Magazine #32 February’21 – Port Fairy Folk Festival (AU), sector researchs, calls and +. By Mapamundi Música

Summary ?

· Studies and news from the sector in Europe
· Conversation with Alexis Herrería from Ah! World Music!
· Mini-interview with Justin Rudge from Port Fairy Folk Festival
· Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
· Open calls and professional events

Hello, how are you? I hope well, healthy and strong. I am having an extremely busy few weeks and the truth is that I am exhausted and right now it is taking place Folk Unlocked, the virtual edition of the meeting by the Folk Alliance.

But this monthly date with the community is sacred and there is a good bunch of things to share. It’s also time to travel to Australia ?! Of course, in our imagination.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics?

Contact me if you want to share some relevant information. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that you can check our website to learn about our offers and the artists we work with.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

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RESEARCHS AND NEWS FROM THE SECTOR IN EUROPE

These works are based on Europe but I hope they can be useful also for readers from other continents.

With the collaboration of Newcastle University, the European Folk Network has published the Stage One of the ongoing mapping research. Find the complete report here. The European Folk Network is open to new members and exciting news are coming. After the meeting in Brussels in November 2019, there was planned a new one in 2020, that was postponed, of course… Check the conditions in the website. There you can also learn who is already a member.
Music Moves Europe – A European Music Export Strategy. After the latest edition of the newsletter, Birgit Ellinghaus (thank you!) advised me about several studies that worth to be shared: the mapping from EFN, this one of Music Moves Europe and the next one. The study of Music Moves Europe “defines the background, the scope, and proposes a set of measures for a European music export strategy“. Download it from here.
Rebuilding Europe: The cultural and creative economy before and after the COVID-19 crisis. The full study and the executive summary are available on the website.

FANCY TO PRACTICE YOUR SPANISH? LISTEN TO ALEXIS HERRERÍA INTERVIEWING ME

A few days ago it was published the wonderful interview that the Mexican disseminator of world music Alexis Herrería, also known as Viento Solar, made to me for Ah! World music! It was wonderful because he is a great listener, great at doing questions and the musics we listened to together (Hudaki Village Band, Monsieur Doumani, Vigüela and Janusz Prusinowski Kompania) are just outstanding.

Click the picture to listen to the interview:

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

Since 1977, over 2000 acts and around 8000 artists have appeared at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. If you are confined and bored, you can check the list of the artists they have had, in this page of their website, and tick the ones you know ?

The Port Fairy Folk Festival is a big event that takes place in the seaside of the small town of 3000 residents of Port Fairy. It lasts four days and it includes concerts, storytelling, circus activities, art and craft, dance and music workshops, and comedy.

The edition of 2021 has been postponed to 2022 but they continue doing more little events. The next week they are having some concerts, at the same long weekend when it takes place the festival.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN RUDGE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF THE FROM PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL (PORT FAIRY, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)

Justin Rudge is the program director. His contact is available on the website. That is something that I love, you know, when you find so easily who is the person in charge of the artistic decisions of a festival or organization. I already mentioned it in the interview of the last edition, with Girisha Fernando.

Justin is currently settled in Madrid, 12 kms far from where I am writting this. We are waiting for the end of this nightmare to meet in person for lunch. He looks friendly, doesn’t he? In this meantime, it is a pleasure to share his insights while we can finally meet face to face.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search for in an artist when you program?

Justin Rudge: There’s some key words I use to decide on programming each artist – unique, engaging, artistic, cultural and challenging are the best 5!

To put it all in one sentence – I program unique artists that engage with our audience, both existing and new, to provide culturally relevant and wholly artistic experiences, hopefully challenging our audience to new and exciting experiences in turn.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
JR: As well as folk, our festival works to program world, roots & acoustic music – so from a genre point of view, it’s actually pretty broad. We have a 4 day program, across over 20 stages, so we aim to have something for everyone, all the time!

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
JR: A few things!The first is probably the sheer scale of the event – over 100 artists, over 20 stage, and a lot of patrons from a variety of backgrounds and demographics. Putting that all together to ensure everything works, and everyone is happy – requires a lot of work from a small dedicated team all year round, as well as a massive amount of volunteers around the actual festival period in March.

The festival is located in regional Victoria. While being located on a beautiful bay, we have the constant concern and worry of operating in bushfire season, which provides a constant challenge in terms of managing travel and safety of our festival artists and patrons.

Music festivals in Australia are a booming industry (or were prior to the current pandemic), so we need to constantly improve, update and adapt to the changing marketplace and audience expectations.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
JR: Obviously, the pandemic has had a massive impact on our ability to engage with our audience who would normally gather in large numbers each March.

While we are not able to do this in 2021, we have and are continuing to create a number of small events across various virtual and in person platforms to ensure we can continue to provide our audience with the cultural and musical experiences we love to share – until we return to full scale events in 2022.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
JR: To experience the highest quality musical and cultural experiences, in and around the folk genre, from around Australia and the world, in a wonderfully picturesque setting.

MM – What has happened with your festival in the current situation of the pandemic? I see you have to postpone the 2021 edition, which would be in March, to 2022. How are you guys handling it, in terms of the team and the artists you may have already confirmed for the 2021 edition?
JR: It changes daily! While the pandemic has been well contained within Australia compared to many other places around the world, the challenges of operating any physical events safely continue.

We continue to work with promoters, agents and managers in Australia and around the world to advance our program for the 2022 event. In most cases, conversations and arrangements that had been in place for the 2021 edition will continue for the 2022 festival.

I’ve been so proud of the people I work with – in Port Fairy with our wonderful staff and amazing volunteer committee – and within the wider music industry. It’s such a challenging period, and to work daily with amazing people that are considerate, kind, flexible and understanding of each others challenges has been a very positive thing to result from the situation.

MM – In 2022 you will celebrate the 45th anniversary. Has there ever been before a year in the history of the festival when this could not be done?
JR: No! While the time of year the festival is held was changed many years ago to the current period of March, we have never not put on a festival in 45 years. It’s very sad to be missing our event in 2021, but it has provided us with time and space like we have never had to re-evaluate, adapt and prepare to present what I’m sure will be our best event ever in 2022.

Credits:

The logo is from the website
The portrait has been provided by Justin
The landscape is from the festival’s Facebook page

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums: Divine reeds, by Tassos Chalkias, the compilation Ṛṛways: Voyage dans l’univers des poètes chanteurs itinérants amazighes and Samā’ī by Azmari.
I have collaborated in Juan Antonio Vázquez’s show A La Fuente, that he makes in the national radio of Spain, with a selection of rebetiko (mainly from the 1930s) and another of Polish recordings, that will be broadcasted in the next weeks. His radio show is available here.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

The virtual conference Folk Unlocked, by the Folk Alliance International, is taking place right now! I have already attended two of the meetings.
It is still open the application period for residential projects (minimum of 7 days) i-Portunus. The deadline for music projects is 28th of February.
Mundofonías is media partner of the Afro Pepites Show. After the selection made by the Committee (of which Juan Antonio has been a member), it is the turn for the public vote. Anyone can vote. The votes will determine which are the 3 projects that will integrate the network in 2021 to promote themselves internationally. Learn about the finalists and vote, here.
Global Toronto: GT21 Call for Speakers and Themes. I will share the paragraph from their newsletter: “At Global Toronto, we know that the best way to create a compelling, relevant, and engaging event is to ask the most compelling, relevant, and engaging people we know: The wider GT community! Please take a couple of minutes and share your thoughts to help contribute to an impactful and exciting GT21.” The form to gather proposals is this one.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 50 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

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This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Magazine #31 January’21 – Let’s keep the dream alive in this meantime. Festival Der Kulturen, Womex, research PRIMA-CoV and much +

Summary ?

Summary and results of PRIMA-CoV medical research
Mini-interview with Girisha Fernando from Festival der Kulturen
With Alex Walter from WOMEX (by Eric van Monckhoven)
Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
Open calls and professional events, because in spite of everything, life goes on

How are you? I hope you managed to have a great time at Christmas and a good end and beginning of year. For me, these have been a bit sad but at least I got to share some time with my family, in the street and with masks but it is so great that we are all healthy and together. My and their best wishes for your 2021!

Luckily, the storm of super heavy snow arrived later! You are probably aware of how is the center of Spain for the last week ❄️☃️. If you are not, you can check this gallery on my FB. The regional government of Madrid region wants the national government to declare the region a disaster area. You can imagine that the vaccination has slowed down for a while…

Nevertheless, life goes on and there are many plans for the future! Discover below the results of a medical research related to the dissemination of the infection in indoor concerts, don’t miss it! You’ll also find some nice interviews. Did you know that there is a festival in Germany that dates back to 1650? ? If you didn’t, now you do!

Thank you to all the participants who shared their precious time to produce this magazine, thank you too for reading and stay safe!

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics?

Contact me if you want to share some relevant information. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that you can check our website to learn about our offers and the artists we work with.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

CLINICAL RESEARCH PRIMA_CoV, ABOUT ATTENDANCE TO INDOORS CONCERTS, RESULTS PUBLISHED

On December 30, the website of the PrimaveraSound festival and the website page of the Fundación Lucha contra el Sida y las Enfermedades Infecciosas (Foundation for the Fight against AIDS and Infectious Diseases) published an article on the results of the clinical testing PRIMA-CoV. It is very enlightening and deserves to be disseminated. I include here a brief summary and in their website you have more details (link to the English version and this is the Spanish one).

The research was made by Primavera Sound, la Fundación Lucha contra el SIDA y las Enfermedades Infecciosas y el Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol de Badalona.

What have they done?
On December 12th, at the venue Sala Apolo in Barcelona, it was done a concert without safety distance and with a pre-screening with antigen test and PCR test. The attendants used masks (N95), provided at the entrance. They were included only people without illnesses, who were not living with elderly people at home, and that had not been diagnosed with COVID in the last 14 days. Ventilation and air flows were optimised and the quality of the air, monitorised.

The concerts lasted 5 hours and the average time of attendance was 2h 40 min. The routes within the building were pre-established and controlled and queues at the entrance, exit and toilets were prevented.
1047 participants were tested, with negative results in the antigen test. They were aleatorized and 500 ofthem entered the venue (only 500 were allowed by the sanitary authorities).

What has been the result?
8 days later, both the ones that attended the concert and the control group (the aleatoriced ones that didn’t enter) were tested again. None of the attendants to the concert were infected. Two of the persons in the control group (didn’t enter the venue) were infected and they were treated according to the usual protocol.

What has been the main outcome?
The conclusion of this research is that the attendance to a live music concert performed under a series of safety measures, including a negative antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 on the same day, was not associated with an increase in COVID-19 infections.

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CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

On this occasion, we travel to Augsburg, in Bavaria, around 70 kms to the North-West from Munich, to learn about the Festival der Kulturen. It is organized by the municipality and is part of the Augsburger Hohes Friedensfest, the Grand Peace Festival, whose origin dates back to 1650! This Festival is a bigger celebration that commemorates the Peace of Westphalia. Learn more in the UNESCO website. As stated there, the festival promotes mutual respect for cultural and religious diversity and offers a possibility for getting to know each other.

Something that I like a lot about the website of the municipality about the festival, that is this one, is that it is very easy to find out who is the artistic director and they even provide his email. Bravo ?. I really thank this. Epecially when the programs are paid with public money, it should be mandatory to make this information public and to give a clear way to contact the decision maker.

This reminds me one time that I phoned a city council from Spain to ask about the artistic director of a festival and the person there told me “I can’t tell you because of privacy reasons”. I told her “that is not private, it is a public position doing a public service paid by public money, that information must be public.” Anyway, she didn’t tell me. ?‍♀️

MINI INTERVIEW WITH GIRISHA FERNANDO, FROM FESTIVAL DER KULTUREN, AUGSBURG (GERMANY)

Girisha Fernando is a music producer, songwriter and bass player, settled in Germany. You can learn about his artistic work on his website. He has a recording studio in the old town of Augsburg (Offshore Studio7). And he is a curator of music, as described on his website, “within the genres of world music, spiritual music, jazz and contemporary pop; artistically ambitious yet always with an eye to an audience”. Girisha works for several events and the one in which we focus here is the Festival der Kulturen, of which he has been curator since 2011 and artistic director since 2018.

Girisha introduced the festival to us like this:

“The Festival der Kulturen is an annual 2-3 day festival for international contemporary music / world music in the historic city of Augsburg, Germany. It is an independent part of the Programme of the Grand Peace Festival and is staged by the Cultural Office of the City of Augsburg.

Aimed at reaching out and challenging a diverse audience from all walks of society with unfamiliar music and sounds, the programming is focused on winning over the listener through sheer musical force.

Artists to have performed include Seun Kuti & Egypt80, Taraf de Haidouks, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Konono No1, the Portico Quartet, Yasmine Hamdan, Tamikrest, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, Vieux Farka Toure, Dakhabrakha, Kocani Orkestar, Emel Mathlouthi, Bombino, Ibibio Sound Machine, Ebo Taylor and the Warsaw Village Band besides the participation of local musicians and associations.”

Right now, Germany is under the heavy burden of the pandemic, with restrictive measures again. I hope that next Summer Girisha and the public will be able to see the artists of the Festival der Kulturen on the stage in Augsburg. In the meantime, let’s learn more directly from him.
—

Mapamundi Música (MM) – I have learnt from you that the festival started in 2008 and you became the artistic director in 2011. How did you get hired for this?
Girisha Fernando: I had some ideas, submitted a concept and then got hired as music curator for my first few years. As the festival evolved towards its current profile, my role evolved to that of artistic director.

MM – How did your incorporation in the artistic direction change the festival?
GF: The festival’s profile was sharpened and now focuses more and more on presenting international contemporary world music, reflecting musical developments and the cutting edges between traditional and modern styles.

MM – What do you search for in an artist when you program?
GF: Musical quality, authenticity, originality

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
GF: Introducing new and uncommon music off the beaten track and providing a space for the local and international music community to a growing, interested and diverse audience.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
GF: The usual things, the routing of the bands, scheduling, finances, etc.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
GF: To stay relevant artistically, developing new challenges, new projects, thereby taking one’s audience along for the ride.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
GF: Apart from presenting great music and being able to meet great people, we have also been focusing on developing unique musical projects with international artists and local artists working together, projects for example incorporating the Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra with artists like Karolina Cicha or Mercedes Peon.

MM – What has happened with the edition of 2020 in the current situation of the pandemic?
GF: Last year we had to first cancel the regular festival, but were then able to stage some smaller concerts in summer. We also produced some cross-border video projects. For 2021 we will have to see and hope for the best!

Credits:

The portrait has been provided by Girisha
The logo is from the Facebook page of the Festival
The picture of the concert is provided by Girisha, made by Chris Menkel and the band performing is Red Baraat
The painting is by Nontira Kigle from the website of Friedensstadt Augsburg

Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us.

INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDER WALTER, WOMEX’S DIRECTOR

-English edition of the interview originally posted in World Music Lab Italy, by Eric E. van Monckhoven-

Eric offered me to reissue this interview in English and Alexander accepted, so thank you to both of you, guys!

Here on the right you see Alex and the questions below were done by Eric (picture below) for his blog at World Music Lab Italy. Remember I made him an interview about this project that you can find here. Now it is Alex’s turn. And I join him in the wish to meet again in Porto next October!

—-
Credits: WOMEX 20, Digital Edition feat. Budapest Ritmo
17/11/2020, Alexander Walter, WOMEX Director
Interview for World Music Lab, Italy, Eric van Monckhoven

Eric van Monckhoven: What were the biggest challenges in going digital, and how did that decision come into place?
Alexander Walter: The initial plan, of course, was to have a physical event on-site in Budapest. Due to the developments of the pandemic, in summer, we started planning for a hybrid event – involving physical with a digital programme. This hybrid event would allow us to involve our community from parts in the world where it became clear that they would not be able to travel to Europe in October – until the Hungarian government closed the borders for non-Hungarian citizens on 1st September. At that point, the decision was clear; we had to go fully digital. The biggest challenge was to transform the different programme elements into the digital sphere. WOMEX is a “meet and hug” event, and it took countless hours of brainstorming on how to shape things so that they make sense for everyone involved under digital circumstances. Luckily with our long-existing digital platform virtualWOMEX, we already had a structure in place, and with the help of a few extensions and upgrades, it gave the basis.

EVM: How did you make it to coordinate staff and events (Berlin, Budapest?)
AW: The initial plan, of course, was to have a physical event on-site in Budapest. Due to the developments of the pandemic, in summer, we started planning for a hybrid event – involving physical with a digital programme. This hybrid event would allow us to involve our community from parts in the world where it became clear that they would not be able to travel to Europe in October – until the Hungarian government closed the borders for non-Hungarian citizens on 1st September. At that point, the decision was clear; we had to go fully digital. The biggest challenge was to transform the different programme elements into the digital sphere. WOMEX is a “meet and hug” event, and it took countless hours of brainstorming on how to shape things so that they make sense for everyone involved under digital circumstances. Luckily with our long-existing digital platform virtualWOMEX, we already had a structure in place, and with the help of a few extensions and upgrades, it gave the basis.

EVM: How did you make it to coordinate staff and events (Berlin, Budapest)?
AW: We have been planning and working with our local partners, Hangvető in Budapest, throughout the year, which helped us enormously to pull off the event so efficiently. Also, since they had hosted us in 2015, they knew what it takes to create WOMEX. Within a short period of time available, and with all social distancing measures, Hangvető organized some concerts and conferences on the ground in our nighttime venue Müpa. Parts of the programme indeed took place live in Budapest and then were streamed into the digital event.

EVM: How do you assess the results and what has been learned?
AW: The overall feedback from our music community was positive. It, of course, is not possible to 100% re-create a physical experience in the digital hemisphere, but it works as a bridge until in-person meetings can be done again. It was nice to see the delegates being active during those days, and the level of interaction was high.

In the meantime, there are plenty of digital tools out there that, with the help of a good IT team, can serve the implementation of intentions and ideas. It certainly is dependent on budget, server capacities and of course internet access, but in theory, almost everything is possible.

EVM: What worked best (films, showcases, conferences, ceremony, online chat possibility, etc.)?
AW: All elements were adopted and well attended. The online conference sessions drew great attention this time, and the virtual showcases were combined with artist interviews that gave a more in-depth insight into the artist’s creative processes and stories. Though of course, the intensity of a live concert is something completely different – streaming and live should not be compared. We also included a chat tool where people could directly get in touch with each other in written form or do video talks. Over the days, more than 20.000 written messages happened via this tool. This year, delegates really appreciated watching the extended film programme – something that during the rush of a physical event does not get the same attention.

EVM: What are the positive takeaways from the digital WOMEX edition?
AW: It is good to do something than cancelling the whole event. It showed that despite the struggle that everyone is facing in the music community right now, there is still a need for getting together and cultural exchange and that people reached out, stayed positive minded and interactive. We were thrilled to see that 1,130 delegates registered to take part.
One other advantage certainly was that we could invite conference speakers that typically would not have had the opportunity or means to travel to a physical event. We could be more inclusive this way. We sincerely hope that everyone will be able to manage these financially challenging times and stay in good health – physically and mentally – until we meet again next year in October in Porto, Portugal.

Credits:

The portrait of Alexander is from his profile in Womex website
The portrait of Eric is provided by himself

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

The 1st annual compilation done by Transglobal World Music Chart will be released by ARC Music very very soon! ? You can preorder it on the website.
About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums: Gusle, the Epic Tradition of Serbia (V.A.), Sisyphus by Sofia Labropoulou and Live in Berlin by Barmer Boys.
Songlines has released their list of the 50 best albums of the last 5 years. The list is here. Congratulations to everyone! I am personally happy for Daniel Rosenberg, whose project Yiddish Glory is included. How would I like to celebrate in person!

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. The call for artistic projects is open until Wednesday 27 January at 24h. It will take place from 14 to 17 of October 2021. More info and submissions, here.
The virtual conference Folk Unlocked, by the Folk Alliance International, will take place from 22nd to 26th of February. I’ve already registered. The complete program seems not to be published yet.
It is expected that Creative Europe will open the call for collaboration projects in Spring (postponed from the last Autumn and with the new budget, remarkably increased) but now it is open the application period for residential projects (minimun of 7 days) i-Portunus. The deadline for music projects is 28th of February.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Magazine #30 December’20 – The power of the human will. MOST Music, Fengaros Festival, Music Before Shabbat and +

Summary ?

In depth with MOST Music, bridge for Balkan music
Experience again Before Babel Music XP
Mini-interview with the team of Fengaros Festival (Cyprus)
Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
Open calls, because in spite of everything, life goes on

How are you? I have to confess that I am starting to get emotionally exhausted from this situation although I have great hope for the vaccination. I bring you a story that has lit up my heart today.

I illustrate these words with a photo from this past Sunday. It is in the street in front of the cathedral that señor Justo has been building for 60 years, without any knowledge of architecture and with recycled materials and the money from donations and sponsors. He is now 95 years old and his work is half finished. I don’t think I’ll see him finished in life and the future is uncertain. It is not a cathedral recognised by the Church and has no institutional support, but I would like to think that such a work will not end up collapsing in abandonment.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, this is an example of the power of human will that can serve us all. You can learn about his story and see more pictures of the building (also inside), which looks like it came from a dream, here and here you are a documentary with English subtitles with interviews with señor Justo.

I hope that this story brings you a moment of happiness and that you enjoy the rest of the content, which I find very interesting and also contains examples of dedication and passion, so needed in our reality.

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music?

Contact me. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that you can check our website to learn about our offers and the artists we work with.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

IN DEPTH WITH THE TEAM OF MOST MUSIC

Throughout several previous editions of this magazine I have been sharing some news and interviews with the festivals selected in the MOST Music project (find the links under this interview) and now I have the pleasure of sharing some of the team’s reflections, based on the questions that have come up when I read deeply the website. By the way, the MOST Music website is very detailed and, if you have not visited it, I highly recommend you to do so, both for knowing the project well and for understanding this interview.

Here I will only mention two aspects:

MOST Project has four main areas of activity, focused on artists (export), festivals (exchange, and it includes festivals in several regions of Europe), urban policies and management training for emerging professionals.
And the activity is focused on the Balkan countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo (I copy exactly from their website: This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244/1999 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence), Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia.

These interview below has been answered by members of the MOST Team: András Sőrés, project manager; Balázs Weyer, programme director.

– – – – –

Mapamundi Música (MM): The project MOST Music is quite complex, involves many participants from four main categories: artists, managers, festivals and institutions. Who had the first idea about this? What was the first objective that he/she wanted to get from this project?

MOST Project team (MPT): MOST Music as a project has been a long time in the making. Members of the consortium have been curating this idea for a long while. The idea started out from V4 and European Capital of Culture projects. Initially partners were applying for funds many times and modifying the project plan according to tender evaluations so that it could realize itself. The first objective is what we have been emphasizing on all platforms: a way for the Balkan world music industry’s untapped potential to be channeled into and better connected with the rest of Europe, where infrastructure is oftentimes better.

MM: Following the previous question, when did this idea appear in your mind? How was the procedure between this first idea and the design of the complete project? How many profiles have been involved in the design? And during the development, now that it is being done, which are the profiles involved (I mean the team, not the artists, managers, festivals and policy makers that are the participants in the 4 branches)?

MPT: We applied to Creative Europe four times before the funds were granted. The project plan was modified and expanded according to the detailed feedback that European tenders offer. The fourth version of the tender was accepted.

In terms of project design, you of course know that there are 9 partners in the consortium that’s led by Hangvető, headquartered in Budapest. Leading means that Hangvető takes on project management duties. Otherwise consortium members vote on work teams for each pillar, so that certain partners are responsible for certain pillars. These duties are also rotating, so that each partner will have managed each pillar by the end of the project. Managing a pillar means making executive decisions and deciding on experts involved (such as mentors and trainers).

MM: About the artists part. Every year, 10 artists will be enrolled in this program to receive support and greater visibility. How was the procedure of selection? Is there any jury? If so, who selected the jury and which were the criteria to select them?

MPT: The selection procedure is decided by a professional jury. Jury members are also involved on a rotating basis from partner organizations. In the first round of MOST Music the members of the jury were Balázs Weyer, programme director of Hangvető, Budapest; Olsi Sulejmani, president of Balkan World Music Management; and Simon Broughton, editor-in-chief of Songlines Magazine.

The selection criteria (apart from citizenship of at least one of the 9 target countries) are as follows:
●   artist’s international potential
●   diversity of selected artists by style, to match the profile of showcase events
●   popularity/artistic quality
●   long-term engagement with the project
●   artist’s basic infrastructure (web, communication…)
●   artist’s local audience size
●   quality of existing audio and video material (technical and artistically)
●   diversity of selected artists by sub-scenes in world music (e.g. sevdah, brass bands, etc.)
●   diversity of selected artists by gender
●   diversity of selected artists by geography

MM: In the current selection of artists there are no artists from Albania, Croatia, Montenegro or North Macedonia. Of course, this has been the first round of selection and in future rounds they may be. But this arose some questions about this:
1.   Did you receive applications from those countries? Albania and Croatia, for instance, have musical styles that are recognized by the UNESCO as immaterial legacy. Didn’t you have applications?
2.   If you didn’t have applications from those countries or if you had very few ones, which do you think are the reasons?
3.   As with the artists, has it happened the same with the call for management training?

MPT: We had open calls in all the countries listed here, so the reason why one or the other might not be represented in a certain pillar is that there weren’t any or a lot of applicants from them. We have participants from Croatia and North Macedonia in other pillars, such as Management Training and Festival Exchange. However, Albania and Montenegro were hard for us to reach, we had very few applications altogether. In Montenegro one hardship was that we did not have a partner with their local network to help us spread the word. But all in all, we must certainly work on our communication in those regions in future rounds.

MM: About the part of urban policies, you mention “Projects will then be presented by the tandem (urban creative + policy maker)”. So, I understand you will involve policy makers. Let me see if I understand well. Would those be, for instance, the councillor of culture of a city? I mean, they are real politicians or people assigned by politicians, that can make real decisions, aren’t they? I think so, as you mention that “winning initiatives will be implemented in their respective cities.” How did you get the engagement of those people? Are they guaranteeing some budget from their cities to develop the winning initiatives?

MPT: We are only starting up MOST Music and the environment we planned it for was for a very different normal, so please excuse me, but I can only answer in terms of our goals, plans, and hopes, and not in terms of anything that has already been actualized.

Our goal is to involve real decision-makers: politicians, municipalities, local governments, and more. We hope that such connections between creative industry professionals and decision-makers will bring a certain openness and sensitivity to the situation of creative professionals.

MM: About the budget, the project is co-funded by Creative Europe. Can you tell me the overall budget? Which were the other co-funders?

MPT: The overall budget is 4 million Euros, half of that is provided by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme (2 million Euros). The rest of the funding was raised by partner organizations and varies from country to country.

MM: So far, apart from the emergence of the pandemic, that has made you change some activities to an online environment, did any other event or new idea arose that made you rethink any of the activities planned?

MPT: Online activities are currently happening in three pillars – we just finished a week-long online training in the Balkan Music Exchange pillar and are currently in the process of training Urban Creatives and Management Trainees, both are longer, less time-intensive training programmes. Of course one key element of this whole programme is networking and making professional connections – this is not impossible per se, but it’s certainly not as natural as it could be if we could meet up in real life, as originally planned. We are making every effort to substitute these offline connections in online ways, and to bring in new opportunities for participants to meet and network, such as providing them passes to virtualWOMEX, and more.

Previous interviews about festivals included in MOST Music project are available:

Maria Kaimaklioti, Andreas Trachonitis & Lefteris Moumtzis from Fengaros Festival, here below in this same edition
Anđela Galić from Kamičak Ethno Festival
András Bethlendi from Mera World Music
Zlatan Jaganjac from Ritam Mediterana
Dragos Rusu from Outernational Days
Mirza Redzepagic from Zeman
Davide Mancini from Musicastrada
Béla Pap from Heritage World Music Festival
Agnieszka Matecka from Mikołajki Folkowe
Bojan Djordjevic from Todo Mundo
Jordi Fosas from Fira Mediterrànea

Note that some of these interviews are from before the start of MOST Music and before the pandemic.

EXPERIENCE AGAIN BEFORE BABEL MUSIC XP

As announced previously, Before Babel Music Xp took place in online format, on days 26 and 27 of November. They have now released the conferenfes in shape of podcast. Find them here.

I participated in a round table: New collaborations and solidarity for professionals relaunching their careers. Here below you see the moderator, Ludovic Tomas, and me with the other participants: Birgit Ellinghaus, Umair Jaffar, Emad Mabrouk and Amobé Mévégué.

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CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

In this occasion, we travel to Cyprus, to talk with the team of the Fengaros Festival.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH MARIA KAIMAKLIOTI, ANDREAS TRACHONITIS & LEFTERIS MOUMTZIS FROM THE FENGAROS FESTIVAL (CYPRUS)

The Fengaros Festival takes place since 2011 in Kato Drys, a village with less than 150 inhabitants in the district of Larnaca, Cyprus, and combines a festival with concerts and an educational project called “Music Village”.

Mapamundi Música (MM) – What do you search for in an artist when you program?

Fengaros Festival team (FFT) – Besides music that catches our attention, Fengaros Festival – especially the festival founders, Lefteris Moumtzis and Andreas Trachonitis, particularly look for artists that play very well live, have entertaining and sophisticated stage presence and whose music is authentic and unique. This might not be whatever is mainstream according to western media.

