How are you? I hope for the best. I’m doing very well, with an exciting summer ahead of me, as it used to be. I think that the situation with the price of energy is not being, at least for now, a decisive brake to resume the musical gatherings as they were.

Two weekends ago I had the great pleasure of accompanying Hudaki Village Band at their concert in Ethnoport (Poznań, Poland). They were able to leave Ukraine to perform, with the permission of the Ministry of Culture, and to do something that right now has much more meaning than an usual concert. From what I have experienced before, the audience in Ethnoport is devoted and appreciative in general, so you can imagine how they went all out for the band. Well, don’t imagine: check it here. I could not miss this date full of emotions and give them a hug, to see them healthy and strong was a gift. Prior to that, I had a very interesting experience, of which I elaborate much below. I hope you’ll find this info and insights of interest.

This section may be of less interest to colleagues outside Europe, but I am not sure. I recently had a conversation with a colleague about the different approach to some concepts in Europe and the US and I think this kind of analysis is also interesting even if it does not apply directly to you.

So, prior to travelling to Ethnoport I had the good fortune to attend the annual meeting of the European Music Council as a representative of the European Folk Network (EFN). I’m just a board member of the EFN but the administrator and the chairman couldn’t make it, so I went. It was a curious experience to see how this kind of organisations think, how they spend their time and resources. We had a session about Music Moves Europe, which was of particular interest to me. If you remember, in November 2018 I dedicated some reflections on this. This is that edition. I can’t believe it’s been almost 4 years since I talked about this.

Shortly before this meeting, the results of the MusicAIRE call for proposals had been sent out. I have already spoken about this call for grants in several editions, the first one in February this year. You can read it here. The colleagues around hadn’t got the support of MusicAIRE, the same as the EFN. Although this initiative of Music Moves Europe started a long time ago, activities are still ongoing. I stated at that time in 2018 that I did not see that our world musics sector was represented and that Europe’s diversity was not reflected either in the list of organisations invited to the talks or in the European Border Breakers Awards, which had been presented in the past.

At the meeting, it was made clear that the initiative Music Moves Europe was originally industry-oriented. Although there are many of us working with world musics and we reflect the diversity, that is so much advocated in that frame, we clearly do not have much weight in the industry. Has the focus of Music Moves Europe evolved over the years? Probably yes, at least because of the impact of the pandemic and the need to digitise. What about the diversity of styles, traditions and languages? You can find the current presentation of Music Moves Europe here. And the related document A European music export strategy: final report, here. It is an extensive work on the creation of the strategy and how to implement it, but not a conclusion on the results yet. The expected results are announced on page 110. They are described in a qualitative way so I don’t know how they will be measured. This aspect of the measure is mentioned, albeit not in detail for the time being, on page 101, as one of the 6 big activities that shall be developed.

And here is a document about the music projects that have received support between 2014 and 2020 from Creative Europe. There is a section dedicated to Traditional Music/World Music & Cultural Heritage. Well, it’s very interesting, because for example there are threes projects that I’ve talked about here before, which are 2020Troubadours, Migratory Music Manifesto and MOST. There are others that I haven’t talk about, like Polyphony Project, that are deep and enriching and don’t seem to be focused on the industry.

I had direct experience of Migratory Music Manifesto last September in Cologne. I wrote about it, here. And about MOST I have talked on many occasions and there is an interview with András Sőrés, project manager, and Balázs Weyer, programme director, here. In addition, one of the professional activities mentioned below takes place within the framework of MOST: WOMBA. I hope that this all-encompassing, huge project will succeed in creating that bridge they want, a solid bridge, lasting at least as long as the Segovia aqueduct, for Balkan music to the rest of Europe. Only time will tell, but what I see already is that great professionals with powerful ideas are managing to incorporate their vision in these types of instances. Much respect!

About the Music Moves Europe Awards, heir of the European Border Breakers Awards, the winners of 2022 have been Denise Chaila (Irish-Zambian rapper in English), ДEVA (Hungary, kind of chill out music with folk inspiration, in Hungarian), Mezerg (France, electronic without lyrics), Blanks (Netherlands, pop with aesthetics of the 80’s, in English), and Alina Pash (Ukraine, commercial sounding pop, mainly in Ukrainian with some phrases in English). And the Grand Jury Prize was awarded to Meskerem Mees (from Belgium with origin in Ethiopia, singer-songwriter in English) and the Public Choice award was won by Ladaniva (Armenia, soft pop-world mainly in Armenian). There seems to have been an improvement on this issue, at least in terms of languages, compared to what was said in 2018.

• Mobility grants to book Spanish artists, by Acción Cultural Española. The dates and conditions for this grants have been dramatically enhanced. The official information is here.