Magazine #20 February 2020

Mini-interview with Georgia Dötzer from Rialto WM Festival, Birgit Ellinghaus, open calls and +

 

What to do now better than listening great music while reading this magazine, made by us and for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world? I am Araceli Tzigane. Accompany your reading with our playlist! You know: just click the logo –>.

So, welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s magazine, issue #20! I will not enlarge any further this intro, as the content below is gold.

Just remember: any suggestion of contents for the next editions? Let us know. And if you like this, share it and tell it to your friends! 

Thanks for your attention.

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

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


Summary: 

· Job announcement from Global Fest
· 
Open calls not to miss

· Mini interview with festival manager: Georgia Dötzer from Rialto World Music Festival (Cyprus)
· In deep with Birgit Ellinghaus from alba KULTUR
· Don’t miss our Spanish acts recommended by AECID

· One of our latests achievements, I have to share this ?
· Find me at…
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

GLOBAL FEST SEARCHES FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Global Fest is a music platform with many activities. One of them is the festival they hold in New York in January.

There want to fill a job vacancy that is a new position for their organization. A full-time position to start in April 2020. Its responsibilities include fundraising, development and expansion of the board of directors, developing and renewing relationships with prospective funders and sponsors, etc. To learn more and to apply, click here.


OPEN CALLS

Transglobal World Music Chart Festival Awards. This is open all the year but note that some time in advance of your festival is needed to find the evaluator. This award’s proceduce needs the attendance of a person in your event: one of the panelists or an independent journalist or person of culture. Check the link and send any questions, also in answer to this email as I am the coordinator of this award.

 

Mundial Montreal (Canada). Open until 1st April. Its 10th edition will take place from 17th to 20th of November. The official selection includes around 30 artists to play in showcases of 25 minutes. Delegates from all the continents use to attend. 

 

Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Open until 31st March. Its edition 32 will take place from 16th to 19th of September in the Catalan city of Vic. It includes around 60 showcases and a bunch of concerts are selected for the “festival” format (the rest are fair showcases for professionals).

 

WOMEX (this year, in Budapest). Open until 13th March. This is the referential fair for world music, with around 3 thousand delegates every year. I think Womex is really known by the 99,99 %.

 


**** 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 GEORGIA DÖTZER FROM RIALTO WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

Limassol, at the South of the island of Cyprus, and July… The idea that comes to the mind is hot Sun, beach, roasted halloumi cheese with frozen white wine… and, for the past 14 years, also world music! Yes, because Rialto World Music Festival in been held in Limassol since 2006.

It started as a series of events dedicated to diversity and tolerance and now, in 2020, it will become 15! I want to congratulate Ms. Georgia Dötzer, the “mastermind behind the success of Rialto World Music Festival” in words of her compatriot Antonis Antoniou, from Monsieur Doumani, and the team. Many more to come, Ms. Dötzer! In the meantime, let me share some of your insights.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 
GD: The quality, the different sound, the uniqueness and the attractive stage performance.

 

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
GD: To highlight the diverse and rich universe of the world music. To promote the common elements and the differences in music, as a universal language connecting people. In this framework also to promote Cyprus and our festival as a bridge between them.

 

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
GD: The promotion and the right communication of the ensembles and their music, especially when they are not quite known.

 

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
GD: Of course the high flight cost of the groups from abroad. Also to attract young audiences and to broaden the existing one. To make the festival more attractive for the tourists and visitors of Cyprus.

 

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
GD:  To listen, meet and get to know groups and musicians who share a rich cultural past and also develop a contemporary musical present, with common origins and influences, organizing a series of events, mostly music, which draw their inspiration from the tradition of each country around the Mediterranean.
Pictures’ credits:
  • One of Georgia’s Facebook profile pictures
  • Cover of the festival’s Facebook page
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)


IN DEEP WITH… 

Birgit Ellinghaus from alba KULTUR

I like this picture of Birgit. I like it because I feel it shows how I perceive her: talking with a combination of pedagogy, strenght and conviction, attentively to the other’s understanding and reaction.

Since 1989 she directs the arts management agency alba Kultur, settled in Cologne, Germany, with which she has developed hundreds of projects, building bridges between cultures. She is also advisor of many international organizations focused on culture and diversity and an inspiration for me and probably for many others.

MM – In these 30 years, alba Kultur has took traditional music to high culture frames, has participated in strategic projects with many international organizations, has developed a network of partners in your region that allows to organice long tours of bands from many places and backgrounds, most of them far away from the mainstream styles… just to name a few of the dreams achieved. What is the next challenge? 

Birgit Ellinghaus – For all projects I followed the understanding, that there is a dual nature of culture: musical works, concerts and artistic programms standing for cultural identities and are expressions of traditions and life plans, which are not possible to be mesured in terms of money or market values. Nevertheless there are elements in our field of work, which touch the economical aspects, e.g. tickets, CDs or digital music is sold and artists earn their life with music and need reasonable fees. But my priorities of work were always to support and promote strongly of the non economical aspects and expressions in the music field.

  • The advanced globalization and the actual priority of European culture policy for creative industries with the economic streamlining of the music sector has effects in all european countries. For my personal work see a challenge to work on the opening of the uge public financed music sector for more diversity of local-global musics expressing identity on all levels: commissioning of new works, programming of contemporary and trad music from all arround the world, strengthening of intangible cultural heritage, support of democratic organisation and participartion of migrant musicians in the cultural-political cultural dialogue in Germany and Europe.
  • Another challenge is the cultural exchange through music with artists from developping countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America: how could we give access to Europe, if the boarders are more and more closed (all questions of artist mobility and visa). How could we organize carbon neutral tours and concerts not only within Europe, but as well with artists from other continents?
  • And another challenge is about the role of the artist/musician as a critical soul of society in times of racism, anti semitism and islamophobia. How to protect the freedom of artistic expression and how to use the knowledge and potential of artists for reconciliation and peace building?

MM – I have the idea that you were a pioneer when you started with alba Kultur, so you might have had to face a big lack of knowledge about the music you work with, in the people who made decisions of programming. In my experience, Germany is now much open, both the public and the culture workers, to this contents than, for instance, in my country, Spain, where we have little knowledge and also many prejudices about what is world music. Could you give any advice on how to make the decision makers interested in this? 

BE – I don’t want to give any advise, because each country, each activists and professional and artists has to developpe his/her own suitable views and strategies. We are all specialists and knowledge keepers of our own culture!

What I could, is to share my experience: when I started to work many years ago, it was very helpful to know about other models of work, other’s cultural expressions, to learn from others and to consider myself as a permanent student. In my personal work, I found a lot of inspiration, e.g. from the music scene in France and from the Oriental philosophies, but as well through my travels and the rich exchange with collegues and artists all around the world.

And over the years I understand, that cultural change never goes straight ahead. It’s a ongoing process. Sometimes I felt hopeless and thought the things wouldn’t turn ever for the better and/ or I had to face a lot of ignorance or resistance from stakeholder in venues and festivals, funding bodies, by politicians, media and artists. And than suddenly I saw new doors opening… I always tried to keep my curiosity and my flexibility within my agenda and my convictions. Change and development are questions of generations and need patience. These questions go much further as the individual contribution and capacity and life.

MM – I know that you work with the same strength and passion than when we met, around 11 or 12 years ago. And I think you feel that your kind of vision and what alba Kultur provides to the society is still as essential as it was at that moment and, probably, as it was when alba Kultur started. I think that 30 years ago, the world music was quite unknown for the public and for the cultural agents. Some years after, it became a boom about it. And in the last times it seems we are lossing spots for the visibility in the media and that some relevant agents, like big festivals, have been abandoning this kind of music and moving to more commercial programs. I have some questions about this:
Are your objectives now the same as they were when you started? I believe that your objectives are totally related to the service that you consider the society needs.

BE – Yes !

MM – Is the situation now, better or worse than when you started?
BE – It’s different. E.g. just reminding about communication and means of media production: I started before there was the FAX technology existing. Communication in general and specially with artists from other continents was very slow and often related to personal traveling – by myself or by friends, who served as couriers to spred the news and brought material about an artist or a festival, etc. The recording of music was very complicated, because the digital CDs and video technology just started. Communication and travel was very expensive and a privilege for only few people too.Now we have access to all and everything world wide (or nearly). Today with internet, messengers and global mobility we receive so much and so speed information, that we are lost to make the use of it. And sometimes we forget, that still there are parts and cultures of the world which are not connected to this digitalized and globalized streams, because of censorship and missing respect to human rights, because of technology, economy or education gaps or nature disasters.

 

MM – How much do you think that the political situation affects our community of the world music?
BE – The world music community globally is facing the general conditions of life today. But for me the question is rather: does the world music community stands maybe (at least partly) for ethics and elements of identity, who might give some interesting answers for the future ? E.g. see some texts by Doc Kasimir Bisou (Jean-Michel Lucas).If the answer to the previous question is that it affects us strongly, what can we, the people like us, working on this from different roles, do to, somehow, protect us? We have not to protect us as community. I believe this community should stand actively for human rights, for the role of culture in the Sustainable Development Goals, for cultural diversity world wide, for freedom of expression, for the rights of indiginous people and other minorities, for the protection of identity, etc. This could guide us in the cultural exchange and a real dialogue eye level through music.

 

MM – You have had to deal with complications about visas and probably also with misunderstandings and even “not understandings” on purpose. Do you have any advice for our colleagues to deal with these not so funny cultural shocks? 
BE – The questions of visa I do not see in the context of cultural misunderstandings. Visa are part of international politics and an intended diplomatic tool to keep certain people out of a territory, e.g. certain nationalities from the US and other countries. The formal and soft restrictions and obstacles are intended.In my eyes, the best way to avoid cultural shocks on a personal level, is to learn more about the culture of the other on as many ways as possible (reading, internet, personal encounters, learning the language and the music etc.), to expand the respectfull understanding through cultural exchange from early childhood.

 

MM – What are the plans for 2020? The ones that you can share with us, of course. BE – Hopefully we could realized the actual projects sucessfully:
  • 20. Jubilee Saison of Klangkosmos NRW (January – June 2020). Website, here. PDF download, here.
  • Silk Road Easter Festival – A Musical Journey from Venice to China at Elbphilharmonie (April 2020). Website, here.
  • Music Summit “Migrants Music Manifesto” with residency, laboratory, concerts and international conference in September 2020 in Cologne. Website, here. (Programm is coming soon).
Credits:

OUR SPANISH ACTS RECOMMENDED BY AECID

Recently we have received the first request to book Entavía through the catalogue by AECID of the recommended artists for the Spanish embassies all over the world. We have two artists in that catalogue. The Spanish embassies have to chose artists from that catalogue when they want to book or support Spanish artists for any event.

The AECID Music Catalog is the main tool for promotion, dissemination and cultural programming outside Spain, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. The Catalog is prepared by a committee of experts and includes a selection of proposals of quality from all musical genres.

OUR LATEST ACHIEVEMENT

Silk Road series of concerts in Museum of Orient, Lisbon. The true is that this was born as a attempt to extend alba Kultur’s program at the Iberian peninsule. It was not possible to do it like that because of the format (intensive program in some days vs. extended in some months) but that put the seed for another series with similar topic, to be hold in Lisbon with one concert in April, another in May and another in June.

This nice man of the picture is Sahib Pashazade and he is an amazing soloist of tar from Azerbaijan. I had the joy of attending his concert with Kamram Karimov at the contest Sharq Taronalari in 2017, where they won the Grand Prix. They will play in this series at the beginning of April. It is such a joy to collaborate with these outstanding artists! Further details will follow in the next issue of this newsletter.