We want to also provide a platform for local Cypriot acts and while we encourage all Cypriot acts to get in touch with us, one of our criteria is to see that the local acts are thinking about long-term plans for their career. We try to learn about more local acts by watching them and meeting them at live shows.

We started Fengaros Music Village in 2014, three years after Fengaros Festival was founded. FMV takes place one week ahead of the festival and is a series of workshops that allows for participants to meet each other, jam together, and potentially form new bands. We’ve booked a good handful of acts that were formed from Fengaros Music Village (FMV), or took off after FMV, or that came to our attention at the workshops in the past. We also think about the festival audience a lot. We understand that there is heavy reliance on the Greek music scene, however one of our goals is to unravel this and also create partnerships with the surrounding region. We know how our audience reacts to various genres and we are in a happy position where the audience is challenged but at the end of the day, they trust the festival.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
FFT – Our main objective is to produce a festival with acts that we want to show to our audience and that we believe is important for Cypriots to hear. Another important goal is to produce a festival that fits and reflects our identity. Our festival does not try to copy the many fantastic festivals abroad. It’s impossible because of the many unique aspects that come into play simply by being a festival in Cyprus. We are an island; our culture and experiences have overlaps with the west and east; it’s extremely hot in the summer… Every aspect of Fengaros reflects this unique position, including the lineup, festival grounds and administrative procedures. So an important goal is to showcase this unique perspective, offer something that is not necessarily presented by the radio and mainstream media, and create reminders to embrace many aspects of Cypriot experiences, such as rural landscapes and interesting locations.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
FFT – A difficulty is dealing with local policies and funding opportunities. Most of the limited institutions in Cyprus are still very much in development and require intense pushing towards arts policies that make sense and that are formulated by those with experience in arts, international festivals and tourism.
A second issue is travel – flight tickets are expensive to Cyprus, not to mention the environmental cost.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
FFT – Apart from economic hurdles, our main goal is being able to sustain the trust and attention that our audience has for Fengaros. It’s important to expose the audience to our entire programme.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
FFT – Fengaros is three days of living in a traditional Cypriot village discovering new experiences every turn you take, all the while being surrounded by music and artists that seriously believe in the power of music.

MM – What has happened with the edition of 2020 in the current situation of the pandemic?
FFT – Although there were not any official laws against festivals in the summer, we decided in the springtime to postpone our festival to July 29-31 2021. Cases were between 0-10 each day in July 2020 and we were able to go ahead with safely hosting our series of workshops at Fengaros Music Village although with slight changes in our instructors lineup. This turned out to be hugely successful and we had double our usual turnout, even with many precautionary restrictions in place! We are now planning an online edition of Fengaros for early 2021 that will showcase Cypriot acts to local and international audiences. Stay tuned!

Credits:

The portraits are provided by the team.
The banner is from the website of the festival.
The landscapes are from the festival’s Facebook page.

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums Wiązanka by Wowakin, Silver Sanctuary by Zedashe and At Royal College of Music, Stockholm by Akkarai Sisters.
Transglobal World Music Chart has moved the annual charts to September, but some news will come soon.
Our colleagues from World Music Charts Europe have announced their list for 2020, and it is available here. They have recently made a big change, passing the management to Radio Proglas, in Brno, Czech Republic, with Milan Tesař as the new coordinator.
The Songlines Awards for 2020 have been announced this last Sunday and the show is available in their website. The winners this year are: Best Artist: Bassekoy Kouyaté, Best Group: Cimarrón, Africa: Blick Bassy, Americas: Leyla McCalla, Asia: Jambinai, Europe: Lankum, Fusion: Kefaya + Elaha Soroor, World Pioneers Award: Tony Allen & Hugh Masekela, Newcomer award: Elaha Soroor.
After one year of one weekly email of Music Before Shabbat and hosting the editions inside the website of Mapamundi Música, I decided to launch a new website for this initiative. The last Friday, www.musicbeforeshabbat.com was launched, with all the editions and the new one, for Shabbat of Hanukkah.

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

OPEN CALLS

The Afro Pepites Show 10th edition. Since 2009 the Afro Pepites Show connects artists to professionals and fans of African cultures. The call for artistic projects is open until 15 january 2021. This time it will be online. More info and registration, here.
Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. The call for artistic projects is open until Wednesday 27 January at 24h. It will take place from 14 to 17 of October 2021. More info and submissions, here.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Magazine #29 November’20 – Thrilling experience by Kajsa Bacos, festivals Kamičak Etno & Hillside, Mundial Montreal & before-Babel Music XP and +!

Summary ?

A relevant date for our community (and a reason to be more than proud for me): before-Babel Music XP.
A thrilling experience facing the pandemic with live music, by Kajsa Bacos from Kulturverket Onsjö.
Mini interviews with festival manager: Anđela Galić from Kamičak Etno Festival and Samir Baijal from Hillside Festival (continuing the series of interviews about challenges for festivals and about MOST Music participants)
News from the charts and sister projects
What’s next? Mundial Montreal and before-Babel Med XP!

How are you? I hope well. I am not quite happy. My toilet has been flooded due to a breakdown, in a way that I thought that happened only in the films. I am soaked and I am waiting for the plumber… In the meantime, I got to close the water valve and I don’t have water in the house and, did you know? We are in the middle of a pandemic ?

However, life goes on and during the rest of this month there are some exciting events to pay attention to and interesting colleagues to learn from.

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music?

Contact me. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

BRIEFTLY, A RELEVANT DATE FOR OUR COMMUNITY

In the latest editions the rebirth of Babel Med, now Babel Music XP, have had some place. I am happy to remind you once more that the before-Babel will take place online on 26 and 27 of November and I will happy particitipate in a round table: New collaborations and solidarity for professionals relaunching their careers. It will be moderated by Ludovic Tomas and I will share the table with Birgit Ellinghaus, Umair Jaffar, Emad Mabrouk and Amobé Mévégué. What a pleasure.

By the way, if you want to learn more about me, check the interview that Erick van Monckhoven made me for his World Music Lab Italia. Remember I made an interview with him in this previous edition. I am pleased that he found my insights interesting and I opened totally.

And the interview announced in the previous edition, with Noam Vazana in her project Why Do it Yourself Music, is available here. We talked more than one hour and it was really fantastic! I felt such an easy communication with this wise lady!

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THE EXPERIENCE OF KAJSA BACOS FROM KULTURVERKET ONSJÖ (HALMSTAD, SWEDEN)

In the latest edition I asked if any of the readers would like to share their experiences of the last months in dealing with the pandemic and the activity of live music and Kajsa Bacos (her portrait is from her profile at Womex website), from Kulturverket Onsjö, in Halmstad, in the province of Halland replied with this experience:

“From April to August we closed down completely. We planned Summer concerts in July but when the rain poured down for 2 weeks we gave that up. We can seldom trust the weather, so it is difficult to plan outside concerts.

In September we started with concerts. We have a small place and 50-60 persona are the maximum. 45 feels full. So we decided to use our funding thus: Instead of one concert with 2 sets (1,5 hour), we had two concerts with one set (60 minutes). The musicians had an hour to rest and eat in between.

“It was a success. People who have been isolated for long, who can’t even go shopping, came.”

We told the audience that for the first concert only risk group persona were welcome. And only 15 people for each concert. That is 70 + or persons with an underlying condition. The response was big, so we ended up with two concerts for the risk group.It was a success. People who have been isolated for long, who can’t even go shopping, came. We can do this for our venue is not commercially driven, our funding pays for the music.

This way, we keep people happy, we use the funding that either could be paid without the musicians playing or we could pay it back to the government, the musicians are really happy to meet an audience, we show that we still do good work, and we keep our cooperations running, and our network intact. We can’t just give up while we wait for better times.

“We have to work, musicians have to play. People who come here are really good at keeping a social distance. We just have to learn to adjust. And continue.”

We have many times organized events for marginalized groups like children, immigrants etc. In Western Europe today we have more and more old people and because of the pandemic they are marginalized. We need to keep their spirits up also. They can’t see their families, go places, go to dinners. I planned carefully so they arrived in separate groups 10 minutes apart so there was no queue. They came in through one entrance and the musicians came in another. I desinfected all handles, put chairs 1,5 metres apart. And if I didn’t know somebody, I interviewed them on their lifestyle. If they had been at a social event recently they couldn’t come.

We have to work, musicians have to play. People who come here are really good at keeping a social distance. We just have to learn to adjust. And continue.

No musician has been indefinitely cancelled, we have just postponed ther concert. There is a life after corona.”

Thank you very much, Kajsa!!!

This is the Kulturverket place, from Google Maps Street View:

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

In this occasion, we have two interviews: about Kamičak Etno Festival, from Croatia (that continues the series of festivals included in project MOST) and about Hillside Festival, from Canada. I really hope they can retake their usual shape soon. To attend a concert or festival, gathering together with people you don’t know, but that are willing to share a emotional experience, is inimitable. It is a ritual, from the moment you chose the clothes you will wear. Or even from before. I am thanksful to Kajsa, Anđela and Samir and so many people that are keeping the flame alive in this time of added dificulties.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ANĐELA GALIĆ FROM THE KAMIČAK ETHNO FESTIVAL (SINJ, CROATIA)

The third edition was planned to be held on days day 21 and 22 of August at the 18th century fortress of Sinj, in Croatia. This edition included concerts by Croatian, Argentine, Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian and Irish artists, traditional crafts made by local producers and gastronomic local specialties.

The edition of this year had to be cancelled and although some things will have to be rethought, the festival is included in MOST Project and planned to come back in 2021. Anđela Galić, organizer of the festival, shares their insights and vision.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search for in an artist when you program?

Anđela Galić – We are looking for creative, talented, individuals or groups whose music grows out of a certain musical tradition but at the same moment brings contemporary approach to its interpretation. Kind of music that brings interesting fusion of styles and stays in your ears for a long time.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
AG – We want to profile our Festival as one of the best world music festivals in Croatia, but also in the wider Balkan region. Our goal is to make Sinj (Croatia) and Kamičak Ethno Festival a recognizable festival gem where you can hear great performers from all around the world.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
AG – The most complicated and difficult part is to provide enough funds, which implies constant engagement on the application of the festival to various funding tenders. Also the hard part is the fact that if you want to orginaze good festival you need a lot of planning and organization, which means involvement of many people, in our case volunteers, without whom the realization of the Festival would not be possible.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
AG – Due to the epidemiological situation it is difficult and uncertain to plan ahead. Anything that involves complex organization and engagement of international artists is considerably aggravated at the moment. The whole situation is extremely unpredictable for all involved in music industry and requires quick adaptation to new circumstances.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
AG – Excellent music in beautiful ambience of historic fortress at the top of the city with a view of the entire Cetina region, are just some of the reasons to visit Kamičak Ethno Festival. Plus, great fun is guaranteed.

MM – What has happened with the edition of 2020 in the current situation of the pandemic?
AG – Sure, except from canceling the last edition, we have to think about alternatives for next edition, so we are considering limiting the number of visitors or organizing festival only with local performers.

Credits:

The portrait of Anđela is provided by herself.
The logo is from their facebook site
The aereal picture is from the website of the festival
The picture of the concert is from the facebook site (concert by Patrick Walker Trio at the edition of 2019)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH SAMIR BAIJAL FROM THE HILLSIDE FESTIVAL (GUELPH, CANADA)

I am sure you will agree with me in the idea that it sounds like magic: to spend three days of Summer in an island in a lake in Canada, full of music, with a program in which diversity of culture, of musical heritage and style, of age, geography and influence is a guiding line. This is what the Hillside Festival state about itself on the website. It helds two editions, the Summer one and also another, in February.

This year the Winter edition was normal but the Summer one had to take an alternative shape: Homeside 2020. Samir Baijal, the artistic director, explains more about the festival in general and about this special edition too.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search for in an artist when you program?
Samir Baijal – Once I appreciate that they are a skilled and strong live artist, it is always about trying to picture them on one of our stages. We program all kinds of music and our audience is very open to new artists and form all around the world so I think of how they will respond. I look for performers who can have a strong connection to the audience and in most case willing to collaborate with other artists at the festival.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
SB – Typically, it would be the weather gets harsh as we on an island outdoors.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
SB – Maintaining a festival that is non-commercial that has strong values and environmental/sustainable practices – hence also maintaining a unique identity in a very competitive market. But right now it is enduring the period of the pandemic when we are not able our regular event(s) and revenue is not possible.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
SB – A family friendly festival in a beautiful setting, that challenges the audience to check their tastes at the gate and with more than just music.

MM – What has happened with Hillside Festival 2020? I think you were able to make the February edition normally, but for the Summer edition, you reshaped it for an online format. How was it?
SB – We called it Hillside Homeside 2020. It went better than we expected, the event was completely free to view and what we noticed the most is how much the audience appreciated us offering this presentation. It felt very personal and I think that it was a sense of connection between our patrons and our festival during a very challenging and unprecedented time.

MM – How did you shape the experience of the attendants?
SB – This was to be our 37th year, so we had a series called 37 songs where 37 artists offered a personalized recording of a song and monologue/message to the Hillside viewer. There were virtual workshops on everything from yoga to cooking and also links to our craft and food vendors – we had some archival footage with current day interviews (called Now and Then). We used the same different stage template as if it were on site.

MM – How did you get their engagement?
SB – We had our mailing list, newsletter and media gave a lot of coverage that it was happening.

MM – Any positive insight of this reshaped edition, that you could even keep for future editions when the pandemic ended?
SB – I think we would put more attention on more specific archiving and look at showing these during the year.

Credits:

The portrait of Samir is from his profile at Womex
The logo is from their facebook site
The aereal picture and the picture of the workshop are from the website of the festival

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NEWS FROM THE CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

In the previous edition I announced that Transglobal World Music Chart turned 5 years old. I am happy to announce now that the compilation album The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020, will be released by ARC Music in January. Follow our Facebook and visit our website of News to be updated and learn more. And during the last weeks we have incorporated new panelists, from Brazil, UK, Cuba and India.
About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the last albums by Niqolah Seeva, Kaito Winse and The Rheingans Sisters. For some weeks now the radio show is been broadcasted in Ràdio Túria, in L’Eliana, Valencia, Spain.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In spite of everything, we are still in the season of professional dates.

Mundial Montreal. The professional’s platform will be working from tomorrow to day 28th. Yesterday I decided to sign up and the true is that I am quite excited!
Before Babel Music XP. As announced above, it will take place on November 26-27. I a proudly included in the program. Remember that there is an interview with Olivier Rey from Babel Music XP, here.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Forward it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Magazine #28 October’20 – Mera Festival, World Music Lab Italy, a success story and +

Summary ?

