Newsletter #9 March 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s March’s monthly newsletter. Before going into detail, some brief notes:
  • The period of application for grants by AC/E, for the logistic expenses of having a Spanish artists in your festival or program, ends on 31st March. Check details below and discover a new proposal.
  • The new artistic director of Fira Mediterrània is Jordi Fosas. Find below his profile and an interview with him. 
  • Visa for Music opens the application period for artists. Check below for more open calls.

And, as usual, we continue the series of little interviews with festival directors, in this case with Bożena Szota from Ethno Port Poznań, and with many more useful infos for the community.

If you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. Thanks for your attention.

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

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! To sign up, click HERE.


Summary:  Jordi Fosas, new artistic director of Fira Mediterrània de Manresa – AC/E´s application for support is open – Mapamundi Música introduces… Entavía – Mini interview with festival director: Bożena Szota from Ethno Port Poznań (Poland) – New (and still) open calls – On tour

FLASH NEWS: DON KIPPER AND MELECH MECHAYA, 14TH APRIL IN COSLADA

Last WOMEX we have a super nice moment with Josh and Tim from the band from London Don Kipper. We are happy to bring them for our first collaboration, next April, on Sunday 14th, at the event Música en Primavera, by the city council of Coslada. They will play in a double program with our Portuguese combo Melech Mechaya. Details, here.

 


WELCOME JORDI FOSAS, NEW ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF FIRA MEDITERRÀNIA DE MANRESA 

In the words of the Fira, “Jordi Fosas has a long track record in traditional and folk culture, through his involvement with the Cercle de Cultura Tradicional i Popular (Marboleny Traditional and Folk Culture Circle) and Festival Ésdansa de Les Preses (Ésdansa de Les Preses Festival). Fosas was selected from seven candidates, and he will direct the artistic line-up for Fira’s programme over the next three years. Not only was Fosas selected for his connections with traditional and folk culture but also for the artistic project he presented and his relevant experience.”

Mapamundi is happy to share with you his answers and reflections in this little interview.

We wish you the best, Jordi. Thanks for the enlightening statements! 
MM – Congratulations on your designation to this exciting position. What made you interested in it? 
JF – Thank you! I come from the world of popular culture and I have been working for many years on traditional dance. For example, directing the ÉSdansa Festival (ESdanza) and developing in it this “ES” (that means “is”) in the present indicative, encouraging the public to dance traditional dance today and promoting the realization of contemporary proposals based on traditional language.

I have known the Fira Mediterrània from some of its possible viewpoints, as an artist, as a programmer and also as a collaborator. These last three years we have collaborated with the Fira in the development of the Premi Delfí Colomé, an initiative that we have promoted from the ÉSdansa Festival to promote new dance projects created from the traditional roots.
I thought that I could contribute my experience to the artistic direction of the Fira and for that reason I presented myself to the call.

MM – The Fira Mediterrània has an international recognition as a fair where exciting proposals in the different disciplines that it includes are always discovered. How are you guys going to face this stage with you in the direction? Are you going to change something, are you going to give more weight to any subjects, any change of format, locations…?

JF – The Fira Mediterrània has done a good work in these more than twenty years of trajectory. For this reason, we will continue building from the bridges already drawn by the previous directors. I believe that the projects are enriched and strengthened when a new director contributes from the experience of the previous directors.

In the next years we will try to reinforce our brand positioning to help us articulate a circuit and generate discourse, essential elements to achieve our goal: market for proposals with traditional roots. We want to normalize that proposals that work from the traditional root are programmed.

The basic principles or strategic lines that we will develop have the objective of achieving a creative, reflective, complicit, committed and unique Fira, and we will do it in a 360 approach, that is to say, all the time and looking for complicities. We will work from three keys:
• weaving, that is, promoting and helping new creations and productions and making intersections and pairings between creators and popular culture;
• drawing packages of meaning that help the public and professionals to visualize creative realities,
• and getting a Fira in first person from the formats that generate new forms of participation and educational projects.

MM – Which will be at this phase the evaluation criteria to select the artistic proposals?