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

FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):
  • Iberian Festival AwardsAt this event I will go accompanying Juan Antonio Vázquez, who is jury. 14th March. Lisbon.
  • Mid of April. Hamburg. Silk Road Easter Festival
  • From 3-6 June, in Poland with Gulaza in Wroclaw and with Monsieur Doumani in Katowice.

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

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

Magazine #19 January 2020

Mini-interview with Leo Ličof from Okarina, Blogfoolk and much more

Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s magazine, with contents for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world. I am Araceli Tzigane.

During the festivities, at that time of reflections, a disturbing idea was in my mind many times. I share it below. But the beginning of the new year brought some very nice news that made me reconcile with the world, like our first collaboration with Svetlana Spajic Group, with who we are working in touch with Bojan Djordjevic. Many more will come.

In this issue I have the pleasure to put the spotlight in two initiatives that I appreciate wholeheartedly: Blogfoolk, by Salvatore Esposito and Ciro de Rosa, who is also member of Transglobal World Music Chart, and Festival Okarina, by Leo Ličof.

Once more, I invite you to read this contents with the soundtrack of our playlist in Soundcloud. You’ll find those awesome artists in our website.

Remember: any suggestion of contents for the next editions? Let us know. And if you like this, share it and tell it to your friends! 

Thanks for your attention.

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


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


Summary: 
· Mini interview with festival manager: Leo Ličof from Festival Okarina (Slovenia)
· In deep with Ciro de Rosa & Salvatore Esposito from Blogfoolk
· Our latest addition
· Open call not to miss
· What will come in next issue? In deep with Birgit Ellinghaus from alba Kultur

· Find me at…

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


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

YEAR’S END REFLECTION

During the last years I have seen how bands are rejected because they are from Israel, because they are from Catalonia, because they sing in Castilian, because of any other politic reasons, because the artist is Catolic or because is Muslim, because the artist has albums in a specific record label… All those people think they are right. All those people think their reason to ban artists is a good reason. And all those people think the reasons of the others for banning artists are not right. So, these people book a band that other would ban for any other reason.

If you try, you can find reasons to ban almost anybody. Moreover, those criteria to ban the artists are not public. You finally know, just by chance, after many tryings to put an artist there, what was the real reason. Until very recently I though our community of music was mostly fair and that almost everybody were frank. The most minimun sign of respect to the people you are supossed to make business with, is to make clear your red lines.


CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH LEO LIČOF FROM FESTIVAL OKARINA

Leo Ličof is the director of the Festival Okarina and owner of the restaurant Okarina, both in Bled, Slovenia (34ks far from Ljubljana airport), both of them awesome and 100% enjoyable. I had the pleasure to be there in 2019 with Vigüela. It was one of the top moments of the year for all of us.

Leo’s smile radiates his charm all around and it is the charm that you feel in everything related to the Festival. The landscapes there are a prodigy, with the castle up in the rock and the turquioise lake between the mountains. It takes place around the last week of July and beginning of August and this year it will become 30 years old!

My questions found Leo in India, the country that has been so inspiring for him and that he visited before the festival was even a prospect. Even from there, Leo took a moment to answer the questions. If you are interested in learning more about the history of the festival and Leo’s own biography related to it, I recommend you this interview by Davy Sims who is also the owner of this nice portrait of Leo that you see here above, where you’ll know this story of devotion and generosity.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 
LL: Artistic value! Diversity!

 

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
LL: Expanding listener’s horizons!

 

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
LL: First problem is turning down so many good musicians showing desire to perform at our festival. And second obstacle is dealing with some agents offering unrealistic financial proposals.

 

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
LL: The only challenge is how to get rid of all challenges. Peaceful romantic festival is created and this is what I want to stay.

 

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
LL: Enjoy unspoiled nature supported with pleasant sounds – all for free.

 

Pictures’ credits:

IN DEEP WITH… 

Ciro de Rosa and Salvatore Esposito, from Blogfoolk

I’ve known Ciro de Rosa for many years. We have met in delighting events like Globaltica festival in Poland or Sharq Taronalari in Uzbekistan. In Italy, specifically in Sardinia, I had the pleasure to meet also Salvatore Esposito, the founder of Blogfoolk, at Andrea Parodi contest.

Blogfoolk is an editorial project focused on world and traditional music. They release one issue each week, that includes reviews of albums, interviews chronicles of concerts and festivals… all of them available at the web.

As mentioned in the previous issue of this newsletter, I admire the work of the team of Blogfoolk, their perseverance and dedication and the deepness of their approach. So it is a pleasure for me to share their words and to acknowledge here their contribution for our community. Here you are they insights.

MM – Blogfoolk is already working for more than 9 years. I think it is the main media in Italy dedicated to these kinds of music or, at least, the only one that has impact in the international community. I think, correct me if I am wrong, that the economic return is not the reason for standing for so long, publishing constantly and with such diversity and deepness. What is the return that provides you this motivation? 

Salvatore Esposito: Exactly, Blogfoolk has been publishing for nine years. Today is the main media in Italy covering traditional, folk and world music. We do think the economic investment is not the reason for standing for such a long time, publishing regularly with such a diversity of contents and in depth analysis of music. It was created as my personal Blog, some months later Ciro De Rosa joined this adventure. In less than a decade we have grown by small steps. We have become an officially registered magazine, with me as the editor and Ciro, as editor-in-chief. We have got a scientific committee and what’s more, a bunch of regular journalists contribute and participate in the making of the magazine policy. Over the years, the number of contributors who have embraced our project has increased. Our main goal is to study in depth and to bring to a wider audience music which is not usually covered in the Italian media.

Ciro De Rosa: Our commitment is to embrace great music from around the world, with a special focus on the Italian traditional and folk music scene. Our aim is to help readers to find out music and stories behind music. The greatest achievement is credibility. Our work and dedication has been recognised by professionals and by leading figures of academia and music journalism in Italy. It may sound a bit pretentious, but we can say it’s not Blogfoolk which knock the world any longer today, but it is the world which knocks on Blogfoolk’s door. However, a lot is still to be done. You never stop studying, digging further and planning for a better magazine.

“Our main goal is to study in depth and to bring to a wider audience
music which is not usually covered in the Italian media.”

SE: Due to the economic crisis, the music market changes but also due to the inability to create a system with the record labels that have stopped investing in advertising, a lot of music magazines have ceased to exist. I am thinking of World Music Magazine or Jam, just to quote two magazines Ciro and me have worked for and to some extents are in Blogfolk DNA. In some way, it is a cultural desert. Keeping a magazine alive on one’s own legs is really complex. But Blogfoolk resists… It is a bulwark of solid cultural resistance because each of us, although dealing with music with a professional attitude, has got a different job. We do not have an effective economic return, and when we managed to sell advertising space we had minimal revenues. It is therefore legitimate to ask why we continue to carry on this business. The answer is that surely we are “crazy”, as Professor Alessandro Portelli, a leading social historian, said in an interview in which he quoted Blogfoolk.

CDR: We are “Foolk”, which contains the words “folk” and “fool” (to be read in Shakespearian way and – why not? – in Steve Jobs’s terms) at the same time. Nonetheless, we have clear goal of keep growing and being cultural agitators. Blogfoolk has organized music events in some clubs in Rome, we have promoted conferences, we take part in disc and book presentations, we have edited an online book. We keep trying to make system involving labels and publishers, to stimulate them to invest to promote their music. Then, there is the important aspect of partnerships with national and international festivals to which we care a lot and which is probably the most exciting side of our work.

MM – What made you guys interested in this kind of music? How was the development of your personal interest on this? 

SE: Personally I approached the world and the traditional music by degrees starting from my passion for Bob Dylan, on whom a volume edited by me came out a couple of years ago for a leading Italian publisher. From the American folk I passed to the English and then again to the Italian and in particular to the scene of the Salento revival. In the end I also started studying. I have read so much and above all listened to many records. Certainly a lot I also learned from Ciro De Rosa who opened the doors to me to discover so much music that I didn’t know. Without him I would never have been keen on Sardinian music, for example.

CDR: I became interested through my studies in cultural anthropology and the study of Breton, Irish and British folk traditions. Being the old guy in the team, I have to say I started as a radio presenter of folk and world music for independent radios in Mid-Eighties, then contributing to a programme in the National Radio. I have been member of staff for World Music Magazine, which has helped me to grow in terms of professionality. Here, I want to thank Pietro Carfì and EDT, a Turin publisher.

MM – It looks like you work many hours per week in Blogfoolk, and this is not your daily job. How do you organize yourselves to be productive and efficient with this level of quality? 

SE: It’s so much time because being the editor I decide the contents for each issue (Ciro collaborates, too) to be published. Also, I am a the art director, I take care of the daily updating of the news pages in the website. Let’s say that many things, such as the relationship with labels, reading press releases and emails, selecting proposals, I happen to do them even on my mobile because during my working day I have dead times. In this context you must also include the fact that I write and therefore I have to listen to records, attends concerts and festivals. In short, it is a game of joints that is also difficult to explain. I always say that each issue goes to compose a bit on its own because we leave to the contributors a wide margin for their proposals even if we try to avoid personal initiatives to avoid overlapping of contents. Of course, we have a great backlog because it is always difficult to follow everything and talk about everything. So the philosophy is if it is worth reviewing a disc it never ceases to be even one year after publication. It is not rare, in fact, that we found ourselves digging up discs that we had lost on the way but we wanted to deal with. In our review you won’t find cut and paste of press releases as in most online mag.

CDR: It’s a daily reading and listening to music, planning interviews, editing when I have finished my work day as a teacher. It’s essential to select the most interesting materials which fit our mission amongst the many we receive on a daily basis. Weekends are above all dedicated to further listening, writing and editing other contributors’ stuff.

“A “Foolk” disc is a disc with a multiple look breaking music boundaries,
an elusive and fascinating record.”

MM –  How do you select the contents to write about?

SE: The selection of contents has various phases. Both Ciro and me receive dozens and dozens of materials and review proposals. We read everything carefully we also listen to everything carefully. Of course there is stuff which is discarded because it doesn’t fit our editorial line. We prefer not to deal with things that we are not experts on because we would also be poorly prepared. If they give us a Speed Metal record it will be difficult for a Blogfoolk review to come out. Sometimes it also happens to us to propose records, emphasizing their folk nature because they may have acoustic atmospheres and we are forced to decline because maybe they are too tied to pop. One thing is certain we try to be attentive to everything but above all to favour the quality and innovative strength of the discs. In recent years we have been widening our perspective to avant-garde to the most sophisticated and original jazz and even to contemporary music. Of course if a disc is “Foolk” it will surely find space on our pages. A “Foolk” disc is a disc with a multiple look breaking music boundaries, an elusive and fascinating record.

CDR: It is also crucial to read international press and specialised websites, to attend world music fairs whenever possible and festival to be continuously updated. The fact I am a panellist to the Transglobal World Music Chart has widened my perspective, too.

“A three day festival to celebrate our next editorial score
would be an excellent present.” 

MM – If you could ask Santa Claus whatever you could related to Blogfoolk, what would you ask?

SE: I would ask for a sponsorship, a nice substantial loan from thirty or even less than twenty thousand euros. I would renew the site, make it even more functional and multitasking and I could make some Christmas transfers to our contributors. I would be really happy. What advances I would spend to finance the publication of a single volume with the best of interviews and specials made over the years. Believe me it would be great because there are really relevant and lovely things. It is not certain, however, that these things cannot be achieved without the Santa’s help…  Of course we will have to wait but after all Rome was not built in a day… Am I a dreamer?

CDR: Upgrading the website and having the chance to pay contributors would be the priority, as said. Also, we organized a small party in Rome for our 400th issue with live music from Stefano Saletti and Piccola Banda Ikona, an artist not to be missed. So, a three day festival to celebrate our next editorial score would be an excellent present.