Mini interviews with festival manager: András Bethlendi from Mera World Music Festival (continuing the series of interviews about challenges for festivals and about MOST Music participants)
In deep with World Music Lab Italy, by Eric E. van Monckhoven
Transferring the emotion of the contact with the public to an online environment: our experience of Conciertajo, by Vigüela + Mapamundi. – Don’t miss to read this, because I reveal bellow all we did and I am available for any questions –
News from the charts and sister projects
What’s next?

How are you? Until not so many weeks ago I was planining to be in Budapest right now. You too? Instead, I am in my confined city, Alcorcón. This is the week of Womex, a special moment in the year, after Fira Mediterrània. Very sad in these circumstances ?

However, life goes on and, before paying attention to other colleagues’ iniatives, in this edition I illustrate this editorial not with a portrait of me, but with a moment of the Conciertajo, the online live interactive event we made last Saturday with Vigüela for International Labour Organization. Click the picture to see the event. It has been a thrilling success that deserves to be explained in more detail ✌️. I reveal it all for you more below.

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music?

Contact me. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

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CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

This festival that is our focus today is also included in the project MOST, about which I talked in a previous issue. Other interviews with festivals involved in this project are:

Zlatan Jaganjac from Ritam Mediterana
Dragos Rusu from Outernational Days
Mirca Redzepagic from Zeman
Davide Mancini from Musicastrada
Béla Pap from Heritage World Music Festival
Agnieszka Matecka from Mikołajki Folkowe

And from before, they were also interviews these directors of festivals also included in MOST:

Bojan Djordjevic from Todo Mundo
Jordi Fosas from Fira Mediterrànea

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ANDRÁS BETHLENDI FROM THE MERA WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL (MERA, ROMANIA)

You’ll see below an aerial image of the location of Mera World Music Festival, in the Romanian location of Mera, very near to the airport of Cluj-Napoja. I think that picture includes around 1/4 of the village. It is a very little village that you can visit right now in Google Maps street view ?. I am writting this words from a confined city, at least until next Friday. I have never been there in the flesh and I think it is really appealing, a festival that has a global focus and that, at the same time, enhances the value of the local culture, which music is distinctive and captivating.

As the world overcomes this situation, let’s talk to András about their festival, how it has been affected, and let’s wish they will be able to make a full edition in 2021.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search for in an artist when you program?

András Bethlendi – Méra World Music Festival is an international world music festival with an acknowledged focus on local music. Therefore, on one hand, we are looking for local artists who can play the traditional music from Transylvania or Romania, on the other hand, we are looking for artists from abroad who can play authentic folk music or music inspired from their local musical traditions.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
AB – We have multiple universal objectives. On the international level, we try to show the rich folk culture of Méra and the region of Kalotaszeg/Țara Călatei to the world. Therefore on this level, we are the global promoters of this region. On a local level, we believe that through our project we can empower the local culture, and we can form the taste of the youngest generation to the benefit of the local community and culture.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
AB – We are a small festival with a tiny budget, so it is challenging to find those international artists, who are so much attracted by the magic of our barn stage, that decide to participate in our festival despite the modest fee what we can offer.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
AB – COVID-19 has changed the rules by which cultural management works nowadays. The biggest challenge is to recalibrate our project in a way which makes possible to organise the next edition.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
AB – In Méra World Music while you can get engaged to the local culture of Transylvania in its most pure form, you will also have the opportunity to dance to Latin-American or African beats.

MM – What has happened with Mera 2020 in the current situation of the pandemic?
AB – Because of the global pandemic, the Festival couldn’t be organised in August as we wished originally. Though, in September we organised a lite edition of it, called Méra World Music LITE, with 100 participants per day.

Credits:

The portrait of András is one of his facebook profiles, credited to Bethlendi Tamás
The logo is from their facebook site
The other pictures are from the website of the festival

Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us.

ABOUT WORLD MUSIC LAB ITALY, IN DEEP WITH ERIC E. VAN MONCKHOVEN (MUSIC4YOU)

Eric is a Belgian settled in Sicily, founder of the agency Music4you. He is one of the regulars at Womex and other events, so you might have met him.

The last time we met was in Brussels at the meeting of the European Folk Network, last November. He is the kind of profile with whom I can feel more or less identified: an independent agent working from a country of the South of Europe facing many difficulties and surpassing them with courage.

He contacted me in July with the idea of translating some of the content from Mapamundi Música’s monthly newsletter into the Italian in his new initative: World Music Lab Italy. I welcomed the idea with open arms and the first one has been the interview with Olivier Rey from Babel Music XP, that you can read here in English and now also here in Italian.

I am very happy that Eric wanted to share this content to make it easier for the Italian community of world music. And I though his World Music Lab Italy deserves more attention too. So find here below a little interview about it.

Mapamundi Música – What is WorldMusicLab?
Eric Van Monckhoven – World Music Lab is a combination of two concepts: World Music & Business Lab. Many artists, including those involved with world music (world, folk, roots, trad, ethnic, etc.), do not see their activity as a business. They don’t easily understand that accepting to become an entrepreneur or making a living with their music shall not automatically transform them into greedy capitalists. Very few artists make a living being only “creators”.

If you’re not sponsored by someone or some institution, you need to access the market, distribute your products and services and sell them to be able to pay your bill at the end of the months. This is an integral part of today’s musician job. You can always dream that a label or an agent shall make the work for you, but this will not happen easily, unless you already have some reputation. And when it happens, if you don’t know anything about contracts, sales, production, etc. you might go the wrong way.

“Many artists, including those involved with world music, do not see their activity as a business.”

The main idea behind World Music Lab is to help artists become their own bosses, get acquainted with the business side of their activity and be able to create a blueprint that works for them. For us this means “education and training”.World Music Lab is still a very small baby. We have to assess the artists’ needs, and also test and validate the idea and concept. It all starts with Italy because I’m based in Sicily.

Mapamundi Música – Why did it start?
EVM – It started during the covid-19 crisis. In March, I was in lockdown and I saw that I could not go anywhere with my activity as a booking agent. I had to look into a new direction that was not too far from what I’m doing as an agent. By experience, I know that artists do not get proper training in “musician business”. Most of the time, they have good artistic proposals (not always), but they don’t know how to market and sell them. In the end, much of my job has to do with coaching the artists with whom I’m collaborating, give them a blueprint to develop their career, and help them get to the next level.

In Italy, very little is done in such a direction. Of course, I might be wrong because I’m not involved that much with the music sector in Italy. But it looks to me that music schools do not train artists in the music business. There are some master courses at the university level, etc. but the approach is very academic and it’s not for everyone. I’ve always been interested in capacity building and action-learning. Action-learning tackles problems through a process of first asking questions to clarify the exact nature of the problem, reflecting and identifying possible solutions, and only then taking action.

“Much of my job has to do with coaching the artists with whom I’m collaborating, give them a blueprint to develop their career, and help them get to the next level.”

Italy is a big country and there is no true effort to support music creators at large. Some music genres are supported, but when it comes to world music, much is left to the artists themselves and the private initiative. Nothing to compare with what happens in France or Scandinavia, to say something.The year 2017 saw the birth of Italian World Beat (IWB), a new brand and platform to promote the Italian world music sector, in particular at regional and international events like Babel Med Music, Womex, Visa for Music, etc. The idea came from two music professionals who put their own money, contacts, and experience in the project to bring under one roof artists, festivals, venues, labels, etc. representative of the sector. The result was amazing and highly welcome by the international world music community.

However, much work still needs to be done in Italy to strengthen the sector, especially at the “grassroots” level with the artists. World Music Lab-Italy can be seen as a startup project of IWB, even if we have not formalized it yet because of the situation of emergency imposed by the novel coronavirus. But we shall meet soon and see what steps can be taken together to put the project forward.

Mapamundi Música – What are the services that you offer?
EVM – At this pre-startup stage, we are offering a basic information service through our blog/website (beta version) and facebook page. We also have a monthly newsletter and we have published two mini-guides: the first one deals with the use of VirtualWomex and the second one is introducing the artists to the European showcase festivals, which are good places to market themselves, grow their list of contacts, etc. All the information is available in Italian because the use of English is a real barrier for many Italians.

Mapamundi Música – What are the future plans?
EVM – We hope to become a training provider for world music artists (both online and offline), with a specific focus on business and digital education, and internationalization (music export). This of course does not mean that we’ll need to create all the courses and learning paths ourselves. We’ll have to build working partnerships with various stakeholders. There are already a lot of valid contents available on the internet produced by artists and professionals on how musicians can run their own business and benefit from various income streams. Here again, the main issue is the language. Most of what is available is in English.

“We’ll have to build working partnerships with various stakeholders.”

But without looking so far, our future plan is to run some workshops in various Italian cities to discuss the project with the potential beneficiaries, scout their needs, collect their ideas, and check their interest. We had planned to run such workshops earlier this year but the covid crisis has forced us to slow down our enthusiasm. And while many things can be done online, I believe strongly in face-to-face meetings.

We are also working on a short introductory course that shall explore some important issues: how the music industry is changing in the digital age? What does that mean for independent artists? How to build a personal brand? How to find a niche and grow a fanbase? Based on the participation in the introductory course, artists could choose to enter a kind of startup acceleration program or more conventional blended education programs on specific topic (music marketing & promotion, production, etc.).

Mapamundi Música – Who are you and what else do you do (related to music)?
EVM – I’m originally from Belgium but I feel to be a citizen of the world. For almost 40 years I have helped local communities, social enterprises, non-profit organizations all over the world as an eco-social consultant and grant writer.

Besides that, I have always had a strong passion for music. But I’m not a musician. In every country I visited – in Africa, the Mediterranean, Finland, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia – I’ve been impressed by the diversity and richness of local cultural and musical traditions. I decided to bring my own contribution and started Music4You to promote some artists with whom I have a special feeling and affinity and find them gig opportunities. My motto is “Live Music with Roots”. Of course, this was before Covid-19.

Credits:

Portrait of Eric, provided by him
World Music Lab Italy logo, from the site at Facebook
Banner from the Facebook cover of Musci4you

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TRANSFERRING THE EMOTION OF THE CONTACT WITH THE PUBLIC TO AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT: OUR EXPERIENCE OF CONCIERTAJO, BY VIGÜELA + MAPAMUNDI

In the previous edition I talked about our plan for this online event, Conciertajo.com. It has been part of LaborArte festival, by the Spanish office of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

It took place the last Saturday and I think it was a success in various aspects. The main one is that we got to transfer the emotion of the direct contact with the public, to an online environment. How did we get that? There are several features that allowed us to get that:

For one month we developed the engagement of the public. We provided them several ways for the participation in the creation of the lyrics. We have been publishing special videos done with lyrics that were sent by the followers or that have been created about the topics that are relevant for them (confinement, health workers, masks, the situation of the cultural workers, the shocking news about our crown…). Check the videos here.
We made a contest of stories. The one that won is a portrait of Andrés José, a Colombian immigrant in Valencia, who ends up working as a delivery man on a bicycle to support his family (parents and two younger sisters). The first day he works on that, his little sister is very happy because he comes back home very early: his bicycle has been stolen. Juan Antonio Torres made it in shape of a romance with the zambomba. Check it here.
Some more videos were made for media friends, like WorldMusicCentral and Mundofonías.
During the event I was presenting, explaining the band the requests and comments from the chat and chatting with the public.
Of the repertoire for an event of two hours it was prefixed only the 4 first pieces and the very last one. Between that, that band sang about the topics that the public was asking, using the traditional styles (jota, several variants of fandango, seguidilla, son). For this, we prepared more than 100 new couplets organiced in the main topics of our nowadays and of the field of world of ILO. And the band decided the specific style to apply to those lyrics in that very moment.
All this was accompained by a campaign of advertisements in Youtube, Facebook, TikTok and Spotify.
The technical part was very professional, the responsible of video was Jaime Massieu and the sound engineer was Toni Quintana. The location is so nice that it looks like a ethnography museum but it is not: it was Juan Antonio Torres’ house in El Carpio de Tajo.

NEWS FROM THE CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

Some brief news from some of the world music charts:

Transglobal World Music Chart turns 5 years old! Happy birthday to my partners, founders and administrators, Juan Antonio Vázquez and Ángel Romero! And thanks and congratulations to all the panelists! We are 59 people, quite diverse, I think. Nevertheless we have the objective of increasing that diversity, specially from the regions that are still underrepresented.
A big change is announced from World Music Charts Europe. After so many years of work, Johannes Theurer passes the baton to Milan Tesař, music director in Radio Proglas, from Brno, in Czech Republic. Congratulations, Milan!
Balkan World Music Chart is now in Facebook. Visit the site here.

About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the last albums by Sandeep Das & The Hum Ensemble, Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh and Yukihiro Atsumi. For some weeks now the radio show is been broadcasted in Radio Universidade de Coimbra, in Portugal. It is a big joy to reach more friends in my beloved Portugal.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Yes, this is the week of Womex so you are more than aware. More dates to write down:

On 5th November I will participate in Noam Vazana‘s proyect of interviews in the frame of her Why DIY initiative. I am proud for being considered interesting enough to be in this list of interviewed that includes, between many others, Davide Mancini (check also my interview with him about the festival Musicastrada, here), Minna Huuskonen, Martyna Markowska or Balázs Weyer.
Mundial Montreal will host a special edition, online too, on November 23-24. It will be the 10th edition of this meeting / festival.
Before Babel Music XP. The previous online event, wishing that the Babel Music XP in flesh will be possible in March 2021, will take place on November 26-27. Remember that there is an interview with Olivier Rey from Babel Music XP, here.

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WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 49 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com. And we lead also the Asociación para la Difusión de los Estilos.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

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Magazine #27 September’20 – Brave answers to our common challenge by AMP Concerts, Sori Festival, charts time and +

Brave answers to our common challenge

How are you? I hope well. In this edition we’ll pay attention to some ways of facing the current challenge for our activities of live music as well as to some interesting dates for our community.

I am contacting you from El Carpio de Tajo, Vigüela‘s village. Tomorrow, Wednesday 16th, it will be the online opening gala concert of Jeonju Intl’ Sori Festival. For some days we are working in the preparation, making technical checks and rehearsals. 9 bands from different countries and from their locations will play together. Yes, together! Check the details below. This is one of the creative responses to the situation we are facing.

The Spanish office of the International Labour Organization has provided us the chance to make a virtue of necessity. On October 17th we have an online event that will be the culmination of one month of participation of the public in the design of a concert in which the repertoire is created with their direct support. Learn more below too.

Neal Copperman, from AMP Concerts, explains us how they are keeping the activity, with live offline events too. I find their experience very inspiring!

And sadly, WOMEX had to announce the decision of cancelling the on-site event and the change into an online event. I am curious to see what they surprise us with.