JF – At Fira Mediterrània we want to show a tradition with no complexes, that works in the present and in excellence and this will be our criterion to draw the Fira’s programming. We conceive a Fira that works intersections with the 360 degrees of the tradition, from the heritage and all that corpus of testimonies that form the cultural heritage of society, passing through the entities of popular culture that connect this heritage with their society, until reaching the professional sector that creates from this tradition. We are especially interested in the intersections, relationships and exchanges between all these agents, especially, how artists and professional companies drink from heritage, tradition and popular culture.

MM – What will be the balance in number of shows, in terms of concerts and other traditional culture shows?

JF – We will continue backing an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary Fira that gathers proposals from all the performing arts, from theater, dance, circus, visual arts, music … whether they are indoors or outdoors and in any of their formats. Our axis of programming is the traditional Mediterranean tradition in any discipline and format and we do not set a percentage for each of them. We will follow approximately the criteria that have been considered in recent editions.

MM – In recent years, the Fira has included proposals from outside the cultural field of the Mediterranean. Will this line be maintained?

JF – Yes, we will continue to program exceptional international proposals that stimulate the work of our artists and help us articulate discourse. We will focus on concrete proposals, but also on cities, territories, cultures … to see how the dialogue between tradition and contemporaneity works. We will work on it within the Fira’s State and International Action Plan. We will show and see other ecosystems, to see how a territory a structure, a project… is organized, works and creates.

Pictures: Jordi Fosas’s Facebook profile; Llotja profesional, by Anna Brugués.

 


DO YOU WANT A SPANISH ARTIST IN YOUR PROGRAM? AC/E’S CALL FOR SUPPORT IS OPEN DURING MARCH

Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) is a public entity dedicated to promoting the culture and heritage of Spain. In March they open the call to request support for the logistic expensesrelated to Spanish artists and experts in cultural issues, for events abroad taking place in the second half of the year.

The application must be done by the foreign institution/programmer and Mapamundi Música has supported some clients in previous editions to fullfill the procedure, that in fact is not difficult. The results are usually published quite soon (around the 3rd week of April).
We can offer you our band Vigüela (in the picture) and Entavía. Check the next news, at the Mapamundi Música introduces….

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA INTRODUCES…

Entavía, from Salamanca province, in Castilla y León community 
As a proffesional working with folk music since 2002, I think I am very discriminating about the proposals, even more if they come from my own country. We have had great experiences with Spanish bands, like El Naán, with whom we are not working now but we keep a deep friendship and mutual admiration. Apart of them and our beloved Vigüela and associated acts, I don’t use to get often excited enough to start a collaboration to promote a Spanish folk band. It has to be very very special.

And… I first payed attention to this band, Entavía, in this videoclip for a panaderas style song with a poem written in 1931 by Miguel de Unamuno. It was like a premonition to a catastrophe that would happen some years after: the breaking down of the dam of Ribadelago, in 1959, that killed 144 of the villagers, of which only 28 bodies where found.

Entavía puts music to this thrilling poem in a tribute to the victims and a claim for the unfair treatment that Franco’s government gave to the survivors.

Last Saturday I attended their concert in Madrid. It was in a little classroom in the downtown. Copla, ajechao, son jarocho, panaderas… in a concert full of freshness and fun made the evening unforgettable. You’ll hear more about them. In the meantime, check some snippets in these videos: 

 Ajechao – Panaderas – Copla – Panaderas – Bulerías del Tío Vicente – Martinete blues

Any question about Entavía? Tell me!


CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS
These professional fairs and festivals have applications open right now:
· Visa por Music, Rabat, Morocco. Apply here. Until 15th of May.
· Cyprus Rialto World Music Festival, Limassol, Cyprus. Apply here. Until 23th of March.
· WOMEX. Still open until next Friday! Apply here.
· Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Open call for the 31st edition, until 29th of March. Apply here.
· Mundial Montreal. Open call for the 9th edition, until 1st of April. Apply here.

**** 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 

 

MINI INTERVIEW WITH BOŻENA SZOTA FROM ETHNO PORT POZNAŃ
Over the four days of the festival, in the Polish city of Poznań hosts concerts, dance parties, performances, interdisciplinary actions, workshops, film screenings and meetings for analysis and reflection about the current and future challenges in our societies. 