MM – Would you give any advice to the artists and the managers to improve their communication when they want to get attention from the media?  

SE: First of all, I would recommend working hard on music, research and sound. There is a lot of music around, but not truly original and of good quality music. The rest may come by itself. It did not happen to us often but at times we have accompanied groups or artists in their growth and it was a satisfaction to see them establish themselves even on an international level. For example, Duo Bottasso we followed from their beginning as a duo. It also takes a little perseverance and does not give in to the first difficulties. In the end, talent will always prevail.

CDR: Working hard in terms of quality of music and stage presence. Be professional from the very beginning.

Credits:
  • Logo of Blogfoolk
  • Portraits of Ciro and Salvatore, from Facebook
  • Front page of Blogfoolk
  • Cover of the book mentioned. Downloadable, here.

OUR LATEST NEWS

In the aim of gathering fabulous artists who are masters of music traditions and with awesome artistry, we have included in our offer the Albanese band of isopoliphony Sazet e Permetit.

Feel free to check our updated rooster in our website.


OPEN CALL

The application period for Fira Mediterrània de Manresa is still open and until 29th of January at 15h (central Europe time). Check the conditions and requirements at their website.

 


IN THE NEXT ISSUE…

Who in this world doesn’t know Birgit Ellinghaus? Since 1989 she directs the arts management agency alba Kultur, settled in Cologne, Germany, with which she has developed hundreds of projects, building bridges between cultures. She is also advisor of many international organizations focused on culture and diversity.It will be such a pleasure to spread some of Birgit knowledge and vision in the next issue!

Thank you, Birgit. 

FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):

Mediterranean Music Festival (Zurich, Switzerland). 18th January. My first international trip of the year will be to the festival lead by Alkis Zopoglou, who is mentioned below. I will travel there with Josep Aparicio “Apa”, the Valencian superb singer of cant d’estil, and with his musicians Eduard Navarro and Toni Porcar.

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


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

Magazine #18 December 2019

Mini-interview with Jarmila Vlčková from WMF Bratislava, in deep with the Luthiers’ fair in Warsaw, charts time & much more

Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s December’s magazine, with contents for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world. You can read the previous issues, hereI am Araceli Tzigane.

It’s almost time for celebrations in my region of the world but it’s also the moment of the year of summarising and planning. Wish us clarity of mind for the challenges ahead. Thank you 🙂

I invite you to read this contents with the soundtrack of our new playlist in Soundcloud. You might discover some awesomely enchanting recordings of artists we have included recently in our catalogue for 2020 and beyond.

Enjoy much and, remember: if you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. And if you like it, share it and tell it to your friends! 

Thanks for your attention.

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


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

Summary: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Jarmila Vlčková from World Music Festival Bratislava (Slovakia)
· In deep with Piotr Piszczatowski about the Targowisko Instrumentów (Warsaw, Poland)
· Open call not to miss
· It’s charts time! The best albums of the year by WMCE and TWMC
· What will come in next issue? In deep with BlogFoolk

· Find me at…

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


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

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH JARMILA VLČKOVÁ FROM WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL BRATISLAVA

Jarmila Vlčková is the artistic director of the World Music Festival Bratislava and, without a doubt, one of the persons who is shaping the image of the music from Slovakia abroad during the last years. She also leads the platform World Music from Slovakia (WOMUSK). Both of the initiatives are held by the NGO Amity o.z., founded in 2012.

The World Music Festival Bratislava takes place in Bratislava. The last edition was at the end of September, previous editions were hold in August. The program includes concerts, showcases of Slovak emerging bands, conferences, listening sessions and speed datings, as the activity of the Festival has two addresses, the public and the professionals.

Thank you, Jarmila, for the kind and enriching answers.

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

JV: When we plan the program of our festival, our main intention is to bring diverse and balanced program to our audience. We look for traditional performers from different parts of the world, but also new approaches and original projects. It is always a special moment when artists build up interaction with the crowd or even exceed their expectations. We are lucky enough to have a warm – hearted audience that can appreciate good music; it doesn´t matter if it is a classical Indian raga or electronic music from Argentina.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

JV: The festival strives to reveal the global culture, from traditional to the modern one, with a focus on world music, jazz and folklore. The WMFB has daytime and evening program at different venues in the Old Town of Bratislava and we are glad if the visitors experience both, the music and city during the festival. The events offer notable opportunity to discover Slovak and global music scene at the showcases and concerts. The significant part of the festival is international conference, a place to share ideas and network.

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

JV: We still see our festival as a new one, in 2020 it will be only its 5th edition. However, we had good feedback and we would be happy if it stays that way. In fact, we deal with similar simple issues as other events: what is the social, ecological impact, economic result and cultural footprint of festival in the world? Can we do better?

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

JV: There are many challenges for small festivals. We live in a fast-changing world, where art plays a vital role. The festival like ours, is a place that is supposed to build respect, educate and inspire through music.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

JV: Our festival is taking place in the historic centre of a capital of Slovakia and, for visitors, it is a chance to explore the town, discover different venues from noble concert halls to hidden small clubs that are open to welcome anybody interested in Central European region, but also those who want to enjoy a variety of music from around the world.

Pictures’ credits:

  • Logo of the festival at their Facebook
  • Jarmila’s former Facebook profile picture
  • Collage of the edition 2019, courtesy of WMFB
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IN DEEP WITH… 

Piotr Piszczatowski and the Targowisko Instrumentów, the instruments market in Warsaw.

I’ve been lucky to attend this market three times. It takes place in April in the closing day of the Spring edition of the Festiwal Wszystkie Mazurki Świata (all the mazurkas of the world) in Warsaw and it is an outstanding experience of colours, shapes, sounds, voices and joy. Furthermore, from 19h it starts the night of dance, in which around 30 bands, mainly performers of traditional Polish music, both rural and urban, both old masters and young enthusiasts play for the audience that will dance all night long.

Check their website to discover the instruments makers and check their Facebook page to get an idea of the ambient there. And read the interview below (translated from Polish into English by the kind Ewa Gomółka) to understand the steps that, for 10 years, Piotr and his partners took to reach their current achievements.

··· The application to participate in the market will be open at mid of January ···
MM – I think you were a kind of pioneer in Poland of this idea of a fair of instruments makers, why did you start this, instead of any other thing?

PP – I was not the first one who tried to organize such an event. But the unpredictable luck made that I was the first person who succeeded to organize this kind of event on a large scale in Poland. The event where real market rules are applied – the makers really sell their instruments-, and, most importantly, it wasn’t a one-time event, but it led to the multiannual process of recreating the community of the instrument makers in Poland and neighboring countries. 
“They are all dead”, I was told in one of the musical instruments museums. That was the common view back then. It was 2010 when we came back from Brittany with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania. We saw there many phenomena that were revolutionary for us. First, the Dance Night (Fest Noz) with thousands of people dancing marvelously. There were so many of them, that the organizers could spend the money from the tickets to hire more than a dozen bands to play all night. Nearby, there was a tent with instrument fair in it. That was another shock – excellent instruments were purchased at fair prices, everything based on the market rules, with almost no state support. That was in sharp contrast to the situation in Poland at the time, where we were constantly told that there was no future for traditional music. In Brittany we saw that traditional musicians, their music and instruments should not be put in the museum. This gave us hope that we could change the situation in Poland. We devoted the next 10 years to this mission, to develop the Mazurkas of the World festival, the Instrument Fair, Słuchaj Uchem children theatre and our band.

 

All these phenomena became, as one of our friends said, the “icebreaker” to the existing prejudice. However, we must highlight that all of them are complementary, like parts of one engine. The Instrument Fair wouldn’t exist without the Festival and its growing, enthusiastic public.Why do I do this? Because there is no greater pleasure than seeing something reborn. That’s why I call the Instrument Fair my fourth child.
MM – Which are been the biggest achievements that you have got in the fair along the years?

 

PP – It’s the carnival! For me, the Fair’s formula is the key issue. These aren’t strictly business meetings. You know, those with renting separate stands and without contact between the participants. It’s the opposite. I think that the formula of carnival taking place in the central square of a city, the formula we know from historical times, f. ex. medieval or renaissance is perfect. So this is very special festive time of role reversal, atmosphere of excitement, many events, overflowing crowd, hustle and bustle, many languages from around the world, contrasts, unusual and unknown musical instruments. We intentionally add a lot of simultaneous events to our Instrument Fair: concerts, ritual and children theatre, paratheatrical and dance events. All these ingredients raise the temperature in this interpersonal meeting where the barriers between people are being broken. There may appear something new between the people – a new quality.

It was great success, from the very beginning, that the instrument makers liberated themselves from the isolation, or even specific hibernation. We must realize that at that time, many of them never succeeded to sell an instrument and also weren’t really seen as artists by their own communities. This means not only that they were living in a certain state of frustration but also that they weren’t performing their culture-creating and integration function. It’s changing now. They are great personalities able to bring together the artistic and spiritual life of the community. The traditional role of the art is something that sticks together the parts of a broken jug and makes that we can drink water from it again.

Secondly, this very specific Polish tendency to work in narrow fields of expertise was broken. It came out that if we invite people of different luthier specialties whether it is traditional, futuristic or classical, we get wonderful effect of unfettered and miscellaneous space of liberty. There are amateur instrument makers and professional luthiers standing side by side. Each of them is different, dissimilar and I enjoy the fact that they are unlike each other. Each of them is a potential master to the future generations of students.

So the instrument makers met and the following years the community has grown up to almost 300 people, who are invited to the event. Each year about 120 instrument makers meet at the instrument fair and then they collaborate creatively, interchange their knowledge and ideas, make some projects together all year round. Before this first gathering, it was unimaginable.

The last important thing is the international character of this event. Over the years it became not only local and rural but just international. Each year we host artists and instrument makers from at least ten European countries and we happened to host artist from Mongolia or India too. I consider this aspect as crucial today in these very difficult times when so many spaces are closed and hostile. Creating spaces that are friendly to people who create new artistic and social realities is a really great venture for us. The art has this really big potential to cross the boundaries that are constantly being rebuilt.

MM – How do you organise the work, to be able to attend all your other responsibilities, as a musician, as a father of a family and also as coordinator of folk music department for the Instytut Muzyki i Tańca?

The answer is really easy – I work hard and I have my family and friends without whom I wouldn’t have succeed. I admit that it’s not easy. Together with Janusz Prusinowski, from the very beginning of this adventure, we had to build a network of artistic institutions designed to create the space for traditional Polish music revival. We built this house from basement to roof.

For that reason we are really busy. I work as a civil servant in the Institute of Music and Dance [Instytut Muzyki i Tańca] in the Traditional Music and Dance Studio [Pracownia Muzyki Tradycyjnej], in addition, I’m an actor in a children’s theatre Słuchaj Uchem that we run with Kaja and Janusz. Apart from that, we play a lot of concerts all over the world with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and all the time new challenges appear, like hosting concerts for children of Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra [Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia], the shows in the TV station TVP Kultura, or organizing other instrument fairs which, as a formula of the fresh look at artistic and people-to-people meeting, widely succeeded and became highly demanded all around the country.

There was even the idea to introduce the special carnival formula of the instrument fair in other countries. We’ll see, it requires financial aid of a serious institutional partner.

MM – If you could ask anything to Santa Claus, related to the fair, what would you ask?

I would be really glad if the international aspect of our Instrument Fair developed to become a Mecca or, if you like, the place of pilgrimage for musicians and instrument makers from all over Europe. I’d like it to be obvious that they should come and meet us at least once in their lives.