Meanwhile, I really miss our old normality. Some drops of hope take place day by day. The new tour Klangkosmos, the first one after the beginning of the pandemic, organized by alba Kultur in North Rhine-Westphalia, is taking place and, so far, it is going well. The band on tour is Haratago, from Iparralde (North Basque Country). You can learn more about Birgit Ellinghaus, director of alba Kultur, on this edition.

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music? Contact me. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>

–

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

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Summary:

· And more difficult still: 9 artists from 9 locations, playing together for Sori Festival’s gala concert

· Rethinking the program, with Neal Copperman from AMP Concerts

· Our value proposal or how to make virtue from the neccesity. The online event for ILO by Vigüela + Mapamundi

· Interesting dates

· News from our sister projects

AND MORE DIFFICULT STILL!!!

9 artists from 9 locations will play together online for the Sori Festival’s Opening Gala. Tomorrow, Wednesday, at 19:40 UTC+9

This issue of the monthly magazine has as the main topic the bravity of our community when facing the situation that is making our lifes and works so complicated.

This morning I found this picture in Facebook. The team of Sori Festival, in South Korea, are preparing for the online gala concert that will take place on Wednesday. I have been directly involved so I know for how long all this has been organiced to make it possible. 9 artists, from their locations, will play together, listening to each others. It will be not just a succession of performances. The show can be watched from the festival’s Youtube channel.

The artists will be: Khoomei Beat (Tuva Republic, Russia), ESSE-Quintet (St. Petersburg, Russia), Sebastian Gramss (Germany), Cube Band (Taiwan), Constantinople (Canada, Iran), Vigüela (Spain), Toine Thys’ Overseas (Belgium, Egypt, Luxembourg, Brazil), Boi Akih Duo (Netherlands), Imran Khan & Naim Khan (India), 2020 Sori Festival Sinawi (South Korea).

RETHINKING THE PROGRAM FOR THE NEW CHALLENGE WITH NEAL COPPERMAN FROM AMP CONCERTS

You might already know Neal Copperman. He is one of the usual attendants of Womex as well as co-director of Globalquerque! for years, as well as director of AMP Concerts, the non-profit organization that has keep going on many activities despite the pandemics, in their state of New Mexico. In this meaningful interview he explaines more about their usual activities and the current ones they are developing in the context of the pandemic. Really thrilling!

Mapamundi Música: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me Neal. Can you quickly introduce yourself?

Neal Copperman: It’s always nice to chat with you Araceli. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you at WOMEX this year!

I’m the founder and executive director of AMP Concerts. We are a non-profit that presents events across the state of New Mexico, in the United States. In a usual year, we put on over 200 events, ranging from free monthly events in the local libraries to large outdoor concerts for 8,000 people. And everything in between. We do not have our own venue and rent spaces of all sizes across the state, whatever makes sense for the event. A third of our programs are free, and we have a nice mix of school programs, workshops and residencies too.

MM: I think in your region the pandemic didn’t affect that much as in other places of the USA, did it?

NC: New Mexico is pretty isolated. With small populations and spread out population centers. And our Governor was once the Secretary of Health for New Mexico. As soon as things started to go South, she took it very seriously and has never let go. Sometimes that is frustrating, but mostly we support her efforts to keep our community safe. We are surrounded by some states with really terrible statistics, like Arizona and Texas. The other good thing about New Mexico is that we can go outside. We have mountains that rise out of my city that I can get to the top of within an hour. I can go on great bike rides.

MM: Despite the situation you have been able to do some nice things, haven’t you? Please, tell us what you’ve been doing during the pandemic.

NC: Obviously none of the things we usually do have been possible since March. We’ve been constantly reinventing ourselves, coming up with new programs and activities to bring music and arts to people virtually, keep local musicians employed and just stay connected with our community.

We started streaming as soon as the pandemic shut down our shows and have presented 20 streaming events. We film them in closed theaters, outdoor spaces and my favorite – the socially distanced neighborhood block party, where audiences watch from their porch, front yard or driveway. The musicians usually live on the same block, so it’s a real gift from the musicians to their neighbors.

We have also produced a community art contest (Art As Antibodies), a series of single song videos in iconic locations around Santa Fe (Postcards from Santa Fe) and we are in the midst of a run of drive-in shows on an equestrian center’s polo field.

HIPICO Santa Fe drive-in concert venue ?

MM: How are you managing to keep the finances alive within the company? Are you managing to make these initiatives profitable or at least, not losing money with them?

NC: That is an excellent question. Sadly, what we are doing is not a viable business model. We think it’s important and we are working super hard to stay active and engaged, but without putting on viable concerts, we don’t have any regular business income.

We successfully grabbed a number of bailout and emergency funding opportunities. The government issued a loan that you don’t have to pay back if you use it all for payroll, so we got that and it was 2.5 months of payroll.

We got emergency grants from a City arts fund and from the National Endowment for the Arts.

We also reached out to some historical funders the first week of the pandemic and said – Look, things are falling apart and no one knows what is going to happen. But we are primed and ready to make interesting things happen in the community regardless of the limitations, and we will pay local artists and keep people employed. Anything you can give us will help us make that happen. And one funder (who had actually cut our funding) gave us $5K, which is what we started with. And the City gave us $12K to do virtual programs.

Some projects cost very little. Like the art competition. We gave out $2,000 in cash prizes, but I think it would have been just as successful had we just given out donated prizes. Beside the $2K in prizes, it probably only cost a few hundred dollars.

We cut staff salaries at the higher levels by 40% and at the lower levels by 10%.

Most of the live streams do not pay for themselves. But we use the money that we raise, alongside audience donations, to help cover the costs.

The Drive-Ins are the most expensive projects. They cost upwards of $15K night. They are not paying for themselves either. However, we would usually do a free concert and movie series all summer. We raise enough money in sponsorships to pay for that project. Since it didn’t happen this year, we asked our main sponsors if we could roll their money into other projects and they have been cool with that.

One of the Postcards from Santa Fe ?

So half of one sponsorship covered the single-song video series Postcards from Santa Fe.

The remaining sponsorships we are using towards the Drive-Ins. We are hopeful that some of the Drive-Ins will pay for themselves. But we are able to make up the difference right now too.

We take donations on top of everything we do, and people have been pretty generous with that.

We have probably paid over $30K to local artists and $10K to local tech people since the pandemic started. I’m pretty happy about that!

I did leave Globalquerque! – the world music festival that I helped found and run for the last 15 years. It wasn’t going to happen this year anyway and I decided to focus my energy full time in making my company be as vibrant as possible during the pandemic and poised to come out the other side once it was done. But that was a bittersweet decision. I might not feel it so much this fall, but I’ll probably feel it a lot more next year!

Reminder of voting time for proyect Art as Antibodies ?

MM: I interviewed Tom Frouge in a previous edition of this magazine about Globalquerque!. Will he continue working on it?

NC: Tom will continue to work on ¡Globalquerque!. He’s now the main person in charge. Before it was just the two of us.

MM: I think our community are people used to facing complications and we are also quite stubborn because we have a strong vision that allows us to pursue our dreams despite the obstacles.

NC: That is totally true! We are dedicated and passionate! And most of our job is problem solving and figuring how to make impossible things happen 🙂

Check also these links related to the conversation:

Official website, with pages for the Art As Antibodies and Postcards projects: http://www.ampconcerts.org
YouTube channel where everything that has been streamed can be found: https://www.youtube.com/c/AMPConcerts
Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/ampconcerts/

Credits:

The portraits of Neal are provided by himself.
Hipico venue, Carlos Medina’s Postcards from Santa Fe flyer, Art as Antibodies flyer, from the Facebook page of AMP Concerts.

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

The series of Challenges for the festivals will continue soon

VIRTUE FROM NECESSITY. OUR ONLINE EVENT WITH A TWIST

Technology can be not only a way to reach our audience from a screen but also to engage them in the artistic creation itself. Let me explain you our value proposal for the festival Laborarte.

For some years, the office for Spain of the International Labour Organization has been doing the festival Laborarte (you can guess it is a game of words with labor -work- and arte -art-) in Madrid. It used to include conferences, concerts and exhibitions.

The director of the office has had in mind for some time to book Vigüela for 2020 its edition. In 2019 the festival didn’t take place. In the picture you see a frame of the 2018 promo video.

Considering the current situation, already in May he asked us a proposal for an online event for Laborarte. But he didn’t want just a concert in streaming. He wanted something else. What? That was his challenge: something online different than a streaming.

We started to reflect on how can we use the technology to strengthen our value proposal, taking into account the artistic possibilities of the music we work with. Popular music that has given the voice to the people by channelling their claims, needs and complaints of their daily life. So let’s give the voice to the people! With this idea in mind we decided to develope three ways of collaboration by the public, two previous and one during the event:

Survey to check the most relevant topics nowadays for our public, in the field of labour. We are now dealing with the tele-work, working from home with kids, temporary layoff, physical conditions of isolation at work, 8 hours at work with the mask, reaching the work place by subway during a pandemic… Which are the topics that produce more headaches to our public? The results will feed the band to create new lyrics about the most relevant ones. The lyrics in the music styles of jota, fandango and seguidilla are couplets. In just four verses you transmit a strong idea.
Contest of life stories related to work. In a short text (300 words), any person can submit a life story, real or invented. A professional jury of journalists will chose the best one, that will become a song in shape of romance, the term used for story telling songs in Spanish tradition.
During the event, there will be time for performing the results of the previous tools as well as some free time in which the band will improvise about the topics that the public requested in the chat. Musicians has been always at the service of the clients, as in any other profession. Do you want us to dedicate a song to you mom? Do you want us to sing about flirting in mask times? About the Sunday blues? Tell us!

We have set up the website www.conciertajo.com (Tajo is the river that passes by the village and tajo is an informal way of saying work in Spain) to collect all the infos and participation tools.

Of course, all this is not possible without a band that is open to do any crazy and demanding idea and of an organization like ILO Spain that has trusted us. We’ll find out soon how does all it result ?.

INTERESTING DATES

Hundreds of online events are taking place this season and many are really appealing. For instance:

Arts Midwest + Western Arts Alliance 2020 Conference. October 6-9. Described as “a four-day virtual convening to hear from thought leaders, gather new ideas, connect with colleagues, and map a way forward.” The registration for professionals is open, here.
Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. October 13-18. This year it will combine on site and online activities. The registration for professionals is open, here.
And, ehem, a moment for self-promotion. On 5th November I will participate in Noam Vazana‘s proyect of interviews in the frame of her Why DIY initiative. I am proud for being considered interesting enough to be in this list of interviewed that includes, between many others, Davide Mancini (check also my interview with him about the festival Musicastrada, here), Minna Huuskonen, Martyna Markowska or Balázs Weyer.
Global Music Month 2020. The team of BU Global Music Festival will host the program of day 1st October, as a part of Global Music Month 2020, “with 19 festivals and presenters from the US and Canada joining together for a month of online celebration of music from around the world, from August 29 to October 1.” So, we are in that month. Check the complete program here. You can read the interview with Marié Abe from the BU Global Music Festival made at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, here.

NEWS FROM SISTER PROJECTS + CHART TIME

Two brief news from Transglobal World Music Chart of enough interest to share with all the colleagues and friends:

A step to break the language barrier by TWMC: “For around three weeks now, if you access the website, it now includes a plugin to translate the website automatically to all the languages included in Google translator. It is very intuitive to use and shows clearly our intention to be open to other languages. The Album Submissions page has also been edited to reflect this approach. Nowadays, technology allows us to resolve this situation, not perfectly but reasonably. We expect that the most internationally-oriented producers will continue communicating in English but now we can also welcome others that don’t have those skills and might be producing musical jewels that wouldn’t reach us if they had to communicate in English.”
The Best TWMC albums of 2019-2020 Season are here! Congratulations for the great work, artists, producers, panelists! Check the link to read about the change of period for the annual chart.

About Mundofonías, we have re-started the activity after a break in August and our monthly favourites are the last albums by Khusugtun, Trio Tekke and L’Attirail.

Juan Antonio Vázquez re-starts A La Fuente, for Radio Clásica-RNE, in October. In the meantime, during July-September, his work for that station has been La Ruta de las Especias.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

Magazine #26 August’20 | Babel Music XP, Mikołajki Folkowe & a life that deserves a movie

Magazine #26 | August’20. Babel Music XP, Mikołajki Folkowe & a life that deserves a movie

How are you? Today it would be my grandmother Manuela’s birthday, August 18th. And I still miss her quite often. Even so, I’m glad she’s not going through this nightmare. They already had their disaster… In Spain we are having upbreaks of the virus, you might now. This picture is 10 days old. Masks were already mandatory all over the country, all the time, but this was done somewhere deserted in Castilla-La Mancha, between two magnificent windmills, with no one around. The municipality is Tembleque, in Toledo province.

The day after the picture, we had the first concert by Vigüela after the start of the situation. It was openair, with control of access, with mandatory masks and hydroalcoholic gel for the hands and paired chairs with distance between them. Beside some rare cases, in Spain the population is following the safety measures. We felt totally safe and the public too. This is how the place looked like before the arrival of the public:

We still can do this kind of little events, but the restrictions are increasing. In other countries, like Israel, the restrictions are even bigger: there, they can’t host more than 20 people in the audience.

Today, Tuesday 18th, we are together in El Carpio de Tajo, preparing some things related to the online events we will have in September.

Nevertheless, music doesn’t stop and our community keeps the flame alive with thrilling plans. Read the interview with Olivier from Babel Music XP, the reincarnation of Babel Med, and with Agnieszka from Mikołajki Folkowe. All the good for you!

Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me and share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

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Summary:

· How is it going to be: Babel Music XP with an interview with Olivier Rey
· Mini interviews with festival manager: Agnieszka Matecka from Mikołajki Folkowe
· In deep with Andrzej Bieńkowski, a life devoted to the dissemination of the traditional music

BABEL MUSIC XP, THE NEW PROFESSIONAL DATE FOR THE COMMUNITY

I call it “new” because, despite collecting the legacy of Babel Med, Babel Music XP has a new vision, a new team and new ambitions. As already mentioned in the previous edition, it will start in two parts: a professional meeting in November 26th-27th and trade fair with concerts in March 25-27th, in Marseille. Olivier Rey, from Dock des Sud, kindly answered our questions.

Mapamundi Música: What has happened that made this rebirth possible?
Olivier Rey: A lot of energy and conviction, a new dialogue with institutionnal partner and a new collaboration with Zone Franche.

MM: Why did Babel Med stop?
OR: Probably a lack of understanding with our principal partner, Region Sud, mixed with some political change and decision at this moment. That was the main reasons for the money cuts. In 2017, It was violent for all the members involved in the organisation of Babel Med Music.

“That’s our ambition: to become again a international platform for the music sector, a Mediterranean gate for music exchange”

But we have to say, maybe, the event hadn’t evolved enough. In 2005, Babel Med Music was pioneer – with Womex – in world music forum. 14 years later, many meetings had grown everywhere with success and music had changed: creativity, tools, business, live, interactions between artists, pros, audience. So Babel Med Music was great to connect all the music family under the same roof (and we want to keep this human atmosphere which is specifical to Babel) but we have now “to upgrade” the event whith this new context.

