winner of the Critics’ Award will have the chance to produce a professional music video for a song with the support of the Andrea Parodi Foundation.
- Some of the Award’s finalists will also be invited to perform at partner festivals such as Mare e Miniere in Sardinia and the Bianca d’Aponte Award in Campania.”
I’m not sure whether the organisation covers accommodation. I believe travel expenses are not covered. I’ve only been there once, quite a few years ago, and I think meals were provided to the artists, but I don’t know how they are handling it now. You can send your questions to fondazione.andreaparodi@gmail.com.
The following calls were already in the newsletter of December:
🔸Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Call for artists
The call is open until 31th of March, for the event to take place in Vic, Catalonia, from 16th of 20th of September. Registration, here.
“The programming is structured around two lines: MMVV Pro Catalan Arts! program, designed for professionals with the aim of promoting the hiring of premieres and new proposals, and MMVV Festival program, aimed at the general public with a more playful and festive spirit. […] Proposals can be submitted for all musical styles and genres, with the exception of classical music. ”
Check the selection criteria, on the website.
No restriction about countries of origin of the artists.
🔸Babel Music XP: accreditation and stand bookings for Babel Music XP 2026 are open
This is another of the events that I have attended since they revived from Babel Med. It will be in Marseille from 19th to 21st of March.
MEET ME AT
- 27th February. Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Andalucia (Spain). Las Tardes del Foro. 21h. Foro Iberoamericano de La Rábida.
- 19th-21st March: Babel Music XP.
- 9th-11th April: Budapest Ritmo.
- 18th-26th April: Tour with Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Paris, Den Haag and several cultural centers in Belgium.