MM – In one phrase, invited our readers to attend the fair with a teasing statement

The instrument fair is like a dream come true, like from Hieronymus Bosch paintings. A dream about a place at the edge of the world where the initiates meet once a year. If you really love music and dance, you must not miss this event.

MM – And in one phrase, invite the instruments makers to the fair.

Come to the instrument fair! There are rumors that the instrument makers who didn’t come to our instrument fair and get a stamp for this are not allowed into heaven. Anyway, in purgatory and hell they also ask you for this stamp 😉

Thank you, Piotr! Let’s go for the next 10.
Credits:
  • Translation from Polish to English, by Ewa Gomółka.
  • Pictures:
    • Portrait of Piotr by Araceli
    • Picture with bagpiper, by Artur Kowalski
    • Picture of folk theatre and bloc of 4 pictures and bloc of two pictures at the bottom, by Mariusz Cieszewski
    • Other 3 pictures (two fiddlers and portrait of female fiddler and bearded man), by Jan Piszczatowski

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

OPEN CALL

Note that this year the application period for Fira Mediterrània de Manresa has been moved forward. It is open now and until 29th of January at 15h (central Europe time). Check the conditions and requirements at their website.

 


TA-DAH! THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

By World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart

The end of the year is close so it’s time for annual charts! As cofounder of TWMC, first of all is to congratulate the panelists and the administrators of both of the charts for the constant work during the year. And, secondly, these are the top of the year for both:

TWMC top 15
1. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
2. Kronos Quartet, Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat: Placeless
3. Refugees for Refugees: Amina
4. Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
5. Mara Aranda: Sefarad en el Corazón de Turquía
6. Le Trio Joubran: The Long March
7. Urna Chahar-Tugchi featuring Kroke: Ser
8. AKA Trio: Joy
9. Vardan Hovanissian & Emre Gültekin: Karin
10. Dhafer Youssef: Sounds of Mirrors
11. Angélique Kidjo: Celia
12. Cimarrón: Orinoco
13. Oratnitza: Alter Ethno
14. The Gloaming: 3
15. Janusz Prusinowski Kompania: Po śladach / In the footsteps

 

Check the top 100 in our website
WMCE top 15
1. Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat, Kronos Quartet: Placeless
2. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
3. Dona Onete: Rebujo
4. Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
5. Salif Keita: Un autre blanc
6. Habib Koite: Kharifa
7. Boban Markovic Orkestar: Mrak
8. Lajko Felix & Vołosi: Lajko Felix & Vołosi
9. V.A.: Jambú e os Míticos Sons da Amazônia
10. Black Flower: Future Flora
11. Urna & Kroke: Ser
12. Luedji Luna: Um Corpo No Mundo
13. Aka Trio: Joy
14. Leyla McCalla: The Capitalist Blues
15. Angélique Kidjo: Celia

 

Check their top 200 in their website 
In TWMC we make some cathegories:
· Best album: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
· Best of Subsaharian Africa: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
· Best transregional album: Kronos Quartet, Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat: Placeless
· Best of Asia (Central & East) & Pacific: Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
· Best of Europe: Mara Aranda: Sefarad en el Corazón de Turquía
· Best of North Africa & Middle East: Le Trio Joubran: The Long March
· Best of South America: Cimarrón: Orinoco
· Best of North & Central America: Leyla McCalla: The Capitalist Blues
· Best compilation: V.A.: Nostalgique Porto Rico: Plenas, guarachas, boléros et chansons jíbaras, 1940-1960

Congratulations for the achievement! 


IN THE NEXT ISSUE…

I’ve known Ciro de Rosa for many years. We have met in delighting events like Globaltica festival in Poland or Sharq Taronalari in Uzbekistan, as well as in his own country, Italy, specifically in Sardinia, where I had the pleasure to meet also Salvatore Esposito, the founder of the initiative about which they two will explain us broadly in the next issue.Blogfoolk is an editorial project focused on world and traditional music. They release one issue each week, that includes reviews of albums, interviews chronicles of concerts and festivals… all of them available at the web. The latest issue is the #435… so you can imagine the thousands of hours of work they have behind.

I take my hat off to the team of Blogfoolk and with honour will share with the community their insight about many questions, in the first issue of the year.

Thank you, Ciro and Salvatore, receive the best wishes for 2020.

 


FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):

Mediterranean Music Festival (Zurich, Switzerland). 18th January. My first international trip of the year will be to the festival lead by Alkis Zopoglou, who is mentioned below. I will travel there with Josep Aparicio “Apa”, the Valencian superb singer of cant d’estil, and with his musicians Eduard Navarro and Toni Porcar.


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


Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! 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 #17 November 2019

Mini-interview with Park Jechun, from Sori Festival, congratulations, resurrections and much +

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s November’s newsletter, with exciting news for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world.

I write you from the office. A few days after a enjoyable edition of WOMEX, after the trip to Portugal for the Harmonia Polska magic concert at Acordeões do Mundo Festival, by Janusz Prusinowski Kompania (check here and here) and before leaving to Folkelarm in Oslo next Thursday.

Some relevant dates for our community, before the Christmas break, that I am missing and that take place this month are Visa for Music 6th edition and Mundial Montreal 9th edition. And the last days it took place the first edition of Musafir Ethnic music forum in Ufa, Russia. Wishing all of them fruitful results, I invite you to check the contents below. Ah, what is the resurrection of the subject? Discover it, below. 😉

And, remember: if you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. And if you like it, share it!

Thanks for your attention.

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

Subscription is available here.


Summary:

· Mini interview with festival manager: Park Jechun from Jeonju Int’l Sori Festival (South Korea)
· Signing announced for Cosmopolis Festival direction: Alkis Zopoglou
· Welcome to a 
new magazine: Berlin Bazzar, by Robert Rigney
· Resurrection of what? Yes! 
Babel Med. Viva!
· News of 
our signings after WOMEX.
· Find me at…


**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH PARK JECHUN FROM JEONJU INT’L SORI FESTIVAL

Park Jechun is the artistic director of the festival since 2014. He is also percussionist and he has a duo with his wife, the pianist Miyeon. This interview was possible thanks to other of the hearts of the festival, Ji-Young Han, known by many people of our community of world music around the world, as she is usually the one present in the fairs and other professional meetings.

The festival combines perfectly in its program the ancestral and unique Sori repertoire, performed by old and by young artists, the new trends from Korean music and a bunch of high quality international proposals, including also activities for kids. Apart of hosting the festival, Jeonju is the paradigm city about Korean traditional cooking. If you still don´t find reasons enough to wish to visit the festival, Park will give you one more at the end of the interview.

Thank you, Park and Ji-Young!

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

PJ: In externally way, we have set the subject (the topic) of the year in order of drum, dance, wind instrument, string instrument and vocal music. It was wind instrumentS this year and string instrument Snext year. It will be vocal music in 2021, the 20th anniversary of the festival. And, on the other side, we see the “attitude” of an artist doing his/her art. It is very important whether they are young musicians or masters.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

PJ: I’ve never thought of the word ‘global goal’. Our goal is the happiness of artists and audiences who participate in the festival through a legacy given to us in the areas leading to the world – Asia – Korea – Jeonju. I am grateful for this cultural environment.

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

PJ: It is difficult to distinguish between tradition and modern, classic and contemporary. Is it really tradition that is being passed down from the past? Is evolution novel? It is difficult to judge such a thing.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

PJ: As we prepare for the big festival, there are growing concerns about the environment every year. I tried to run an environment-friendly festival this year, but it was not easy. We will make continuous efforts.
And with the changing tendency of leisure life and culture, I always think about what the role of festival is in this era.
We consider the consideration and cultural heritage for the next generation a priority.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

PJ: If you want to see how the old customs of East Asia exist in modern society, come to the Sori Festival!

Pictures’ credits:
  • Logo of the festival at their Facebook
  • Mr. Park playing, from the website of the festival
  • Ms. Ji-Young Han and Mr. Park with Juan Antonio Vázquez (from Juan Antonio’s archive)


CONGRATULATIONS TO… 

Alkis Zopoglou! He is the new director of Cosmopolis Festival, in his home town, Kavala, in Greece. His achievement was a super happy news for me, as it is the result of a life working with devotion and wisdom by a friend and collaborator that I admire.We had an interview with him in a previous issue of the newsletter, about the Mediterranean Music Festival he directs in Zurich. Check it here.

Apart of all this, he is musician at Rodopi Ensemble and teacher of traditional dances.

 

 


WELCOME TO… 

Berlin Bazzar. I knew about this surprising initiative by Yuri, flautist of Hudaki Village Band. What he explained seemed a bit weird so I requested the man, Robert Rigney, as friend at Facebook (this picture is his profile picture), in order to ask him a few questions.So, what is Berlin Bazzar? It is a paper magazine, exclusively in paper, focused on music from Eastern Europe, Turkey and the Middle East, distributed in bars in Berlin. The cover of the first edition is here at the right. It will be sold for 3€ in alternative bookshops and record shops in Berlin.

According to Robert, some of the objectives are:

  • to reflect multicultural reality of Berlin and other cities like it,
  • to provide a forum and a platform for so-called “world music”,
  • to publish stories about world music that wouldn’t have a chance of being realized in the mainstream media.

Robert searchs for writers who can write about these kinds music, concert reviews and profiles. At the moment the project can’t afford to pay contributors.

I wanted to share this initiative, as we are losing presence in the media for our music and this quixotic project that starts now is, in all senses, contrary to the trends 🙂


AND WELCOME BACK, BABEL MED  

After checking with Sami Sadak, we are allowed to announce that Babel Med will return in 2020! Congratulations, Sami and team, for gathering of supports that allow you to come back with the fair.

Great news indeed. We’ll keep an eye on this waiting for more news to share.

 


MAPAMUNDI’S NEW ARTISTS SIGNINGS AND SERVICES

After some conversations at WOMEX, we have included some outstanding artists in our catalogue, with which we will work for different terrories, like Hudaki Village Band or Svetlana Spajic Group, and with the collaboration of colleagues from many places. We are thrilled of the tons of talent we have available.

Apart of these, we are making occasional bookings for specific programs.Clic the picture to learn more.

And as we have so many artists, we can´t take more stable commitments but we can be of help for many unsigned artists who needs to deal with their self management. Check Araceli Tzigane’s website and feel free to address your friend artists there.

 

 


FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):

Oslo (Norway). 14th-17th November, for Folkelarm. Check the list of delegates here. On Saturday I will participate in a seminar about exporting the Nordic folk music, with a bunch of experts, starting with the master Birgit Ellinghaus from albaKultur, Germany. Check the program of the seminar, here.

 

Israel Showcase for Jazz and Worldwide Music. 20th-23th November. I will be in Tel Aviv and available for meetings on days 18-20, before the festival. The other time I was there I started to collaborate with Gulaza and we are still. Check the program here. Check the list of delegates, here and click Jazz & World.

 


Brussels (Belgium). 28th-29th November, for the first meeting of the European Folk Network. Check the interview with Nod Knowles, administrator of the network, in the previous issue of this newsletter.

 

Mediterranean Music Festival (Zurich, Switzerland). 18th January. After the Christmas break, I will travel again: to the festival lead by Alkis Zopoglou, who is mentioned below. I will travel there with Josep Aparicio “Apa”, the Valencian superb singer of cant d’estil, and with his musicians Eduard Navarro and Toni Porcar.



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

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 #16 October 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s October’s newsletter.

I write you from the office now, after returning from Jeonju Int’l Sori Festival where I was with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabaté and the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, where we premiered the collaboration between Vigüela and the Valencian Josep Aparicio “Apa” and Eduard Navarro. Here below I am with my right hand, Sherezade, at our stand at Fira.