That’s our ambition: to become again a international platform for the music sector, a Mediterranean gate for music exchange, to develope economical impact for the world music sector and also to add some new societal contents connected to the musical sphere (innovation, women’s role in the music industry, environmental responsability…).

I have to say that, today, discussions are much more appeased with Region Sud which supports us in this rebirth. We are grateful for this new essential chapter between us.

MM: The name of this initiative is not exactly the same. It was Babel Med, it is Babel Music XP. Has this change of name any transcendental meaning? What is the meaning of “XP”?
OR: We have to mean the change and also to affirm our heritage. So we propose a new experience (XP) of Babel. As we have a much different experience in music. And for many pro in the world, Babel Music is linked with Marseille. So we can be proud of that.

“Past, present and future of music from the world is our credo.”

MM: You have already closed the application period for the showcases. Will the event keep the same artistic line? Babel Med’s offer of showcases was very diverse, with many acts related to the cultures that have been historically connected to France, but not exclusively. There were from totally acoustic and quite traditional performances to miscegenated and electric ones. Will this approach be kept?
OR: Yes, from acoustic to digital music, we want to propose a photography of world music at the instant. Past, present and future of music from the world is our credo.
Same artistic line than Babel Med Music: open-minded to the world sounds…

MM: I think that many of the selected acts for Babel Med were produced or represented by French companies. Correct me if I am wrong, as I don’t have the data, this is just my insight after the editions I attended so I might be biased. Will Babel Music XP be more open to other countries’ presenters than Babel Med was?
OR: The selection of bands which have to answer to the call for application. Historically, it was 50% produced or represented by French companies. Today, we have many propositions from Europe, Argentina, Caribean, North African, Mediterranean area, Indian Ocean and Francophonic Africa. Our project is to work with different musical ambassadors all over the world who can incite local producers to answer to the call for application. That’s a point to expand.

MM: Who are the people in the jury for the selection of showcases?
OR: They are artistic directors, programmers of festival, journalists or artists. We’ll publish the list this Autumn. The only thing we can say today is the “honorary patron” for this year is Gilles Peterson. He’s an outstanding headhunter and he’s at the same time DJ, producer, label founder, media… A different approach of worldmusic…

MM: What will happen in the pre-edition in November? If the current situation of the pandemic didn’t allow it to be as planned, do you have a plan B?

OR: The pre-edition in november is a particular rebirth with Covid-crisis. All the musical sector have to gather, to discuss and to imagine new collaboration in this context. The Before Babel Music XP must be used for that. In November, we organize professionnal meetings (without stand or forum) and few concerts. In March we’ll find again the fundaments of Babel: international exhibition, stands, agora, meetings and presentations for pros and 30 concerts for pros and general public.

MM: Which is the calendar for the next steps? I mean, to register for the events in November, to register for March’s event, to publish the line up of selected artists…
OR: More news in September (and the selection for March will be revealed in November – or at the early December.

Credits:

The portrait of Olivier is provided by himself and the photographer is Jean de Peña.
The banner is their cover picture in Facebook.

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

And this festival that is our focus today is also included in the project MOST, about which I talked in a previous issue.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH AGNIESZKA MATECKA FROM THE MIKOŁAJKI FOLKOWE FESTIVAL (LUBLIN, POLAND)

For already 29 years, Agnieszka and her team have been developing this festival in the beautiful city of Lublin, at the East of Poland. Remember this city hosts also the Jagiellonian Fair, about which we talked with Karolina Waszczuk and Bartek Drozd in this issue.

I met Agnieszka in person was in Scotland, the last September, at The Visit. I hope they will be able to make a proper celebration of the 30 anniversary, and ephemeris worth celebrating. In the meantime, let’s discover more in her own words.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?
Agnieszka Matecka: Mikołajki Folkowe is an intimate festival which takes place in December indoors. We can invite no more than 8-10 artists (groups) a year, this is why we choose the performers very carefully so that their music meets the expectations of our audience. Musicians both from Poland and abroad (3-4 bands) perform at the festival. We typically organize concerts on two stages (for 400 and 150 people). At the main Saturday concert there are usually larger and lively bands who play, as we call it, “folk of the centre”. On the other hand, the Sunday concert, on the smaller stage, presents more avant-garde, experimental music.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
AM: Mikołajki Folkowe is an interdisciplinary festival. The goal of our festival is to popularize culture, especially traditional music, in a form that is accessible to modern audiences, while respecting in crudo music. Therefore, an important part of the festival is the competition for beginner musicians, to which foreign artists can also apply. We try to follow the idea that folk culture must be alive in order to survive. It cannot be an archaic closed form.We also want to show through workshops that everyone can benefit from folk culture for their own needs. One does not have to be an educated musician, dancer or visual artist.Another goal of the festival is to break down the national prejudices in accordance with a saying “culture is the best ambassador of nations”. Mikołajki Folkowe is accompanied by an interdisciplinary international scientific conference.We also promote handicraft inspired by folk art, through organizing a handicraft fair.

MM: What are the most complicated or difficult issues you have to deal with at your festival?
AM: It’s hard to say. After 30 years of work, we have already developed many patterns of conduct. Each year seems different, poses new challenges, but with a well-coordinated organizational team all difficulties can be overcome.

MM: What are the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposal like yours right now?
AM: Maintaining the interest of the audience and creating an interesting program, taking into account the financial and spatial capacity of the event.

MM: In one sentence, summarize the reasons why you should go to your festival.
AM: Mikołajki Folkowe is almost a family festival. Owing to its date, all people interested in the same cultural phenomenon stay in one building for three days. One can feel an extraordinary bond that develops among the audience.

MM: Is this the experience we are experiencing now, the coronavirus crisis, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)?
AM: This year’s festival takes place in December (10-13/12) and we still hope it will go on normally. We follow the news about the virus on an ongoing basis and consider various scenarios. In previous years we used to have the program ready before the summer holidays. We are currently waiting for the situation to develop. Will it be a festival with bands from abroad, or a typically Polish edition? How many viewers will be able to take part in the festival and what will happen to revenue from ticket sale? We are also ready for the “virtual variant” of the festival, we plan to broadcast concerts. There are so many unknowns, now there are holidays, but from September we are getting back to hard work. It is a pity that it happened to us just at the 30th jubilee festival.
—-

Thank you very much, Agnieszka!

Pictures’ credits:

Portrait from her FB profile
Banner, cover of the Facebook page of the festival

IN DEEP WITH ANDRZEJ BIEŃKOWSKI

Andrzej’s life would be perfect for a film or a novel without having to invent anything. Learn more, here.

In this occasion the content is not going to be included here. This is just an announcement of the report that is published at the website Culture.pl about and with an interview with a person that devoted his life and made many sacrifices in order to record and disseminate the legacy of the rural music from his country.

I had the luck of visiting Andrzej in his house in Warsaw 3 years ago, when I made this picture.

More recently, my friend Ewa Gomółka made me the big favour to meet him and record his answers to some questions, thought out using the memory of what he had already told me before and with some new curiosities. She made the translation from Polish to English, so you can imagine what a huge work she did.

By the way, the website Culture.pl is an amazing source of information related to Poland and to the events, culture and art of this country that has been in the axis of the hurricane of Europe’s History.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

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Magazine #25 July 2020 | 2 years + interviews, news and rebirths

July’20. 2 years + interviews, news and rebirths

How are you? I have just realiced that this initiative of the monthly magazine is becoming 2 years old. This is the edition 25!

The first issue was launched on 17th of July of 2018. At that moment, my Sherezade was here with me, still working before her August holidays (my expectation is to recover her in October). I had just been in Poland for EthnoKrakow with Vigüela and I was leaving to FMM Sines (Portugal) two days later, where Monsieur Doumani would perform.

My commitment with our community has not weakened, I hope this monthly date with interviews and news is useful and inspiring for you. And in the meantime I think my English has improved ?

<– Click the picture to read that first issue.

This Summer, you know… Despite the critical situation that is still present in many places of the world and also the outbreaks that we are having here in Spain, music goes on.

I have just had a confirmation minutes ago of a concert in November with Apa, the beast of the Valencian cant d’estil, and his partners of Citra Trio. Vigüela has a date with the stage in Madrid on 9th of August and some exciting acts are planned for Autumn. Janusz Prusinowski is launching a series of online workshops, recorded and also in real time, about the masters of the Polish music (more info below), Hudaki Village Band are preparing a new video and will retake the rehearsals in Ukraine in August.

On the other side, news about cancelations of festivals are still arriving, but also a thrilling rebirth, of Babel Med, now Babel Music XP, with renewed team, has been announced recently.

Read more about these and other matters below. Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me and share it with your friends.

Thanks for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Subscription is available here.

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Summary:

· The return of the Marseillaise date: Babel Music XP

· In the quest for the sustainability of the recorded music business, with Edith Lei, from Naxos Music Library + 3 months free trial for the first 3 requests

· Mini interviews with festival manager: Béla Pap, from Örökség Világzenei Fesztivál / Heritage World Music Festival

· In deep with Angie Lemon PR

BABEL MED REBIRTHS AS BABEL MUSIC XP

I think this is a quite long-waited news! Probably you are already aware. Babel Med becomes Babel Music XP, with a totally renewed team and co-produced by Zone Franche, and will start in two parts: a professional meeting in November 26th-27th and trade fair with concerts in March 25-27th, in Marseille. Application period for concerts is open here until 29th of July.

IN THE QUEST FOR THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE RECORD MUSIC BUSINESS, WITH EDITH LEI, FROM NAXOS MUSIC LIBRARY

Our “industry”, let me use this term despite the situation, is facing many challenges. There is one that impacts on all the genres of music: the progressive drop of incomes for artists and producers from the recorded music. In this interview, Ms. Edith Lei, Managing Director at Naxos Digital Services Ltd answers about one of their most ambitious initiative: Naxos Music Library. Note that I announced this interview would be with Ina Schröder instead, who considered these were questions for Ms. Lei. I am really thankful to Ina for the intermediation.

Hey! Do you want a free 3 months trial for Naxos Music Library? Email me and tell me. The first 3 requests will have it.

Mapamundi Música – For what I know so far, the Naxos Music Library is an archive with more than 2 million tracks of music that the subscribers can listen to in streaming. Who is the client/user for Naxos Music Library?

Edith Lei – At least 97% of Naxos Music Library (NML) subscribers are institutions or music-related organisations – universities, public libraries, conservatories, schools, orchestras. The other 3% or so are musicians, performing artists, classical music lovers, journalists, critics, radio presenters, music teachers etc.

MM – Much of your catalogue is Western classical music but there are also many tracks of other kinds of music, like jazz and world music. I think you are interested in including more references. How can a record label include their catalogue in the Library?
EL – We have subsidiary platforms, one is NML Jazz and the other is NML World. So obviously we take jazz and world music labels too.

There are contracts in place with aggregators, so the first step is to check which distribution partners labels are working with and request content from them. If that is not an option we can look into individual contracts.

Labels with classical, jazz and world music content who want to be part of the NML suite can write to my colleague Helen at Helen.Kwan@Naxos.com

MM – And the independent artists, can they also include their works in the catalogue?
EL – This depends on how large their catalogue is. For those who only have a couple of albums with standard repertoire, the amount of administrative work (contracting, reporting, royalties payment etc.) required cannot be justified. If the artist’s intention is to merely make their recordings available on NML so that they can be heard, we can consider taking them under different conditions.

MM – What is the return for the producer that has tracks in the Library? For sure you are aware of the critics from the industry of music about the model of return of the most popular music streaming platforms.
EL – Our per-stream rate for labels is many times more than that from other platforms. Referring to this article on Digital Music in January 2018, Naxos paid $0.05 per stream, while Spotify $0.00397, Apple $0.00783, Amazon $0.0074, Qobuz $0.03816. Though this article is from two years ago, it gives you a general idea on how much each platform pays labels.

MM – What are your next goals with the Library?
EL – To expand into countries where we do not have a distributor yet.

MM – What are the synergies between the Library and Naxos World?
EL – Naxos Music Library is our flagship platform focusing on classical music, while NML World complements NML and offers world music which is becoming very popular and being studied widely in universities.

MM – Do you think this model of streaming for subscribers can face the crisis of sales of physical albums? I am sure you have much more knowledge than me in the situation and expectations for the future of the business of recorded music, that’s why I ask you.
EL – Streaming is now the most widely means to music listening, especially for the young generation. For them, physical CD is not an option. Most of them do not have a CD player.

MM – What is Naxos World doing now? Give me a scoop!
EL – Under Naxos World we continue to release both very traditional folk music recordings, as well as contemporary and crossover/fusion productions. We are also looking into projects that will bring world music and classical music closer together.

Pictures’ credits:

Ms. Edith Lei and Mr. Klaus Heymann (Founding Chairman of Naxos Music Group) at Naxos XX anniversary gala evening in Hong Kong. From the website.
Banner from the website

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

This festival that is our focus today is also included in the project MOST, about which I talked in a previous issue.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH BÉLA PAP FROM THE ÖRÖKSÉG VILÁGZENEI FESZTIVÁL (HERITAGE WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL) (SZOLNOK, HUNGARY)

I know Béla Pap for many years, in the second edition of Without Borders meeting in Varna (Bulgaria), organized by Yasen Kazandjiev. Béla sent me two pictures, the one I used in the previous edition and also these one. If you know him, you know he is the joyful man, cool and lighthearted who teaches about palinka and he also organices a festival in Hungary, in Szolnok, at the heart of the Great Hungarian Plain.

The festival is planned for August 19th-23rd… now with question marks.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?
BP: Above all, in the invited artists, we are looking for how instinctively they experience the music they perform, and how they can build on the diverse folk music heritage in order to reach out in an exciting way to the contemporary audiences.It is really important for our festival to engage new talents and see how they can convey their emotions through their music.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
BP: We aim to present contemporary art forms and genres to young audiences, mostly those that are based on folk traditions in their content and also express the general feelings, experiences of today’s youth and links to the cultural heritage of previous generations.The primary aim is to contribute effectively to the wide-range popularization of the values based upon the folk cultural heritage of Hungary and other nations (among others basically that of the Visegrad 4 and Balkan countries).

“Since the very start of the festival, we have firmly believed that one of the bases of understanding and tolerating the social changes and geo-political events taking place in the world is a dialogue between generations.“

One of the festival’s primary objectives is involving young children in the events by means of art forms relying on folk traditions, thus motivating family participation and strengthening the links between generations.