 

MM – What do you search in an artist when you program? 
BS – We are searching authenticity and emotional truth, high artistic quality, original or masterful approach to traditional music

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
BS – We invite artists from all, even the most distant parts of the world. And during the events accompanying the festival (films, discussions, lectures) we focus on the global issues such as migration, cultural exchange or problems with building a sense of identity in a world of global exchange

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
BS – Modern forms of communication make it more easier to overcome organizational and logistic barriers. Differences in visas and tax regulations may be a problem.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours? 
BS – Negating the need for intercultural exchange related to the increase of xenophobic attitudes, lack of support from the Ministry of Culture and weak interest of potential sponsors of the event.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival. 
BS – High quality of program proposals and their diversity as well as unique atmosphere built by the community festival audience.

Picture: one of Bożena’s Facebook profile pictures


ON TOUR. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR ARTISTS TOURING IN YOUR AREA NEXT SUMMER
· Vigüela will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and in UK at the end of August and we are working on more dates and countries. Remember you can request support from AC/E for the logistic needs. In any case, if you are interested in them, just ask and we’ll make our best to reach an agreement. Remember we can offer the band alone and also the Polish-Spanish collaboration with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Maria Siwiec.
· Monsieur Doumani will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and they have confirmed many other dates in Europe for next Summer and Autumn. Ask us. And we get them in Spain again, very soon: 2nd of April. Yeah!
· Rodopi Ensemble‘s first concert in Spain is confirmed: 18th July, in Palma de Mallorca. They are settled in Thessaloniki and available all year.
· Gulaza are constantly touring. Ask us for the date of your interest. Their showcase at WOMEX was “the most extraordinary and talked about concert in WOMEX 2018” according to BBC Sounds.
We work with more artists and special concerts and collaborations. Check them at our website.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! To sign up, click 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.

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

Newsletter #8 February 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s February monthly newsletter.

In the last edition we announced the leaving of David Ibañez from the artistic direction of the Fira Mediterrània and still today the new director is not published. We will share the news at our Facebook and our Instagram as soon as we know, so you can follow us there. The Fira is nowadays the most important fair of world music in the South of Europe, specially since Babel Med stopped after 2017’s edition. It is also a superb festival. Did you know they got the 4th position at TWMC Festival Awards? Yes, you know: we announced it in February newsletter. Application for the procedure of the Festival Awards is open.

Below, we continue the series of little interviews with festival directors and with many more useful infos for the community.

And, before, this last month many things have happened here:
· We have had the announcement of early general elections in Spain in April that, added to the local elections in May, have the country in a very volatile situation, with all the impact this has in the not-mass culture…
· We also have had back in Spain the Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, with a thrilling concert last Friday and they return next Sunday. Their 4th album, Po śladach, is haunting.
· I travelled to Switzerland for the premiere of the Mediterranean Odyssey concert, of which we’ll share videos soon. I had the luck of listening by my side one of the best singers of the world, Drosos Koutsokostas, from Rodopi Ensemble (better videos, soon).
· We’ve been also working with Spain is Music, of which you have more info below. 

If you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. Thanks for your attention.

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


Summary: AC/E´s application for support opens in March. New (and still) open calls. Mapamundi introduces… On tour. Mini interview with festival director: Per Idar Almås, from Førdefestivalen (Norway)

Do you like our newsletter? To sign up, click HERE.


DO YOU WANT A SPANISH ARTISTS IN YOUR PROGRAM? AC/E’S CALL FOR SUPPORT WILL BE OPEN DURING MARCH

Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) is a public entity dedicated to promoting the culture and heritage of Spain. In March they open the call to request support for the logistic expenses related to Spanish artists and experts in cultural issues, for events abroad taking place in the second half of the year.

The application must be done by the foreign institution/programmer and Mapamundi Música has supported some clients in previous editions to fullfill the procedure, that in fact is not difficult. The results are usually published quite soon (around the 3rd week of April).
We can offer you our band Vigüela (in the picture) and we can help you also if you need any other artist profile.


CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS
These professional fairs have applications open right now:
· IX Targowisko Instrumentów, Warsaw. FOR INSTRUMENTS MAKERS. The call for proposals is open until 22th of February, next Friday. Apply here.
· WOMEX. The call for proposals is open until 22th of March. Apply here.
· Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. We are still anxiously waiting for knowing who is the new artistic director. The application is open now, until 4th of March at 15h local time. Apply here.
· Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Open call for the 31st edition, until 29th of March. Apply here.
· Mundial Montreal. Open call for the 9th edition, until 1st of April. Apply here.

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA INTRODUCES… 

Spain is Music. A new thrilling collaboration between us and this travel agency and consultancy firm is just starting. Their approach to travel design is boutique-like, totally personalized and result of a deep investigation of the most authentic experiences.

We proudly colaborate next month with them, providing a workshop of music and cooking by Vigüela for a group of Canadian travellers. In the meantime we are designing new initiatives and now I want to invite you to subscribe to their mailing list, here. You’ll get interesting tips about Spain’s music, gastronomy, rituals, festivities…

Picture: Pablo Camino, director of Spain is Music.


ON TOUR. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR ARTISTS TOURING IN YOUR AREA NEXT SUMMER
· Vigüela will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and in UK at the end of August and we are working on more dates and countries. Remember you can request support from AC/E for the logistic needs. In any case, if you are interested in them, just ask and we’ll make our best to reach an agreement. Remember we can offer the band alone and also the Polish-Spanish collaboration with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Maria Siwiec.
· Monsieur Doumani will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and they have confirmed many other dates in Europe for next Summer and Autumn. Ask us. And we get them in Spain again, very soon: 2nd of April. Yeah!
· Rodopi Ensemble‘s first concert in Spain is confirmed: 18th July, in Palma de Mallorca. They are settled in Thessaloniki and available all year.
· Gulaza are constantly touring. Ask us for the date of your interest. Their showcase at WOMEX was “the most extraordinary and talked about concert in WOMEX 2018” according to BBC Sounds.
We work with more artists and special concerts and collaborations. Check them at our 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 

 

MINI INTERVIEW WITH PER IDAR ALMÅS FROM FØRDEFESTIVALEN

Førde Traditional and World Music Festival takes place in Norway at the beginning of July in many different and beautiful locations that combine nature with traditional and modern architecture. The program is a chant for understanding and always includes a huge variety of proposals. The festival has had Hilde Bjørkum as artistic director until the edition of 2019, that happens to be the 30th anniversary of the festival. Congratulations, team! The artistic director now is Per Idar Almås, who has been working at the Bergen International Festival and as artistic director in a chamber music festival near Førde. We wish him a super nice experience and joys in this important position. Hilde continues supporting the festival in special projects. Both of them are in the picture, taken from her facebook profile. The answers to the questions are by Per.

Thank you, Per, for your answers, thank you, Hilde, for your vision along these years.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you program? 
PIA –  We are searching for quality and uniqueness for all artists coming to our festival. Also, each year we are having a festival theme, and it’s a goal to have artists connected to that as well.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
PIA – Førdefestivalen wants to have artists from all over the world represented at our festival. It’s a very important thing for us to present international traditional music to our audience as well as our own traditonal music. It is getting more and more important with cultural understanding and exchange in this world, to break down boundaries and walls (our theme this year is “30 years without borders”).

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
PIA – For the programming it is always a challenge to find the right mix of artists on the program, as there is so many good artists out there that we would love to present. We have so many artists who would like to come that we can`t even answer them all, unfortunately.MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours? 
PIA – One thing that we have done in Førde in the past and that has become a bit more difficult in Norway now, is to get funding for youth exchange programs for Norwegian and international young musicians, which is sad because I really believe in the value of this concept. We are working on finding ways to do it, and I hope we soon can do this again.MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival. 
PIA – For one week in July the small city of Førde invites the world to town, with the best artists, the best music, the most beutiful nature and we’ll do our best to be the best hosts possible. Welcome!


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