But I am already packing the woolen caps and the scarfs to head to Tampere. It’s WOMEX time! I will be pleased to meet again so many old and new friends from the world music community. Find me at Sounds from Spain.

For the meantime, enjoy these appealing contents: a mini-interview, with Bojan Djordjevic, from festival Todo Mundo (Belgrade), a deeper plunge in the European Folk Network with Nod Knowles and the usual sections of the newsletter.

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 


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


Summary: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Bojan Djordjevic from Todo Mundo (Belgrade, Serbia).
· Nod Knowles, administrator of the European Folk Network, explains some details in depth.
· Find me at…

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH BOJAN DJORDJEVIC FROM
FESTIVAL TODO MUNDO

Bojan Djordjevic, together with Oliver Djordjevic, Marija Vitas and Svetlana Spajic are the board of the World Music Association Serbia, whose work of dissemination is huge and of high quality. Check their website.
Bojan is also journalist of Radio Belgrade 3, panelist of the World Music Charts Europe and the artistic director of the Festival Todo Mundo, that takes place in Belgrade at the end of September and beginning of October.

 

I must confess that I match greatly with Bojan’s taste. This year he booked the apple of my eyes, Vigüela, and the last year, Monsieur Doumani. But, apart of this, in the last edition they have had the great Hungarian band Babra, the Armenian-Turkish duo of Vardan Hovanissian and Emre Gultekin, the band of Sephardic music Shira U’Tfila and others. Check the website of the festival.I am pleased and thanksful for the opportunity of spreading the insights of this man that is a benchmark of the world music community.

 

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? BD: The easiest answer would be: high quality, but this is what we all (hopefully) are searching for.
Most of the festival program is our personal “taste”, but we cannot bring todo mundo to Belgrade at once. What I like is that artists are standing strong with the music they play, that one feels dedication. Mostly we do not go for highly commercial groups, as we find that already on many spots.
Even in the new world with all the media, there are things that has to be discovered and are worthwhile to be discovered.
On the other hand it is nice to know that the artists are with their feet on the ground and understanding the reality in this part of Europe.

 

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

BD: I think that there is great music played in every corner of the world, we just have to be curious and discover it.
The festival name shows that as well – therefore music from many countries should be presented.
Of course we always wish to have focus on some region, country, instrument or style, and also to present few local artists, but apart from that we want to have not more than one group from each country. And, not to forget, sometimes is important to bring artists, who, beside the high quality have also social impact – like Vardan Hovanissian & Emre Gultekin this year, or to bring here artists from the countries that have not been presented here before, – I am sure less than 1% of people knows anything about music from Cyprus, so presenting high quality act like Monsieur Doumani was very important.

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

BD: Living in Serbia means you always have to fight with financial issues. Culture and music has been supported, but in the way, that every year one have to fight from the start and the results of supporting decisions are known late April and that is why we had to move the festival for the second half of the year.
The other issue is how to deliver our message to more people when the media are mostly going for commercial music. Few years ago media situation was different. There were more options to present this music on radio and TV programs and in the magazines, now most of them are much more into the politics, reality and sports. So, we have to find new ways to reach the people, as social media networks are not enough.
Combination of new and old approach seems like the solution at this moment.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

BD: Doing festival like this is great pleasure. On the other hand, as I said, there are so many great bands that deserve to be presented here. But, we cannot have 20 concerts at the festival. Even 10 is bit too much. So, we have to keep our desires under the control 🙂
And, when we do not have as many concerts as we would love to, we have to be careful about presentation of the local world music scene.
There is lots of great music coming from Serbia nowadays, some new and young artists coming, but also we have to present some of the great and well known names.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

BD: Festival is done with great love and enthusiasm and musicians felt that and are willin’ to stay here longer. The other reason is contact with the audience – usually after the show the contact is so friendly that audience and artists are going together for a glass of wine or beer and stay into the discussion almost till the morning.
That means the atmosphere is great and you feel it from the start. Beside that we have two concerts per evening, so anyone has time to search around Belgrade and discover some secret or well known places in the friendly city.
On top of all that you can hear many great concerts at the festival where all artists are treated equally – we do not have support group nor headliners.

Pictures’ credits:
  • Bojan at the last edition of Festival Todo Mundo, courtesy of Marija Vitas.
  • Cover picture of Todo Mundo at Facebook.

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EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK IS BORN

In the previous issue of this newsletter we announced the birth of the EFN, linked its website and noted the first meeting, planned for 28 & 29 November in Brussels. Mapamundi Música is founder member and I want to encourage the community to join too.

In this occasion we have had the chance to ask Nod Knowles, the administrator of the network, some questions to get in more detail into some points. If you haven´t checked the website, I recommend you to do it before reading the interview. It is here.

Nod Knowles, former President of Europe Jazz Network, has had an international career including as Head of Music at Scottish Arts Council, CEO of Bath Festivals, one of the founding organisers of the European Folk Network (EFN) – and also of the UK/Ireland Jazz Promotion Network (JPN) and, currently, initiator and manager of an artistic exchange programme with the Netherlands.
He has held a number of advisory roles (e.g. with British Council, Arts Council Northern Ireland and Arts Council Wales) and as an independent consultant for over 40 years he has worked with a wide range of artists and organisations in research, review, policy, funding, education, project management and artistic direction. 

 

Mapamundi Música: The EFN has been made public few weeks ago but the initial idea is much older, isn´t it? What is the background of this initiative? 
Nod Knowles: The genesis of the network originated after a research project – commissioned by the Burnsong organisation in Scotland – reported on the potential for establishing a Scottish-European base for the American folk music organisation Folk Alliance. Whilst the research found that proposition was not viable, it found one of several underlying reasons for this –  the surprising fact that there was no structure linking folk organisations in Europe (whereas most other aspects of music – e.g. jazz, opera – and the arts in general – had well-established, often EU-funded network structures).

That report and subsequent discussion papers and meetings on the idea of a European folk network were shared with delegates to various showcases and many European organisers were invited to informal consultations and meetings, as were officers from other UK and European agencies including British Council and Kunstenpunt (now Poppunt) from Flanders. The results of planning meetings from 2015 onwards had to be put on hold for at least two years due to purely temporary personal circumstances but in 2018 a small group took the initiative again and in early 2019 the network was formally structured and legally registered.

MM: A basic website that explains the aims and ambitions is already available but I’d like to ask you about one of the areas of activity, that I think is one of the biggest needs of our community: policy and advocacy. In previous issues of our newsletter it was mentioned the lack of representation in relevant contexts of policies. Is there already any concrete planned initiative related to this topic?
NK: The EFN will need to build up its contacts with policy makers in European countries and in pan-European agencies such as the EU. This will not happen overnight but will be the work of the next couple of years. Contact is already being made with various national and international authorities and EFN will place advocacy at the heart of future planning – its influence will strengthen as the network develops.

MM: Regarding the previous question, the EFN is registered in Brussels, I think that it is for obvious reasons of proximity with the European centers of decisions. Have you had any contact with any authority? If so, which feedback did you get?
NK: We are not yet in direct touch with EU authorities but that will be one of the key plans for the future (see the answer above).

MM: The EFN has already scheduled a meeting in Brussels for days 28 and 29 of November. Can you share with us any of the topics that will be discussed?
NK: The agenda for the conference will be shaped by the members – we are asking for suggestions and subjects but there will be plenty of opportunity to introduce subjects during the conference. Because it is a first meeting of the members, the agenda will focus on discussion of members’ priorities and realistic plans for future work

MM: Is there any profile of persons or organizations that the EFN is specially in need of?
NK: Just more members from every country in Europe – and not just EU countries but all of the continent, from Iceland to Russia to Portugal.

MM: And, finally, tell the readers why should they join the EFN.
NK: Members should look at the vision and aims of the network. By joining they contribute to the collective impact and voice of the network and can contribute to the work of the network.

The main benefits of membership are opportunities to meet, share and collaborate with others, increasing members’ own contacts, the collective influence of a strong sector, and the mobility of artists and organisers in Europe.

Thank you, Nod!

FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):
  • WOMEXTampere (Finland). 23rd – 27th October. We’ll have a table for Mapamundi Música at the booth of Sounds from Spain and a showcase by Monsieur Doumani on Thursday at 24h.
  • Torres Vedras (Portugal). 8th November. Festival Accordeões do Mundo, for the concert by Janusz Prusinowski Trio focused on harmonia polska.
  • Oslo (Norway). 14th-17th November, for Folkelarm.
  • Israel Showcase for Jazz and Worldwide Music. 20th-23th November. I will be in Tel Aviv and available for meetings on days 18-20, before the festival.
  • Brussels (Belgium). 28th-29th November, for the first meeting of the European Folk Network.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

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 #15 September 2019

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

I am sending this news from Perth, Scotland, where I am attending The Visit (event produced for Showcase Scotland Expo by Active Events), a professional meeting in which we are discovering Scottish artists and other Scottish delights.

Since the previous newsletter I have had some experiences about visa procedures -and specially now that I came to the UK- that, combined with the excruciating menaze of Brexit, made me think a lot about how privileged I am for been able to travel to so many countries so easily. My visa for South Korea was ready in 9 days, for Uzbekistan I didn´t even need visa and my nationality is in a Schengen zone country.

Summer festivities in Turkey made the visa procedure for Cüneyt Sepetçi and team to delay more than we expected. I felt almost to the edge of the infarct: they got the visas to Portugal only in the afternoon previous to their early morning flight. All the anxieties dissipated when they announced they got the visas and big joy arised when we meet at the airport in Lisbon for their concert in Tavira. In the picture, Cüneyt and me enjoy a dinner at the restaurant Os Arcos in Tavira. Check their magnificent concert, here.

We still have to wait to know how this of the Brexit will end… In the meantime, show must go on. Find below some thrilling news about a new radio show, a new European organization, one more little interview with a director of a festival -in this edition we “return” to Spain (you’ll understand very soon why the commas in “return”)- and many useful infos.
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 

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


Summary: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Braulio Pérez from Música en el Parque (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain)
· New not-for-profit organization for folk: welcome, European Folk Network!
· New radio show of traditional music in Radio Clásica-National Radio of Spain, by Juan Antonio Vázquez: 
A la Fuente

· Still open call: Acción Cultural Española, mobility grants application open in September
· Find me at…

**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. **
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.*

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH BRAULIO PÉREZ FROM MÚSICA EN EL PARQUE

Música en el Parque holds one concert per month, on Sunday at noon, it is family-oriented, open air in a park with magnificant vegetation in an island 1500 kms far from its Spanish mainland: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Braulio Pérez, from Amilkilómetros, is its director and creator. I am happy for sharing with you the insights of this brave colleague. Check the details at the website.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 
BP: In the case of Music in the Park we look for several things that seem basic to us. On one side, we want to offer to the public the different ways of approaching the music that each culture has, so it is important that the musical proposal is close to these cultural sources of their countries or regions of origin.We also take into account that our concerts are held on Sundays at noon, and that normally the audience wants to have fun and spend a joyful morning, with the mood that defines the Canaries. That is why we are looking for proposals according to this, that are cheerful.And finally, and most importantly, within our possibilities, we look for artists of great musical quality, of proposals that make the audience leave the concert with the desire to continue consuming this musical style, the World Music.
MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
BP: We pursue two main objectives:
  • Bringing proposals of World Music to the Canarian public that can hardly be seen on the islands. To make them understand that this style brings them different ways of seeing music, of feeling it and of playing it, always imbuid in the roots of each culture.
  • Our concerts are held on Sunday mornings. With this, we seek a family audience, to be able to show music to the children that provide them some experience and make them discover other cultures, other countries.