Since the very start of the festival, we have firmly believed that one of the bases of understanding and tolerating the social changes and geo-political events taking place in the world is a dialogue between generations. By means of the international language of music, the artistic productions of the young musicians building upon the heritage of their ancestors mediate ideas and notions which shared with the audience facilitate to understand the elements of contemporary world vision.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?

BP: As our festival is organised with 25 years of experience, we rarely face challenges we have never encountered before.
The difficulties of finding financial resources, which are reoccurring year after year, are familiar to all professionals – it is boring to talk about, I would say -, but I believe these difficulties are compensated by the realised festival program.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
BP: The biggest challenge, I think, is that people’s ears are “flooded” by the mainstream information and music offerings that attract large crowds.That is why it is a difficult, but at the same time important challenge to try to reach the current young audience with all the old and new tools and channels, to constantly spread the musical delicacies, and to give as many opportunities as possible to experience the magic of live music (especially world music).Fortunately, we have truly potential allies in this: those contemporary young musicians whose music draws on traditions and combine those with experimental elements to enter the world of quality music creation.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
BP: It is worth coming to the “Heritage” World Music Festival because better and better, fresh music is played almost continuously on two stages for three days, whether Hungarian or foreign artists are playing. Important to note, that apart from the colourful music offer, there is a great variety of Central European food and drink, like a good Hungarian apricot “palinka”, followed by an aromatic freshly sparkling Czech beer, awww… 🙂

MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)?
BP: When I write these lines, there is still a lot of uncertainty all over the world, including Hungary. However, there are indications that we can organise the festival on its original dates, during the celebration of the founding of the state at the end of August. Of course, at this point, I envisage long queues of people patiently waiting one and a half meters apart for refreshments, while only 4-6 people are sitting at each table.Moreover, it is also possible to draw circles in front of the stage, indicating how many people may be standing or dancing there at one time.

Even if keeping the distance in a festival might be a bit strange, the lack of dancing together in a large crowd is almost impossible to imagine, it does not change what is really important: the melodies floating in the air, the rhythms beating in the heart connect everyone and it cannot be stopped by neither a virus nor any border.
—-

Thank you very much, Béla!

Pictures’ credits:

Portrait and logo provided by Béla
Poster of the first edition, from the website
Cover of the Facebook page of the festival

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IN DEEP WITH ANGIE LEMON PR

One of the purposes of this newsletter is to give visibility to the great work done by many professional that are not seen at the stage but without who, all this community would not exist. Initiators of festivals, disseminators… and also PR and publicists. Like Angie Lemon. She can be also useful for you, in case you are needing some support in communication.

I have been in touch with Angie Lemon, first because of her work of publicist for ARC Music, as she has been working with their releases and I am, thanks of Mundofonías radio show, one of their targets. When ARC released some albums by artists that have been collaborators of Mapamundi Música, like El Naán, La Jose and Vigüela, Angie got deeply involved. She and the team of ARC Music were the responsible for the performance by El Naán to BBC Radio 3 and many other good things that happened to us.

A few years ago she established her own brand, Angie Lemon PR, with which she continued the collaborations with ARC Music (the press release for Thraki/Thrace – The Paths of Dionysus, by Rodopi Ensemble was a joy to read) and other clients.

In this times of reflections and memories of better times, Angie came to my mind often, so I decided to ask her to explain me more in depth what is she currently offering.

Mapamundi Música: What kind of services do you provide?

Angie Lemon: I promote world and folk albums and musicians to media in the UK, EU, USA, Canada and Australia/New Zealand. I work with many wonderful magazine editors, radio producers, radio presenters, bloggers, press music journalists, freelance journalists and chart panellists mainly the Transglobal World Music Charts and World Music Charts Europe.

I regularly send newsletters to media I work with and keep them updated with campaigns, projects and news. I work directly with musicians who are self-publishing but also work with indie labels, managers and promoters.

I also consult with artists for project preparation or ideas blasting sessions about specific projects to help timeline events and work out the best possible release schedule or consult about aspects of the project.

I assist artists with bios and press releases and am happy to work with both signed artists and self-published musicians whether solo artists or in groups.

MM. What is your professional background?
AL: I have been a professional publicist working in the arts sector for over 20 years and started my career in book publishing. I have worked with authors, painters, composers, cake designers, photographers, inventors and since 2014, world and folk musicians.

I managed and co-fronted the indie folk band, Rivers & Roads in Sydney, Australia for 10 years booking concerts, radio shows, securing national TV with many other well-recognised accomplishments.

I worked as the in-house PR for the UK label ARC Music for 4 years where I had the privilege of campaigning top quality world and folk musicians at a national and international level. In 2018 I took the plunge into the world of freelance publicity focusing on building and developing media relations both in the UK and internationally.

MM. Which is your distinctiveness?
AL: What I bring to the mix is firstly a personal love of music and secondly, experience as a publicist. I work with my clients, not for them, I establish what they need and do my best to make it happen and when it does, it’s pure magic! For more information, please write to me: angielemonpr@gmail.com

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 46 stations in 17 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com. And we lead also the Asociación para la Difusión de los Estilos.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Forward it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Magazine #24 June 2020 | Life returns, mini interviews, joint ventures and more

June 2020 | Life returns, mini interviews, joint ventures and more

How are you? I am quite ok. After more than one month of post transplant without growing at all, I thought it was dead… But no, my little avocado tree started to produce new leaves

Life came back. And it seems we can have some hope about retaking our activities. WOMEX is announced and even though the virus is still worrying, the pandemic seems to be more controlled, at least here in Spain (but the news from Latin America and about new outbreaks are dreadful).

I preview very hard times for our community of world music for at least the next two years, what do you think? Particularly in countries like mine, where the circuit of world music is supported almost in its entirety by public money, and cuts in the budgets for culture will be sure. That’s one of the reasons to join forces with Spain is Music (apart from the mutual understanding and shared passion for music), of which I have talked previously. Learn more below.

Find below also two more interviews with directors of festivals included in the project MOST, as well as some more useful initiatives.

Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me. And share it and let your friends know.

And once more here you have our playlist to accompany the reading –>

Thanks for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends if you like it. Subscription is available here.

Summary:

· Recent news and calls. Please, consider to sign.
· Union means strength: joint venture with Spain is Music
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Dragoș Rusu from the Outernational Days and with Mirza Redzepagic, from the World Music Fest Zeman
· In the next edition…

RECENT NEWS AND CALLS, IN SHORT

Uphold culture in the EU budget. By Culture Action Europe. You can sign to support this call: “Ahead of the European Council meeting on 19 June, we call on the Member States to:
- Double the budget of Creative Europe, as the core programme for reinforcing European cultural cooperation (#Double4Culture).
- Make sure that the additional funds stemming from the Next Generation EU initiative, such as REACT-EU, reach cultural operators.”

Mapping the Traditional Sector in Europe – and Youth Engagement. Who is doing what in traditional arts in Europe – and where? By European Folk Network. “This initial survey is the first stage in a long-term process of contacting and identifying organisers and organisations. It will establish basic information on the active organisations in as many countries as possible.”

TWMC Festivals Award 2020 is cancelled. By Transglobal World Music Chart. “A festival award doesn’t make sense without festivals. Many of the applicant festivals for this year’s edition have been cancelled. Many others that would have applied, haven’t finally done it, in this situation of uncertainty. Even if some live music acts were possible in Autumn, most of the Spring and Summer festivals aren’t taking place until 2021.
We have been receiving the news about the cancellations and postponements with grief and we wish that all the organizers will overcome this fateful year with enough strength to resurge in 2021.”

WOMEX 2020 is announced. I think many of us were waiting for this news. At least for me, this is very symbolic. It will be like recovering the life and the strength. The preparations for WOMEX are always exhausting as well as stimulating. Learn more about the insights of the responsible people in this online conference.

Do you want to share any useful news for the community of the world music in the next edition? Let me know!

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MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA JOINS FORCES WITH SPAIN IS MUSIC

In the edition #8 of this magazine I introduced Pablo Camino’s brand, Spain is Music, a travel agency specialized in cultural trips and, specifically, in trips in which the music has a very relevant place and the public is an active participant of the popular art.

In previous occasions, Mapamundi has been provider for Spain is Music and now, the crisis of the pandemic, has serve us to reflect on how to reinforce our synergic relationship. Together, we are creating touristic packages, like From Quixote to Almodovar the biggest stories from Castilla-La Mancha. And also new shapes of events, like Folk Camp Spain. One of our main needs is to find tour operators in other countries, that had the marketing tools to reach the clients. The concept, production and customisation are our responsibility. As the Spanish we are, superb food, enchanting artistic patrimony and joy of life are guaranteed.

Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

As mentioned in the previous issue of this magazine, thans to the MOST project I got to know about some festivals from the Balkans that I didn’t know before. Find below the little interview with Dragoș Rusu from the Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania) and with Mirza Redzepagic, from the World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia).

MINI INTERVIEW WITH DRAGOȘ RUSU FROM THE OUTERNATIONAL DAYS (BUCHAREST, ROMANIA)

The Outernational Days festival started in 2016 in Bucharest. The previous editions have took place in several venues in the city. This year, they will produce an online event, as Dragoș explains below.They defined Outernational “as a place positioned outside of history; as a shapeless world that has been developing at the periphery of the International sphere. What makes Outernational music so distinct is its lack of exposure in mainstream and non-mainstream media, for reasons that are usually linked to ethnical biases.”

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?

DR: Originality and substance.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
DR: To promote the Outernational concept. It is developed here.
MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
DR: The main issues are related to insufficient funds and the unreliability of the Romanian government to support independent cultural activities.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
DR: The main challenges are related to convince the audience to engage in consuming the cultural products (concerts, panels, lectures) that we propose through our festival.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
DR: Outernational is a memorable and unique festival experience, one that will open your mind and offer a new understanding of the concept world music and the Balkan cultural heritage.

MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)?
DR: For 2020, we wanted to move the festival out from Bucharest into the middle of nature, in a remote village in North East of Romania (Vaslui county). However, due to the coronavirus pandemia, we won’t be able to do the festival with audience for this year, therefore we decided to do a special edition, only on online – Outernational Virtual Festival will take place between July 25 and 26, there will be several concerts streamed live on our Youtube and Facebook channels.

Pictures’ credits:

Profile picture of the festival’s Facebook site
Dragoș Facebook profile picture

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MINI INTERVIEW WITH MIRZA REDZEPAGIC FROM THE WORLD MUSIC FEST ZEMAN (NOVI PAZAR, SERBIA)

World Music Fest Zeman is a world music festival, born in 2018, that takes place in the City Park under the open sky of Novi Pazar. The idea of the festival is to gather artists from different parts of the world who will present themselves with their art, in front of the local audience at Novi Pazar. The festival consists of concerts by world music scene artists, diverse music workshops and lectures, as well as competition for singers/vocal performers of Balkan music.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?

MR: Zeman Fest crew, consisted of musicians, is always looking for artists who can provide good musical experience as well as good show. Since the festival is happening in region which is at the border between different Balkan countries and culture, we are trying to provide different musical experience to the audience as well a positive cultural experience to the guest artists.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
MR: Our idea is to bring good music to Novi Pazar and that’s the primary goal for which we started with the festival in 2018. Our objectives for the future are to put this festival at the spotlight of serious artistic events in region and in Europe, as well to provide great experience to the audience and the artists too. Since our town, Novi Pazar is officially the youngest town in Europe where 50% of the population are younger than 35 it has a great potential of developing the platform of cultural, artistic education and experience.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
MR: As far as now we really haven’t had any big difficulties organizing the festival since we have full support by the local authorities with whom we have fair cooperation at any field of organization and that so we consider us really happy having that all. The small issues (logistic stuff etc.) is something that is part of the work so there’s no need to mention it.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
MR: My personal opinion is that those challenges depends of the place. Most of the festivals are struggling with the finances because the funds for the culture are lesser every year and it it makes the job difficult for the organizers. Our main challenge is to gain the audience since this kind of happenings are not often in our town, but we are really optimistic about it since it is a natural proces of growing. With the good music you’re getting good audience.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
MR: Young beautiful people, great energy, rich town history and a perfect venue with great music, that is Zeman Fest.

MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart from postponing this year’s edition, if so)?
MR: At this moment we are still waiting to see what is going to happen in the next few weeks with the country regulations about the mass gatherings and public events. We are working on preparations of plan B and even plan C. Definetily the festival is going to happen, in which form we still don’t know but we are prepared and optimistic.

Pictures’ credits:

Profile picture of the festival’s Facebook site
Mirza portrait provided by himself

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IN THE NEXT EDITION

Many things will show up but, for now, there are two contents that I have quite clear.

Interview with Béla Pap for the Challenges for Festivals series (portrait below, provided by himself). I know him for so long. I met him in Without Borders, the meeting in Bulgaria organized by Yasen Kazandjiev, the first time I attended. Béla directs Alt Productions. His Heritage World Music Festival is also participant in MOST.
Naxos Music Library. Ina Schroeder (portrait below from her Linkedin) will kindly answer some questions about this initiative that joins the complete catalogues or selected recordings of over 800 labels.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Forward it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

Magazine #23 May 2020. Surveys for data gathering, MOST Project for Balkan music, mini-interviews and much more.

Hello, are you OK? We are ok. In Spain we have been able to have a little walk 1 km around our houses from 2 weeks now. The situation is not the same in every region of the country. Madrid region, where I am, is still in the Stage 0, the most restricted one, of the de-escalation.

Somehow I have been extremelly busy the last month, so let me use again the same picture (by the way, the advocado tree hasn’t grown one single leaf…) Today the day is as gloomy as that one. In the last month many things have happened and you’ll find below a lot of contents. Therefore I won’t extent myself much here. The content is gold as some interesting friends and colleagues share their insights.

Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me. And share it and let your friends know.

And once more here you have our playlist to accompany the reading –>

Thanks for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

Feel free to forward this newsletter to your friends if you like it. Subscription is available here.

Summary:

· Research initiatives to gather data
· Project MOST for dissemination of Balkan music and online talk TOMORROW MORNING!
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Zlatan Jaganjac, from Ritam Mediterana and Davide Mancini from Musicastrada Festival
· In the next edition

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

RESEARCH INITIATIVES TO GATHER DATA

During the last weeks some initiatives have acknowledged the need of gathering information about the situation and reality of the organizations working in culture, after the pandemic and also about the general situation, besides it. I will mention two iniciatives in this sense.

Do you know any other initiative of data gathering that may be useful to disseminate between the sector? Please, let me know to share it.

Survey by WOMEX, for all the countries

To better understand the ongoing professional challenges and to assess how the Corona Pandemic has impacted the global music community, WOMEX team have put together a survey called Survey on the Impact of Corona Pandemic on the Global Music Community.

Professionals not related to WOMEX at all are also welcome. Deadline to fullfill it is next Sunday, 17th of May. Access here.