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

BP: Maybe the connections for the flights. We live in a wonderful and privileged place, but far from Europe. This implies an important cost in fights and forces us to have artists who are touring the continent at that time. This, in some months of the year, since we schedule a concert every month, makes it difficult to find proposals that fit date and style.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

BP: I guess sustainability. We are talking about an event that offers unknown artists to the public of the islands. Artists who could hardly come and get payed enough if they only depended on a box office. Here you can´t  by train or in a van while on tour. Here there are costs of tickets, hotels and transfers that, added to the artists’ caches, would make it unfeasible for them to come in a totally private festival.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

BP: An incredible island, the best climate in the world, an outdoor setting surrounded by greenery and the best artists of the World Music. What more can you ask?

Thank you, Braulio!
Pictures’ credits:

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


EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK IS BORN

In a previous issue of this newsletter I mentioned how world music and folk community was almost not represented in relevant contexts where politic decisions about culture in Europe are done. An initiative with aspirations of policy and advocacy was really needed and now we have a network with a formal structure that could channel the voices and visions of our community: the European Folk Network.

I first listened about this in September 2015. I was so expectant that I even went to Glasgow the next January just for a short meeting with this people. And finally, almost 4 years after, I knew it had become formal, it had a website with the aims, vision aspirations… Mapamundi Música is proudly a founder member and I am personally eager to attend the EFN’s first conference for all members, planned for 28 & 29 November in Brussels.

Please, don’t miss a visit to the website to learn more!


JUAN ANTONIO VÁZQUEZ PRESENTS A NEW RADIO SHOW FOR RADIO CLÁSICA-RNE: A LA FUENTE

It is great news to announce the birth of a new spot for the dissemination of traditional music from the peoples of the world. And if it is signed by someone so experienced and devoted as Juan Antonio Vázquez, the joy multiplies.

From 5th of October, every Sunday, Radio Clásica, channel of Radio Nacional de España (Spain’s national radio) will host A la Fuente (to the source). One hour dedicated to acoustic music from all over the world.

Juan Antonio has been doing radio for more than 30 years. He is my partner in Mundofonías and during Summer he is also doing La Ruta de las Especias (the spice road), also for Radio Clásica.

The picture, holding a Uzbek rubab, is done by me.

PICE, THE PROGRAM FOR MOBILITY BY ACCIÓN CULTURAL ESPAÑOLA (AC/E), OPEN CALL IN SEPTEMBER

Remember: during September, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) will have opened the application period to request support for the logistic expenses for booking a Spanish artist or expert, for events abroad taking place from January to June, both included. The official info is at their website.

From Mapamundi Música we have supported clients in previous editions, to fullfill the procedure, that is not complicated. The chances to get it are not 100% but note that the results are published around the 3rd week of October, so it allows you to opt for a plan B in case of need.

We offer you our Spanish band Vigüela, of course.


FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):
  • Perth (Scotland), where I am currently. 16th – 20th September. The Visit (event produced for Showcase Scothland Expo by Active Events).
  • Jeonju (South Korea). 29th September – 7th October. At Sori Festival, with the collaboration concert by Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabaté. In the meantime, my Vigüela will play in Festival Todo Mundo in Belgrade. I can´t attend and will miss it with sadness. It is an amazing program made with very good taste!
  • Fira Mediterránia de Manresa (Cataluña). 10th – 13th October. Mapamundi Música will have a stand and a showcase: Vigüela with the Valencia artists Apa and Eduard Navarro. Don’t you know Apa? He is one of the best singers of the world! Check here and ask me if you have any question.
  • WOMEX, yes. Tampere (Finland). 23rd – 27th October. We’ll have a table for Mapamundi Música at the booth of Sounds from Spain and a showcase by Monsieur Doumani on Thursday at 24h.
  • Torres Vedras (Portugal). 8th November. Festival Accordeões do Mundo, for the concert by Janusz Prusinowski Trio focused on harmonia polska.
  • Israel Showcase for Jazz and Worldwide Music. 20th-23th November.

More dates, in the next issue.

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! 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 #14 August 2019

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

This week is specially thrilling for me… Why? 

Our Mari Nieto, the female singer of Vigüela (in the picture), settled in a village of less than 2000 inhabitants, mother of 4 and grandmother of 4, told me once that she had two dreams: to visit Norway, and we got it, attending Førdefestivalen, and to visit Samarkand! She will have to renew her list of dreams… 

Next Saturday I travel with Vigüela to Sharq Taronalari, in Samarkand. We both cry of joy thinking about it… By the way, I will celebrate my birthday there, that is on 26th of August. Compliments will be welcome! 🙂

In Mapamundi Música we are not fullfulling dreams of our collaborators everyday but I believe we are provinding some beauty, brightness and understanding to our community and to the world. I can’t hide my gratitude to the ones that trusted us and joined us in their goals and visions.

Find below some useful infos, including the new period to apply for grants from Acción Cultural Española, the main insights after our first edition of Transiberia Mundi and, for the first time, an interview with a festival director for the USA: Tom Frouge, from Globalquerque. And much much more.

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

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: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Tom Frouge from Globalquerque (USA) 
· Post insights of Transiberia Mundi
· Open call: Acción Cultural Española, mobility grants application open in September
· Find me at…
· And Mapamundi’s concert calendar for September includes the 
premiere of an awesome Turkish artist in Portugal. Check below!


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


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


CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH TOM FROUGE FROM GLOBALQUERQUE

Globalquerque! is New Mexico’s Annual Celebration of World Music and Culture. It is held each September in Albuquerque (New Mexico), at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. This year 2019 it will celebrate its 15th edition. Check the details at the website.

 

It is very heartening to know that also at the USA there is people like Tom and his partner Neal Copperman that work with the vision of building bridges, crossing borders and tearing down walls. Thank you, guys, an much success for the 15th edition!

 

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

TF: That is a question we get a lot!  We program music from the very traditional to the very NOT traditional (check out our first announced confirmed acts!), so what is our criteria? The best answer I can give is that the artists that we select to perform on our stages, aside from being fabulous musicians and ready to perform on the festival circuit, must have at least a couple of toes artistically and creatively in the culture from which they come, regardless of how contemporary or cutting edge they may be. For example, you can be a hip hop artist from Palestine or an electronica artist from Argentina, but when your set is finished, we want our audience to say that was a killer ARGENTINE electronica artist or a fantastic PALESTINIAN hip hop artist and not simply, oh, that was a really good electronica artist that sings in Spanish or, I liked the hip hop group that sang in Arabic.  It is about being a great artist AND representing your culture.


MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

TF: This ties in somewhat to the answer to the first question. ¡Globalquerque! is all about cross-culture understanding through the arts. All our programming, from the music, to the outreach, to the films, to our international dance lessons, to our school program, right down to the food served in our Global Village Of Craft, Culture & Cuisine – todo – is about recognizing our similarities while exploring and celebrating our differences. It may sound cliche, but we believe the more you understand other cultures, the harder it is to bomb them!At ¡Globalquerque! we believe in the power of community and the power of the arts to build bridges. We strive to create a space where no person is “the other”. It’s a trip around a peace-filled, inclusive world. On top of all that, it is an adventure full of discovery and a monster 3-stage, 2-day, music party!

 

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
TF:  The new tax regulations in the US for visiting artists have been challenging. Some groups have postponed US tours in order to get a handle on the new realities, so we lost some we were in discussions with this year. Visas are always a potential issue, particularly in the unfortunate political climate we find ourselves in. Another challenge we sometimes run into that may be a bit unique to us is routing issues. New Mexico is a bit off the beaten track and sometimes it results in groups skipping us due to travel costs or logistics. The possible silver lining there is it has pushed us to look at creative solutions and alternate routing scenarios, such as acts coming up through México from the south, and that has yearly made our line up somewhat different than other festivals in our time period.

 

 

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?TF: First and foremost: funding. ¡Globalquerque! is a festival put on by a couple of guys. It is not put on by a city or university or big institution that has a yearly budget, set funding and a staff that are getting weekly paychecks. We rise or fall on our own. Each year we need to go out and procure funding from different sources to make the festival happen. It is truly a labor of love!Secondly, it is attracting new audience. The thing we hear over and over again from first time ¡Globalquerque! attendees is “I had no idea this festival was THIS!” It is a challenge to explain the scope of the festival on paper as it is such an experiential event. Once people experience it though, they are hooked. It’s moving the fence-sitters off the fence that we work hard at trying to accomplish.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

TF: It’s our Quinceañera! And ¡Globalquerque! is all about culture, identity, inclusion, diversity, discovery, building bridges, crossing borders, tearing down walls – and kicking up dust and howling at the harvest moon to some of the best music on the planet as the smell of lavender and roasting green chiles float on the New Mexico desert air.

Pictures’ credits:

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INSIGHTS POST TRANSIBERIA MUNDI

The picture of me at the top of this issue was took during my speech for musicians and newbie managers during Transiberia Mundi and here you have me and Carlos Gomes after the last act of this first edition. Picture by Elzbieta Kwinta.

As I have already sent specific info about this event, I will just direct you to the previous communication, that you can find here. And at the event at Facebook we were sharing picture and videos in real time.


PICE, THE PROGRAM FOR MOBILITY BY ACCIÓN CULTURAL ESPAÑOLA (AC/E), OPEN CALL IN SEPTEMBER

During September, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) will have opened the application period to request support for the logistic expenses for booking a Spanish artist or expert, for events abroad taking place from January to June, both included. The official info is at their website.

From Mapamundi Música we have supported clients in previous editions, to fullfill the procedure, that is not complicated. The chances to get it are not 100% but note that the results are published around the 3rd week of October, so it allows you to opt for a plan B in case of need.

We offer you our Spanish band Vigüela, of course, and also myself as a lecturer.


FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):
  • Spain, my homeland, where I am now for a few days: premiere of Wowakin Trio in Spain 🙂 23rd August at Festival Folk Plasencia.
  • Samarkand (Uzbekistan). 24th – 31st August. As mentioned above, with Vigüela at Sharq Taronalari.
  • Tavira (Portugal). 5th – 8th September. At the Mediterranean Diet Fair, with concerts byMonsieur Doumani and the premiere in the country by Cüneyt Sepetçi & Orchestra Dolapdere!
  • Perth (Scotland). 16th – 20th September. The Visit (event produced for Showcase Scothland Expo by Active Events).
  • Jeonju (South Korea). 29th September – 7th October. At Sori Festival, with the collaboration concert by Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabaté. My first time in South Korea and it is to attend this superb festival!
  • Fira Mediterránia de Manresa (Cataluña). 10th – 13th October. Mapamundi Música will have a stand and a showcase: Vigüela with the Valencia artists Apa and Eduard Navarro. Check here theresult of the first rehearsal.
Reward for work: baked rice,
Valencian style ?

 

  • WOMEX, yes. Tampere (Finland). 23rd – 27th October. We’ll have a table for Mapamundi Música at the booth of Sounds from Spain and a showcase by Monsieur Doumani on Thursday at 24h.
More dates, in the next issue.

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA CONCERT CALENDAR

Remember: Mapamundi Música’s concerts calendar is here at our website and also at ourFacebook events. In September we bring to Portugal an artist that I met in EthnoPort Poznan: the amazing Turkish Gypsy clarinetist Cüneyt Sepetçi & Orchestra Dolapdere! They will play at the Mediterranean Diet Fair in Tavira, at Algarve region, in Portugal, on 7th of September.

We are having much joy from Portuguese institutions lately. Apart of this and of Transiberia Mundi, in November we will have our first concert in Portugal with our beloved Janusz Prusinowski and his partners. More news soon!


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 #13 July 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s July’s monthly newsletter. I hope it will be a pleasant reading for you in an awesome Summer ⛱ . The insights of the collaborators are really worth of it.

These are the main topics:

· July is the month with more festivals in many countries in Europe. I am sending this newsletter from Ostrava, where I am attending the Czech Music Crossroads, before leaving to Germany for Horizonte Festival. Nice events list, below.

· So, planes and airlines are once more a day-to-day issue… I have to thank Juan Antonio Vázquez (whose radio show The Spice Road is featured below) for the scale model. It will be sufficient until I save enough for my red Bombardier Challenger

· My dear Sherezade will stay in the office until August, when she will travel to Calabria to eat much pizza and pasta to gather strenghts ? for Autumn challenges: we have showcases at the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa (Vigüela + the Valencian artists Apa and Eduard Navarro) and WOMEX (Monsieur Doumani). Yeah!

· On the other hand, a festival that takes place, not in Summer, but at the end of Winter, is the Mediterranean Music Festival in Switzerland, whose director, Alkis Zopoglou, is in this issue the interviewed in the series about challenges for festivals. By the way, he is a member of the Rodopi Ensemble, that will have their Spanish debut on day 18th of July in Palma de Mallorca! Interview, below.

· A brief mention to Mapamundi concert’s calendar is included. We have one more debut in Spain, by a Polish band. Guess which? Check below!

· And, in the previous issue you already met Carlos Gomes, from Transiberia Productions. We announced recently the concerts programme Transiberia Mundi, that we have developed together, with the fundings of the city council of Evora. Learn more about Carlos and about our Transiberia Mundi, here below.

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

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:
· Mini interview with festival manager: Alkis Zopoglou from Mediterranean Music Festival (Switzerland) 
· In depth: Carlos Gomes & inspirations for Transiberia Mundi
· Find me at…
· Mapamundi Música concerts calendar
· Mapamundi Música introduces: 
La Ruta de las Especias (The Spice Road) by Juan Antonio Vázquez

**** 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 

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)


MINI INTERVIEW WITH ALKIS ZOPOGLOU FROM MEDITERRANEAN MUSIC FESTIVAL 

There are several connections between Alkis and Mapamundi Música and it is a pleasure to collaborate with him in all senses. I first knew about him thanks to Antonis Antoniou, from Monsieur Doumani, who is a generous links creator, and introduced my band Vigüela to Alkis for the festival. They played in 2017. In 2018 it was the Portuguese quartet À Porta do Cante which was included in Alkis’s program. In 2019 it was the premiere of Rebetiko Meet Fado and Cante Alentejano.

The Mediterranean Music Festival in Switzerland takes place in February and/or March in Zurich and Bern. Its name is quite explicit about the topic. The focus is acoustic music, the performances are mostly in little venues, with the public very close to the artists, and with no amplification. Check the details at the website.

In the meantime, Alkis introduced me his band in which he plays kanun, Rodopi Ensemble, traditional acoustic music from the Greek Thrace, of which I felt in love inmediatly and started to work together about it and about the Greek-Portuguese project Rebetiko meets Fado & Cante Alentejano.

Rodopi will play for the first time in Spain next July 18th in Cançons de la Mediterrània, in Palma de Mallorca. They will also play at the Jagiellonian Fair, of which we talked in the previous issue, on 17th August.

So, grateful to Alkis for the kind answers. Without further ado, here you are the interview:

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

AZ: The most crucial issue in my opinion is to find a special and innovative musical idiom in each music ensemble, which will also be interesting for the audience of my festival.

Each music ensemble should have a clear cultural stance as a Mediterranean country and those next to them but at the same time it should present a spectacle in an authentic and honest way. And I’d like to emphasize this last issue particularly, as on the altar of spectacle and competition in the music market, many misinterpretations and exaggerations are being made, firstly from the artists themselves, while at the same time there is the pressure from the organizers to overcome the spectacle presented at their festivals.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

AZ: My first and most important concern is to highlight the musical idioms of the traditions of the population around the Mediterranean, which are truly many and very beautiful each, with their similarities and differences.

Another important point, as I am a musician myself and know very well how difficult it is for an artist to enter a market, is to give space to very special requests made especially from young artists.

Furthermore, especially at the Mediterranean Music Festival, which takes place in small venues during the winter, I aim to keep the sound authentic, to reach the audience’s ears as it is produced by the human voice or the musical instruments. That’s why I avoid making use of sound amplifiers during the concerts and this has been appreciated a lot by our audience so far. It’s like having a group of musicians in your home.

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

AZ:  Unfortunately the most difficult issues initially always have to do with the funding of such musical events.  There is a great difficulty in finding the financial resources but in any case I believe that the Swiss authorities are still supportive towards culture and whatever notable appears.

On a second level I believe that a great problem is the possibility, especially of small projects, to attract a sufficient number of listeners in order to have both happy, artists and organizers. It is a global phenomenon that the world is directed more and more by the brands, slowly losing its sense of personal judgement but also the wish to discover new things. We’re getting more and more used to find everything ready and this is stultifying us without even being conscious of it. I hope once we’ll wake up.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?AZ: Along with the issue I stressed before it’s a great challenge for me personally, using the festival as a vehicle, to awaken people who love music and make them get out of their homes, where they have almost everything available on a screen, getting them to know the great feelings that live music provides you and let them live in a world of interaction, that arises from the exchange of feelings between artists and audience.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
AZ: The “square”, which includes the creators in their real dimension together with the audience, ready to evaluate participating live in this process, is the basic principle of our culture, as it was born and started in Ancient Greece and travelled to the ancient theatres of all Mediterranean countries, which are still preserved up to this day and continue hosting similar activities after thousands of years.

As a Greek, I think I am totally involved with this cultural dimension of the phenomenon.

Our festival is a small cradle of culture and forms in its own way and by the forces it has, a healthy cultural view among the people visiting it. We are very glad that our audience speaks about the festival with enthusiasm and that’s why they‘ve all become warm supporters of it. There is certainly room for even more people who are always welcome.

Pictures’ credits:

  • Alkis portrait from his Facebook pictures
  • Stok theatre, in Zurich, one of the usual venues for the Mediterranean Music Festival. From the festival’s Facebook page.
  • Alkis dancing at the premiere of Rebetiko Meets Fado & Cante Alentejano, took from his website

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IN DEPTH: CARLOS GOMES AND INSPIRATIONS FOR TRANSIBERIA MUNDI

In June’s issue we presented Carlos Gomes, the founder and director of Transiberia Productions, cultural management company, settled in Lisbon. And the previous week I sent the mailing about Transiberia Mundi, the concert programme we have developed together and that will take place in the city of Evora from 1st to 4th of August, funded by the city council and part of the program Artes À Rua.

Carlos is an entrepreneur with a strong, inspiring and thrilling vision that I want to share with the community of world music. In the picture it is linked a little video (in Portuguese) with his statements about Transiberia Mundi, made after the presentation in Lisbon last 4th of July. And here below you’ll find his answers to this special questionnaire.

MM: In few words, what is Transiberia Productions?

CG: Transiberia is a cultural production company, created in 2015, focused on Ibero-American music and market, on a non-exclusive basis and open to other music and cultures of the world. Its activity includes the conception and production of shows, the organization, production and programming of festivals, music events and thematic parties, the cultural programming for other institutions, both public and privates, and the booking and management of artists.

MM: Which were your objectives when you created it? 

CG: Transiberia’s mission was always and continues to be to strengthen the relationship between Ibero-American producers, agents and artists, starting with our neighbouring country, Spain, and pursuing to enlarge its field of action to the countries from South and Central America, from a cosmovision that is Portuguese, inclusive, open to the other and to the world. 

MM: If is is not too secret, let us know your vision. 

CG: My vision and what I am most interested in working is based mainly on the awesome book by the Portuguese writer José Saramago, named “The Stone Raft”, that captures the human nature, especially the nature of the people from Iberian Peninsula after an extraordinary event: the segregation of the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe and its Atlantic drift. I understood it as a metaphor of the liberation of the Iberian Peninsula from that kind of political constraint that is to be considered as peripheral territory from the center of Europe. I think that the nature of Iberian people is close to the South American nature and I also believe that, if we overcome that hierarchical political organization of the world, especially of the navel-gazing of Europe, the relationship between cultures, mediated by the freshness of the Atlantic, it will be one of the centers of the future world. 

MM: What is your personal relationship with music? 

CG: My personal relationship with music comes mainly from an inner vibe and from the dance. For me good music doesn’t have to make me dance but must be able to make me vibrate. If it makes me dance, even better. I think that the union of music and dance is one of the happiest expressions of human beings. I think that a human being who likes to dance and can´t hold the vibration of music in his/her body is probably a good human being. 

MM: Tell us one or two of Transiberia’s main achievements.

CG: Two of the main achievements by Transiberia have been so far the creation of the Festival Emergente in Lisbon and the program Transiberia Mundi, in collaboration with Mapamundi Música.

The first one, because it emerged from a raising awareness of the responsibility of supporting and contributing to an unbelievable moment of creativity, production and expression that the Portuguese music is currently experiencing.

In the second case means the realization of an old ambition of having a Transiberian and transnational partnership that was born as Iberian and that would lead the way to something with an undefined scope, enhancing the name of the company and undertaking Samarago’s vision.

I’d like also to mention that it is of much and special joy to co-produce with EGEAC (cultural institution of Lisbon’s city council) the program “Dançar a Cidade” in Lisbon (to dance the city) which calls its citizens to dance several dance styles of the world in the public spaces. I love to dance and to provide the others the joy of dance is extremely rewarding.

MM: Which is your next dream to be fullfilled? 

CG: I can´t unveil my next dream yet. But I can say that it will be a transnational project out of Lisbon.

Thank you, obrigado, gracias, Carlos. 

 


FIND ME AT…
I take advantage of my next weeks calendar to share some nice events with the community. By the way, we can meet there, drop me a line:
  • Ostrava (Czech Republic). Czech Music Crossroads + Colors of Ostrava. 15th to 18th July. As speaker. I will be part of the listening and comment session and of the panel Touring Guide for Germany, Austria, Spain and Israel.
  • Koblenz (Germany). Horizonte Festival. 19th July. What a pleasure to attend this festival for which I will travel with Vigüela! Also other of our collaborators, Monsieur Doumani and Don Kipper, are programmed in this festival. Yeah!
  • Bled (Slovenia). Okarina Festival, 23th July. My first time at the country and it will be also with Vigüela.
  • Bielsk Podlaski & Białystok (Poland). Festival Podlaska Oktawa Kultur. 27th and 28 July, also with Vigüela and thanks to the agency Wodzirej PL.
  • Evora (Portugal). 1st to 4th August. Series Transiberia Mundi, programmed by Transiberia Productions and Mapamundi Música, and part of the program Artes À Rua by the municipality of the city. I will be honoured by making a conference too.
  • Lublin (Poland… my second country). 16th August, Warsaw, 17th August Lublin for theJagellonian Fair. How could I miss the concert by Rodopi Ensemble and the night of dance directed by Janusz Prusinowski Kompania in the same city the same day. Top masters of their traditional music! ?
  • Spain, but I must include it as it will be the premiere of Wowakin Trio in Spain 🙂 23rd August.
  • Samarkand (Uzbekistan). Last week of August. Yes, I wanna cry of joy. More, soon.
  • Perth (Scotland). 16th – 20th September. The Visit (event produced for Showcase Scothland Expo by Active Events). Really looking forward it!
More dates, in the next issue.