Survey by DISCE, specifically about Europe

I knew about this one thanks to Birgit Ellinghaus from alba Kultur. According to their website, “the DISCE Consortium puts together academic and stakeholder partners with a variety of complementary skills and competencies, joining their knowledge to tackle challenges of the Cultural and Creative sector from different points of view.”

They have launched a brief survey for organizations with cultural/creative workers about their working conditions across a range of relevant sectors. It is called Who Cares about Creative and Cultural Workers in Europe? and it is open for any organization working in culture. Deadline to fullfill it is Friday 3rd of July. Access here.

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MOST, BRIDGE FOR BALKAN MUSIC

BRIEF OVERVIEW AND CALL FOR TOMORROW‘S TALK

MOST is a project lead by the well-known Hungarian firm Hangvető, co-founded by the Creative Europe program, which mission is to boost the music market of the Balkans, by connecting and supporting actors of the world music scene; artists, managers, festivals and institutions. It has four pillars of training programs and closes with a MOST Showcase event in 2023. Those pillars are explained here.

Why should it be interesting for you if you are not from the Balkans? Apart of learning that this is a project in which world / global / tradicional music has a relevant role, that has been supported by Creative Europe, they are launching lines of activity to connect the Balkans with the global music market. Some of their offline activies have been postponed (note it is a 4-year project) and they are keeping the flame alive with online events like their talks program. Follow their calls in their Facebook page. For instance, TOMORROW MORNING they will hold this talk. Click to access the details and to attend the talk tomorrow:

And this is the Facebook event for all the talks.

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

Thanks to the MOST project I got to know about some festivals from the Balkans, that I was not aware of, as they have been selected for the Festival Exchange program. That is the case of:

The Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania), about which we’ll talk with Dragos Rusu in June’s edition.
The World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia), whose music director, Mirza Redzepagic, answered also our call and it will be featured in next edition too.

In the mean time you can check the participant festivals here. Note also Todo Mundo (Belgrade, Serbia) is part of this and we have the interview from last November with Bojan Djordjevic, here.

Also included in this project it is Musicastrada Festival (Tuscany, Italy). Find below the answers by Davide Mancini. And beside MOST, in this May edition we have another festival from Croatia, the Ritam Mediterana (Mediterranean Rhythm), in Zagreb, thanks to the answers of Zlatan Jaganjac.

Thank you all for the kind welcome to these questions. In this time of uncertainty I hope the dissemination of your insights will help someone to spread your vision.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ZLATAN JAGANJAC FROM RITAM MEDITERANA (ZAGREB, CROATIA)

I knew about this festivals thanks to the initiative of Spanish Embassy in Belgrade. Our Spanish band Entavía is programmed to play in Serbia and in Croatia next Summer. Ritam Mediterana is the Croatian one. At this moment we are obviously not sure that this will be possible but I wanted to learn more about this Mediterranean music festival in Zagreb, a city in where I have never been.

The festival defines itself as a festival of the food, art, music and rhythm and the dates are 4 to 11 of July. The location is the Strossmayer Square, according to the festival website, “one of the most underrated parks, hidden among the trees between Zrinjevac Park and Tomislavac Park.” Let’s let Zlatan Jaganjac explain us more.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?

ZJ: The idea of Mediterranean Rhythm Festival was to present an event where in one place every visitor can get an insight into the contemporary Mediterranean, more precisely different Mediterranean countries, regions and cities.

Music, in the identity as well as the mean of communication, has always played a very important role and that is why performers at the festival should perform using their native language, preferably using the traditional instruments, all together to be authentic contemporary music artists who will present what can be heard if you visit their city/region/country today.

The Mediterranean Rhythm Festival takes every visitor on a kind of journey through the Mediterranean because it contains lots of paint works, installations, cuisine and even VR technology which enables virtual walk through different destinations.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
ZJ: I believe that the festival has a huge potential to grow in years to come, and thus contributes to the understanding of diversity and interesting cultures at the Mediterranean. Through culture, gastronomy, books, movies… we get to know the Mediterranean, which is known as the “cradle of civilization”. I will strive to make this young festival live long and fulfilled, because it would mean helping many to present and create in a very interesting rhythm specific to the Mediterranean.There is a potential for the festival to be also hosted by city in Mediterranean other than Zagreb, where it all started. So I hereby invite any interested party to contact me in case they think we could cooperate on the project, and take the festival to their city/region/country.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?

ZJ: Since the festival is free for visitors and I want to keep it that way, providing sponsorship from the companies and support of the institutions is quite a demanding task because not enough funds are allocated for culture in general, and when an economic crisis like this due to COVID19 occurs, the situation becomes even more complicated. My goal is to get feedback and, if possible, a positive reaction from as many countries in the Mediterranean as possible, and one day I may be able to bring all the Mediterranean countries together. Sometimes the challenge is to stay optimistic, but it’s the only way forward.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
ZJ: Unpredictable development of the situation with the COVID19 pandemic, due to which mobility is suspended, as well as other measures that completely prohibit public gatherings I consider to be the greatest challenge at this point. My wish is to be surrounded with people that participate in the Festival and perceive themselves as part of the solution, with focus on human aspect of social contacts and live energy, rather than a virtual one.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
ZJ: If you wish to experience the sound, taste, color and scent of the Mediterranean in just a few hours or even better in a few festival days, you don’t have to get stuck on an expensive cruise – it is enough to visit Zagreb and enjoy various gastronomic delicacies, wines, books, concerts while chilling in the appropriately created Garden of the Mediterranean!

Pictures’ credits:

Zlatan portrait provided by himself
Cover page of the festival’s Facebook site

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MINI INTERVIEW WITH DAVIDE MANCINI FROM MUSICASTRADA FESTIVAL (TUSCANY, ITALY)

I don’t remember when and where I met Davide Mancini. He is one of those colleagues that I have met in so many places… I was happy to see that his Musicasatrada Festival was also selected in the festivals from the West for MOST.

Davide Mancini is a music addict from a very young age. He has worked in radio, newspaper, played the guitar as a non-professional and finally became an agent, manager and festival organizer. He created an agency, Musicastrada, focused on world music and beyond, working in Italy and the rest of the world and since 2000 is the creator and artistic director of the Musicastrada Festival, the only itinerant event of world-global sound based in Tuscany.

The program is an itinerant event focused on music, photography and territory promotion, usually from the half of July to the Half of August. Concerts are free of charge with local and international artists coming all over the world. From small intimate squares to bigger ones, the audience may vary from 100 to 800 hundred each night. This is the description in their website and, even when I have never been in Tuscany, I am sure it must be a total delight.

I wish this awful situation ended soon, for me and for many colleagues, like Davide, Zlatan and so many that I appreciate and that are struggling and suffering. But let’s let Davide to take the floor now.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?

DM: Originality, that means, original music, or, if he plays tradition (in the case of a world music artist), an evolution of that. I’m not interested in strictly folk, traditional or ethnic music, but at the same time it becomes interesting to me when it is mixed with modern sound, electronics, instruments usually not related to that genre, or when the artist use tradition to make something new.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
DM: Musicastrada Festival supports the transnational circulation of artistic works having a heterogeneous audience that usually cannot access directly to such events organized only in the biggest towns. In fact, most of the events are organized in small towns. From small intimate squares to bigger ones, the audience may vary from 100 to 800 hundred each night. Music is the way to overcome language barriers and support intercultural dialogue among different countries and different people.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
DM: Musicastrada Festival is a 21 years old festival. The organization used to be long and complicated but nowadays, being a free entry event, the only real issue is to maintain the necessary budget and finding the sponsors and or the public funds, both local and national.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
DM: The audience of the world music network is changing very fast and it’s very difficult to gather young people, under 30 years old.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
DM: Musicastrada Festival is “world summer music festival experience in Tuscany Italy” offering intimate atmosphere, small stages in small squares where all is organized for music, with artists and audience enjoying a real sound in the endless beauty of our country.

MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart of postponing this year’s edition, if so)? (This question has been added to the questionary more recently than the others and is new in the mini-interviews)
DM: It’s very difficult to say right now. Nobody knows what and how things will change in the next future. But being a small festival we hopefully won’t be hit as the big ones.

Pictures’ credits:

Davide’s portrait from his Facebook profile
Banner from the festival’s website

If you haven´t read them, you can find the previous interviews clicking on the names: Michal Schmidt (Folk Holidays, CZ) – Jun-Lin Yeoh (Rainforest WMF, MY) – Luis Lles (Pirineos Sur, ES) – Amitava Bhattacharya (Sur Jahan, IN) – Nicolas Ribalet (Sukiyaki Meets the World, JP) – Sergio Zaera (Poborina Folk, ES) – Per Idar Almås (Førdefestivalen, NO) – Bożena Szota (EthnoPort, PL) – Ken Day (Urkult, SE) – Mads Olesen (5 Continents, CH) – Karolina Waszczuk & Bartek Drozd (Jagiellonian Fair, PL) – Alkis Zopoglou (Mediterranean Music Festival, GR/CH) – Tom Frouge (Globalquerque, US) – Braulio Pérez (Música en el Parque, ES) – Bojan Djordjevic (Todo Mundo, RS) – Park Jechun (Jeonju Int’s Sori Festival) – Jarmila Vlčková (World Music Festival Bratislava – SK) – Leo Ličof (Okarina – SI) – Georgia Dötzer (Rialto World Music Festival – CY) – Marié Abe (Boston University Global Music Festival – US) – Yu Su-Ying (World Music Festival @Taiwan)

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IN THE NEXT EDITION

As mentioned above, in the next edition we will talk about two festivals from Balkan region in the mini-interviews section: the Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania) and the World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia).

What else? We’ll see but in the meantime if you have any suggestion, open call or any useful infos to share with the global community of music, let me know.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.

Category Archives: Monthly newsletters

Summary ?

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics?

RESEARCHS AND NEWS FROM THE SECTOR IN EUROPE

FANCY TO PRACTICE YOUR SPANISH? LISTEN TO ALEXIS HERRERÍA INTERVIEWING ME

Click the picture to listen to the interview:

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

Since 1977, over 2000 acts and around 8000 artists have appeared at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. If you are confined and bored, you can check the list of the artists they have had, in this page of their website, and tick the ones you know ?

MINI INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN RUDGE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF THE FROM PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL (PORT FAIRY, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics?

Subscription is available here.

CLINICAL RESEARCH PRIMA_CoV, ABOUT ATTENDANCE TO INDOORS CONCERTS, RESULTS PUBLISHED

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

MINI INTERVIEW WITH GIRISHA FERNANDO, FROM FESTIVAL DER KULTUREN, AUGSBURG (GERMANY)

Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us.

INTERVIEW WITH ALEXANDER WALTER, WOMEX’S DIRECTOR

-English edition of the interview originally posted in World Music Lab Italy, by Eric E. van Monckhoven-

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Summary ?

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music?

IN DEPTH WITH THE TEAM OF MOST MUSIC

EXPERIENCE AGAIN BEFORE BABEL MUSIC XP

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

MINI INTERVIEW WITH MARIA KAIMAKLIOTI, ANDREAS TRACHONITIS & LEFTERIS MOUMTZIS FROM THE FENGAROS FESTIVAL (CYPRUS)

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

OPEN CALLS

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

BRIEFTLY, A RELEVANT DATE FOR OUR COMMUNITY

THE EXPERIENCE OF KAJSA BACOS FROM KULTURVERKET ONSJÖ (HALMSTAD, SWEDEN)

“It was a success. People who have been isolated for long, who can’t even go shopping, came.”

“We have to work, musicians have to play. People who come here are really good at keeping a social distance. We just have to learn to adjust. And continue.”

Thank you very much, Kajsa!!!

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ANĐELA GALIĆ FROM THE KAMIČAK ETHNO FESTIVAL (SINJ, CROATIA)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH SAMIR BAIJAL FROM THE HILLSIDE FESTIVAL (GUELPH, CANADA)

NEWS FROM THE CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

WHAT’S NEXT?

In spite of everything, we are still in the season of professional dates.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music?

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ANDRÁS BETHLENDI FROM THE MERA WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL (MERA, ROMANIA)

ABOUT WORLD MUSIC LAB ITALY, IN DEEP WITH ERIC E. VAN MONCKHOVEN (MUSIC4YOU)

“Many artists, including those involved with world music, do not see their activity as a business.”

“Much of my job has to do with coaching the artists with whom I’m collaborating, give them a blueprint to develop their career, and help them get to the next level.”

“We’ll have to build working partnerships with various stakeholders.”

TRANSFERRING THE EMOTION OF THE CONTACT WITH THE PUBLIC TO AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT: OUR EXPERIENCE OF CONCIERTAJO, BY VIGÜELA + MAPAMUNDI

NEWS FROM THE CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

WHAT’S NEXT?

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Brave answers to our common challenge

How are you? I hope well. In this edition we’ll pay attention to some ways of facing the current challenge for our activities of live music as well as to some interesting dates for our community.

Summary:

· And more difficult still: 9 artists from 9 locations, playing together for Sori Festival’s gala concert

· Rethinking the program, with Neal Copperman from AMP Concerts

· Our value proposal or how to make virtue from the neccesity. The online event for ILO by Vigüela + Mapamundi

· Interesting dates

· News from our sister projects

AND MORE DIFFICULT STILL!!!

RETHINKING THE PROGRAM FOR THE NEW CHALLENGE WITH NEAL COPPERMAN FROM AMP CONCERTS

VIRTUE FROM NECESSITY. OUR ONLINE EVENT WITH A TWIST

INTERESTING DATES

NEWS FROM SISTER PROJECTS + CHART TIME

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

Magazine #26 | August’20. Babel Music XP, Mikołajki Folkowe & a life that deserves a movie

Summary:

· How is it going to be: Babel Music XP with an interview with Olivier Rey · Mini interviews with festival manager: Agnieszka Matecka from Mikołajki Folkowe · In deep with Andrzej Bieńkowski, a life devoted to the dissemination of the traditional music

BABEL MUSIC XP, THE NEW PROFESSIONAL DATE FOR THE COMMUNITY

“That’s our ambition: to become again a international platform for the music sector, a Mediterranean gate for music exchange”

“Past, present and future of music from the world is our credo.”

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

· How is it going to be: Babel Music XP with an interview with Olivier Rey
· Mini interviews with festival manager: Agnieszka Matecka from Mikołajki Folkowe
· In deep with Andrzej Bieńkowski, a life devoted to the dissemination of the traditional music

· Recent news and calls. Please, consider to sign.
· Union means strength: joint venture with Spain is Music
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Dragoș Rusu from the Outernational Days and with Mirza Redzepagic, from the World Music Fest Zeman
· In the next edition…

Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

· Research initiatives to gather data
· Project MOST for dissemination of Balkan music and online talk TOMORROW MORNING!
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Zlatan Jaganjac, from Ritam Mediterana and Davide Mancini from Musicastrada Festival
· In the next edition