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA INTRODUCES… THE SPICE ROAD, AT RADIO CLÁSICA, SPAIN’S NATIONAL RADIO. BY JUAN ANTONIO VÁZQUEZ

For the second year, this Summer Juan Antonio Vázquez is doing the radio show La Ruta de las Especias (the spice road) for Radio Clásica, of Spain’s National Radio. As the name indicates, it is focused on music of Orient, or, as he likes to say, “the many Orients”. Click the picture to listen 2018’s editions and also the new ones, in August and September:

As you probably know, with Juan Antonio I make the radio show Mundofonías, our own production, broadcasted in 17 countries in 46 radio stations.


MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA CONCERT CALENDAR

Very brieftly: our concerts calendar is here at our website and also at our Facebook events. And, apart of Rodopi Ensemble’s, I want to highlight the debut of a Polish band in Spain. It will be on 23rd of August and they are WoWaKin Trio, known for many of our community as they performed in WOMEX Katowice 2017.


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


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


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 #12 June 2019

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

Greetings from Alcorcón, the city where we are settled, 12 kms far from Madrid on the way to our beloved Portugal. I will stay here for two weeks, preparing a July with travels to five European countries…

This last weekend I was at the festival 5 Continents, in Martigny, Switzerland. I will review it brieftly at Mundofonías soon but I must say now what a great work of the festival’s team and what a deep vision of how a festival can be a tool for developement of the communities in many senses. And, for me, it has been super inspiring and a real strengthener for my challenges to come.

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: Mini interview with festival managers: Karolina Waszczuk and Bartek Drozd from Jagiellonian Fair (Poland) – Mapamundi introduces… Transiberia Productions – Find me in… – It worths its own section: WOMEX‘s first confirmations

**** 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 
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)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH KAROLINA WASZCZUK AND BARTEK DROZD FROM JARMARK JAGIELLOŃSKI (JAGIELLONIAN FAIR)

The approach to traditional art nowadays is very delicate. Quite often, we listen artists saying that they “evolve” the tradition and many times there is a big lack of deep knowledge and understanding of that tradition that they claim to evolve. And the result is a watered-down product that upholds itself by means of romantic ideas of a lost time of rural innocence… instead of by means of the music and its own aesthetic quality.

Perhaps, the situation in Spain is worse than in other countries, as it seems to be a clear disdain for whatever music comes from the rural world… unless if it is “modernizated” and supposedly adapted for a contemporary audience that would reject the traditional music by itself. My experience says another thing. The public is not interested in those halfway products supported by a self-embarrassment rhetoric.

That’s why this interview makes me very happy. The Jagiellonian Fair takes place in Lublin, at the East of Poland, from 16th to 18th of August in this edition, and its young team has some clear ideas and wise vision about how to create a frame for tradition in a recreational urban contemporary environment. Probably that’s why they gather thousands of people with a concerts program based mainly in quite not commercial shows. Check more at the website.

Karolina Waszczuk is the director of the festival and Bartek Drodz is the programme manager. These are their answers to the mini-interview. Thank you! 


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

Karolina Waszczuk: An important aspect that we take into account when selecting groups or artists to invite is awareness of tradition and traditional music. We look at how they are represented and how their elements are used and processed. We value artists who research traditional culture on their own and know cultural contexts. That makes their messages stronger and clearer.

Bartek Drozd: One of the key values is the sense of community, place, music and especially people themselves. The programme is created in a way that makes it possible for several worlds to meet: the world of the authentic, roots village culture, the one that reconstructs traditional music and the one that uses and performs it on a conceptual level. There is a kind of mutual respect that allows us to look at traditional music cultures in various ways, while at the same time, it brings out their never-changing values, uniqueness and improvisations. I think that respect for one’s own culture is a key element, and at the same time, it is the bridge between these worlds.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

Karolina Waszczuk:  We show traditional cultures of many, often distant, regions and yet we find shared elements, patterns, symbols, techniques. We want to show that culture has no borders; borders are created by the system. Language is not a barrier but a means of communication. We encourage learning about traditional culture through different areas, we pay attention to its continuation, its current state, and the inspirations it activates.

Bartek Drozd: One of  the most incredible qualities of traditional culture is its universality and timelessness. Many elements repeat, often on several levels and they become the driving force behind new activities. In Poland we continue to see the incredible colours of traditional culture and how they interweave. An unattractive, old, dusted thing gains new value. The element of surprise we try to sneak into our activities allows us to look at traditional music in a completely different, yet still the same, context.

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

Karolina Waszczuk:  Like many festivals, we struggle most of all with financial issues. We are eager to do many things, but the budget limits us. The festival is free, none of the events are ticketed. The Fair, where we meet folk artists selling and presenting their crafts is free of charge for them. We cover the costs of their stalls and accommodation. We do not treat the artists as merchants; we invite real artists who form unique niches. They often spend many long days on their creations – making them requires knowledge, skill and experience. We want to show that what the artists invited to the Fair offer is authentic, genuine and one of a kind.

Another frequent problem is the lack of understanding on the part of those who are not invited to the Fair. As Organisers, we select artists whose work is of interest to us, we do not invite commercial merchants, and not every amateur artist is guaranteed a place at the Festival. We have a limited number of places and a restricted space so we cannot always invite all the artists from previous years, especially when we want to make room for new artists and present new regions. The choices we make are tough.

Bartek Drozd: Another challenge is also, in a sense, educating the attendees. Many of them approach tradition superficially, be it music or art. We encounter a lot of situations where we try to explain why some proposals related to music or art and crafts cannot appear at our festival. It is a difficult task but yields good results, as we can observe from the 13 years of the Jagiellonian Fair.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

Karolina Waszczuk: With a festival as big as this one, there are a great many challenges. One of them is how to show traditional culture in a setting that is not its natural habitat. How to show the character, appearance and function of respective aspects of cultural phenomena in the most authentic way, but one that’s adjusted to the space and the setting of the festival. In Poland, traditional culture is still considered inferior as there is a lack of education in this area.

Bartek Drozd: It’s a challenge, but at the same time our mission and an important task. We pay attention to quality, detail, elements. We observe a tendency to treat traditional culture superficially. And yet, it is only in the depth of traditions, year by year, step by step that we get to know its real value and meaning. And not just us, I hope, but also our audiences. And I think this is a great challenge that requires responsibility and we are aware of it.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
It is the best interdisciplinary festival in Poland where you can discover traditional music in very different ways and get to know, through workshops and meetings, traditional culture, music, children’s games, authentic crafts and folk art of about 300 artists from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania or Slovakia.

Pictures’ credits:


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MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA INTRODUCES… 

Carlos Gomes, who you see at this amazing picture by Ivo Canelas, is the founder and director of Transiberia Productions, cultural management company, settled in Lisbon.

Our careers share the fact that in a certain point of time, we changed our professional path: me, from psychology and human resources management, he, from architecture. Both of us, caught in a dream where music would be the pillar of our lifes. And the dream is coming true.

Maybe it is was just a matter of time that we found each other and started to collaborate. In the next issue of this newsletter you’ll know more but, in the meantime, check Transiberia’s Facebook and like it to know more!


FIND ME IN…
Some dates of interest for the international audience could be:
  • Førde (Norway). Førdefestivalen‘s 30th edition!!! Happy birthday! I am so blessed for attending this edition, as media in this occasion.
  • Ostrava (Czech Republic). Czech Music Crossroads + Colors of Ostrava. 15th to 18th July. As speaker.
  • Koblenz (Germany). Horizonte Festival. 19th July. What a pleasure to attend this festival for which I will travel with Vigüela! Also other of our collaborators, Monsieur Doumani and Don Kipper, are programmed in this festival. Yeah!
  • Bled (Slovenia). Okarina Festival, 23th July. My first time at the country and it will be also with Vigüela.
  • Białystok (Poland). Festival Podlaska Oktawa Kultur. 27th and 28 July, also with Vigüela and thanks to the agency Wodzirej PL.
  • Evora (Portugal). 1st to 4th August. Series Transiberia Mundi, part of the programArtes À Rua by the municipality of the city.
More dates, in the next issue.

WOMEX RELEASES THE FIRST LIST OF SHOWCASES

Their application periods ended weeks or months ago and while we wait for the complete line up of Visa for Music, Fira Mediterrània de Manresa and many other useful dates, with more news announced for next Thursday, these are the already public confirmations for WOMEX. Congratulations to the selected ones and the jury! See you there, I have already booked Mapamundi Música’s table at Sounds from Spain umbrella booth!

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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 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 #11 May 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s May’s monthly newsletter. I am a bit exhausted after arranging flights for many musicians and destinations… and remembering the last flight’s quarrel at the check-in desk. And at the Canadian Music Week I verified once more that I am not alone… Check below to discover why.

Apart of this, this issue includes one more mini interview about the challenges for festivals, in this case with Mads Olesen, from 5 Continents festival, and some more topics. 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: Mini interview with festival director: Mads Olesen from 5 Continents (Switzerland) – Mapamundi Música shares: tips for flying with instruments, by Folk Alliance – Find me in… – New (and still) open calls.

**** 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 

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)

 

MINI INTERVIEW WITH MADS OLESEN FROM 5 CONTINENTS

Its complete name is Festival des 5 Continents and takes place in Martigny, Switzerland. This year’s edition will happen from 13th to 16th of June and I will attend for the first time. I am eager!

The concerts program is splitted in Concerts World and Concerts Local Global. The names are quite meaningful: international artists and artists settled locally, doing world music, respectively, and two different and complementary objetives. Check more at the website.

Mads Olesen is the Délégué aux Affaires culturelles at Martigny and his words are very enlightening about the spirit of a festival like this, a spirit that probably most of us, involved in the world music in any role or position, share. Thank you for your answers, Mads!

MM – What do you search in an artist when you program? 
MO – Artistic quality within « Worldmusic », passion, authencity and the capacity to transmit his/her music to the public.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
MO – The Festival of the 5 Continents exist since 1994 and we can put out two main ideas: The first one is to permit our public to discover world music and cultures from all over the planet. The next one is to engage ourself through the festival for a better « together-living ». (Martigny is a small city in the Alps but 35% of the population comes from abroad and we are 110 nationalities living together). The festival is a symbol of peaceful together-living.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
MO – The Festival is completely free, all concerts are free. To offer this, we have to do a big job to find money and to raise funds. We did it for 26 years. But every year this is a hard business. But the result is that everybody can come and listen for free to more then 30 concerts, events, art exhitions…All the communities in the town are working with the Festival. We serve thousands of meals and this is done in favour of the Festival. It is a quite a hard organisation, BUT the result is solidarity and local engagement. This year we start up an ecological process to make the Festival a real sustainable event with recycling on all levels,…
MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours? 
MO – To offer a high level artistic quality program together with the fact that the Festival is free. To keep a high level of local engagement in an international event (about 100 artists from 20 countries, 15 communities in 2019).
MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival. 
MO – A Festival with a high degree of friendliness, free world class music in the middle of the Alps.

 

Picture: super nice of Mads’s Facebook former profile picture.

 


MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA SHARES…

The tips for flying with instruments, and more news, by the Folk Alliance International! 

Being us, the people involved on live music, one of the most regular clients of the flight companies, it is depressing how badly we are treated many times when flying with instruments. No matter if they are hold baggage or hand baggage: the problems will probably show up.

At the Canadian Music Week I had the pleasure to talk with Aengus Finnan, executive director of the Folk Alliance International (at the picture) and to discover this guide with deep and useful information for flying with instruments not to miss by musicians and managers.

Aengus told me also about the Nordic Folk Alliance Conference 2019 that is a milestone in the organization’s internationalization, and about which you’ll learn more in their newsletter of May, to which you can also subscribe. In parallel, the conference of Folk Alliance International will take place in New Orleans in January 2020. 

FIND ME IN…

Some dates of interest for the international audience could be:
More dates, in the next issue.

 

CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS

These professional fairs and festivals have applications open right now: