Summary 👇
- Editorial and Czech Music Crossroads
- Talk with Nabil Canaan, from Station Beirut and Shuruq Music
- Best New Talent Award 2023, By Upbeat Platform
- Talk At WOMEX: Reshaping The Narrative. Gender, Authority And New Approaches To Music Journalism
- A Personal Farewell to Mad Sheer Khan
- Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
- Open calls and more news from professional events 💼
- Meet me at ✈️
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Hello, how are you? I am well and also full of very diverse emotions. Haha, yes, that is the same as the beginning of the previous edition. But the photo is not the same. This flyer was made by the Upbeat team on the occasion of my participation as a judge in the Best New Talent competition. I talk about it below.
This July edition is coming out a little late for a number of reasons.
I’m writing from home, in Alcorcón, between returning from Palma de Mallorca for Yiannis Dionysiou’s concert (wow, what a level, it was an artistic highlight of my life) and travelling again, to Sweden in this case, for Ali Doğan Gönültaş’s participation in the Urkult festival.
With Ali I spent an important part of July in Spain and Germany. I leave you below a short video of his participation in the Polirítmia festival in Valencia, with the collaboration as guest artist of the versatile and skilful Eduard Navarro.
➡️ This photo with Ali was taken by Fırat, his clarinet player, at the Café Barbieri in Madrid, a café that is 121 years old. It’s not all about work!
Well, in conclusion, this month has been awesome. It started even in Ostrava for the Czech Music Crossroads…
🟨 Czech Music Crossroads 🟨
This professional meeting took place in Ostrava from 28 June to 1 July. As I mentioned earlier, Mapamundi Música sponsored the participation of Spain as the guest country, with performances by Vigüela, Xabi Aburruzaga and Xurxo Fernandes. I chose three artists from three of the cultures that make up my country of birth. Besides them, I especially enjoyed the concerts of two of the bands from Slovenia, which was the other guest country: the very young Gugutke and the more experienced and also extraordinary Teo Collori & Momento Cigano. And also Sutari, the Polish women’s trio, who also won the Crossroads professional award.
Besides the concerts there was also a series of talks. Among them, I myself spoke on behalf of Transglobal World Music Chart, together with Milan Tesař, coordinator of World Music Charts Europe, about both initiatives. Svenja Mahlstede gave a very interesting talk about sync licensing. Piotr Pucyło gave a series of practical tips for artists and managers on issues such as technical rider and photography.
In addition, there were formal and informal moments for the exchange of ideas. I have captured one of them in a very specific way: the conversation with Nabil Canaan during the speed datings. I had not planned to interview him beforehand, but as soon as we started talking I understood that it was of great interest to give him space here. So he is the protagonist of this edition.
In this picture you have all or almost all the international delegates and part of the Crossroads team:
I hope you enjoy the content. I think it is very interesting. And as always, if you have something to share with the global community that is dedicated in one way or another to these musics, let me know.
Remember: if you have any news of interest for our community, let me know. Thank you very much for your attention.
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82
AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: NABIL CANAAN
While you read, listen to the the playlist of Shuruq Sessions, here 🎧
It is quite obvious that I have been thinking for some time about the situation in many parts of the world regarding the access of artists to the so-called world music circuits and how there are various mechanisms of exclusion.
The economic ones are very obvious, of course. The other day I was talking to Ali Doğan Gönültaş in the van after his concert at the SoNna Festival, about the money that has to be advanced for flights and other aspects before receiving payment from the festival. In Spain practically no public entity pays in advance, not even for travel expenses, so the agent or the artist has to advance all that money. If they can’t, they will be excluded from that program because the regulation is very strict in these respects.
There are administrative barriers as well. Last year I helped a colleague from Italy to issue an invoice, fulfilling the bureaucratic requirements of his client, a Spanish municipality. Even within the EU itself it was a pain to get the invoice issued, imagine if you don’t have a European agent.
And of course, there is the issue of visas, an extra source of stress.
All these limitations apply to artists who are somehow in the “industry”. Many others will not even come to deal with them and will never transcend into the international arena. I’m fine with that if that’s what they want and if they can make a living in their local or national market. In many cases this is not the situation.
All this is to say that I found it very interesting to talk to Nabil Canaan about his initiatives. You will understand very soon. I met Nabil Canaan during the last edition of Czech Music Crossroads that took place in Ostrava from 28th of June to 1st of July. In his profile as delegate of the event he is presented as “co-founder of Station Beirut arts platform, director of its cultural centre in Beirut, producer of its international projects. After an earlier career in marketing and technology, Nabil pivoted into the creative industries twenty years ago as a cultural change agent in journalism, film and arts.” The complete profile is available here.
Before reading the interview, it is useful to check out the platform Shuruq Music, that is mentioned below. And the website of Station Beirut.
Mapamundi Música: You are the founder of the cultural center Station Beirut. You are Lebanese, aren’t you?
Nabil Canaan: I was born in Lebanon. I’ve lived in Nigeria, Switzerland, France, New York, Cyprus… I’ve worked with Japanese companies, Korean companies… and we opened Station in an old wood factory in Beirut in 2013.
MM: 10 years ago. Is it your job currently?
NC: Yes, I’m the director, booker, I handle artistic direction and other management roles as well.
MM: And when you decided to make this, I suppose you were taking some risks… Because you have been working in places, let’s say, economically developed and without any problems, with a lot of regulations and so. Why did you want to make this?
NC: I’ve been working for about 30 years. First ten years I worked in corporate environments in marketing and technology and then after that, I was looking for something more meaningful in life. So I moved into journalism (with The New York Times in New York), film, and development, working with UN agencies on projects in West Africa, Levant region and North Africa. Combining all that with my partner at the time we said “okay, what can we do within the Middle East/North Africa region through arts and culture to try and advance some social aspects?”.
We decided to set up Station with a mission of “arts and culture for social transformation”. We deliver this through our programming in visual arts, live arts, and via more mainstream events like urban markets and stand-up comedy. All of it is geared towards programming artists with a social practice, meaning people who have socially engaged arts projects that address human rights, women’s rights, gay rights, the environment… Projects that invite critical thinking towards social and political change.
We worked a lot with photography, film, video art, visual arts in general… And on the live side our core focus is Music, but we also program theatre, stand up and storytelling, looking to identify and present the next generation of artists from the region who are collectively trying to make some change. We work in a region where, in general, there’s a lot of censorship, where there are still some conservative views. There are, you know, infrastructural issues as well. There’s a lack of, let’s say, professional structures and market linkages for exports. So there’s a lot of potential for development, to say it positively.
Given my development background working on sector strengthening projects, in 2019 we created the concept for a platform called “SHURUQ”, which in Arabic means sunrise, a metaphor for emerging talents, new beginnings, moving towards the light. The idea for the Shuruq platform is to identify, elevate and transmit music productions from the SWANA* region to the world.
* Swana: South West Asia/North Africa.
MM: For my newsletter I am trying to talk about these issues that affect the music… You have talked about censorships. For instance, I work with an artist with whom I’m facing this situation because of his background and the place where he lives, he faces discrimination for several reasons. When I started with him, I didn’t really know about him, but we must face the visa issue, we have the Schengen visa for one year, so it’s going quite well with him. He sings in minority languages. About the censorship, he has suffered cancellations of concerts… But let’s continue about Station Beirut and Shuruq.
NC: Keep in mind that during the past three weird years living through corona, in Lebanon you have to add revolution, economic meltdown, explosion of the Beirut port, the dramatic 90% devaluation of the currency, exodus of talent… It’s really a lot of challenges for a small country. We’ve also had the Syria war next door since 2011, with over 2 million refugees in Lebanon. There are a lot of issues still going on.So, in the midst of all these challenges, we created Shuruq Music Platform as a way to elevate and transmit artists and music productions from the region to the rest of the world. Shuruq is built on four pillars: there’s a Capacity Building/Training side, there’s a Content Production side, Music Marketing and International Bookings. We’ve already delivered a set of trainings, produced live performance music videos and we launched a Shuruq Music YouTube channel that you can follow. Shuruq is also of course on Instagram, Spotify, Anghami and the other main DSPs.In November 2022 I reopened our Station venue in Beirut to restart presenting live music. We’ve booked about 16 bands since, about two concerts a month. It’s what the country can handle right now. People don’t mind going clubbing but live concerts…that’s more challenging. We have to re-engage audiences. I think this week we found out that everyone’s having challenges with audiences.
What we’re looking to develop now are bookings. We started already last year at The Great Escape in the UK by booking Rasha Nahas, a Palestinian artist based in Berlin. Last week we booked Lebanese hip-hop artist El Rass in Canada, two dates in Toronto and Montreal. In September we’re booking a band at the Arabesques Festival in Montpellier, France, and in October, three bands at Les Docks in Lausanne, Switzerland… We want to help promote not just from Lebanon, but from across the southern Mediterranean region and Levant. We’re looking to build partnerships for export development, first within the region, then across the Mediterranean, Balkans, onto Western Europe and beyond.
We’re very confident that there’s a lot of very good talent in this region. What they need is to understand better how to export, how to develop export strategies, how to package that, how to start building circuits and networks of venues, festivals, helpful people around us. I think today for the music industry there’s probably two areas of growth: technology and emerging markets. Latin America is doing a good job. In Africa generally they are also working well, key markets being obviously Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Uganda. But I think the third region that’s the next growth area is what we call SWANA: Southwest Asia – North Africa. This covers the North African countries from the Maghreb all the way across to the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq), the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Emirates and beyond into Turkey and the Caucasus countries like Armenia, Georgia and the like… By calling it Swana, and not Middle East, North Africa, it allows us to also go beyond Arabic-speaking music alone, to include Kurdish, Berber, Turkic languages, Farsi, Armenian, etc, where there is a shared history, shared culture, food, instruments and somehow the microtonal modal sounds, which we can find even here actually in the Czech Republic. Two bands ago that we were listening to I was sitting next to the Tunisian percussionist, Imed Alibi who was saying to me “Man, this sounds like it comes from our region”, talking about the rhythms by the East European band.
“It has been 20 years of “Arab equals terrorist”, which is wrong obviously. We have always worked to change perceptions internationally through the arts and culture.”
So obviously if you go into Spain, 700 years of Arab presence, there’s a lot of references that you can also find in Flamenco. We think this mixture of culture is way overdue. We need to know that the time for getting people from this region to the West is now. And thankfully the stigmatization of Arabs seems like it’s diminishing somewhat. It has been 20 years of “Arab equals terrorist”, which is wrong obviously. We have always worked to change perceptions internationally through the arts and culture. So we now look forward to partnering with people who share the same values.
I am very grateful to Nabil for the conversation. Before I say goodbye, I want to share something about one of the artists he mentioned, Rasha Nahas, in a collaboration with Dina Elwedidi:
BEST NEW TALENT AWARD 2023, BY UPBEAT PLATFORM
As mentioned above, I had the honour to be part of the jury for the Best New Talent Award in the framework of Upbeat Platform, together with Balázs Weyer from Hangvető and Chris Eckman from Glitterbeat.
Between the three of us we came up with a list of 10 artists who met the criteria to be considered “emerging” and who had performed at one of the events that make up the platform. Click the picture to watch a video with the nominees ➡️.
What are these events? You have them here. And what were those criteria? Literally:
“The performer has to fit at least 5 of the following conditions:
● max 3 albums released
● max 5 years passed since the release of their first album
● no more than 20.000 followers on either of their social media channels
● the average age of band members does not exceed 35 years
● had at least one concert in a professional setting
● the band did not go on an international tour of 10 gigs
● the band does not have a contract with a non-national record label
● the band has an up-to-date web presence (website, social media)
The nominated artists also have to be legal residents in any country participating in the
Creative Europe programme.”
And now the voting is open to everyone, here, until 12 September. The vote gives you the chance to win a double pass for the Tallinn Music Week. The chosen band will get the chance to perform at the PIN MUSIC Conference & Showcase & to record a clip with the mighty La Blogothèque in Paris.
TALK AT WOMEX: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE. GENDER, AUTHORITY AND NEW APPROACHES TO MUSIC JOURNALISM
This week WOMEX has announced the conference program. It is going to be the first time that I actually participate in this WOMEX activity and I am very happy to do it with two tremendous colleagues: Martyna van Nieuwland and Andrea Voets. Click on their names to read a bio.
Specific day and time details will be announced at a later date.
And another conference I’d like to highlight
I would like to mention another conference in which I am not going to participate but with which I have a certain relationship because it was born within the European Folk Network, of which I am a member of the board. The conference is “Archives: Living Heritage or History? Using archives and assessing their value to a contemporary scene” and it will be chaired by Nod Knowles, the coordinator of the European Folk Network, with Miklós Both (Hungary) from the Hungarian Heritage House, Mariet Calsius (Belgium) from CEMPER – Center for Music and Performing Arts Heritage and Prof. Simon McKerrell (Scotland).
A PERSONAL FAREWELL TO MAD SHEER KHAN
In 2005 there was no Mapamundi Música. But I was already working on these things and I had the opportunity to bring Mad Sheer Khan to perform in Spain for his first time. Specifically, to Murcia Tres Culturas. He was the first international artist I brought to perform in my country. I knew his work from the album 1001 Nights. You can listen to it here.That concert was in quartet formation, with Celia, his wife and harmonium player from France, a Cuban percussionist and one from Congo. Some time later, with Mapamundi, I worked with him again on several occasions.
Mad Sheer Khan has been a very particular artist, with a very special life and professional career. His voice has always been deeply pacifist. On his website you have more information.
This week I learned of his death at the age of 67. I didn’t expect it, really. In recent years we have not had much contact. His last album was in 2012. I think he’s been sick for a while until this fatal end. Several artists have passed away lately. Everyone is talking about Sinead O’Connor. Her decease is pity, without a doubt. Ceferina Banquez, the queen of bullerengue, has also passed away at the age of 80. Some people talk about her. I’m sorry too. Thanks to all three. It will take you a long time to be forgotten.
BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS
- #1 forTransglobal World Music Chart in July 2023 is: London Ko by Fatoumata Diawara (Fatoumata Diawara)
- Mundofonías: our three favourites of the month are Sourdurent’s L’herbe de détourne, the compilation Afghan music in exile: Mashhad 2022 [V.A.] and Saîdê Goyî’s Jinê.
OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS
If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know.
Festival Au Fil des Voix. Paris. Deadline: 31 of August. “The shows are selected from artistic proposals related to recent discographic news (physical release of the album in France between February 2023 and January 2024).” Check the terms and conditions, here. In the previous edition I shared more information and reflections about this event.
MEET ME AT
Next week, from 3 to 6 of August, Urkult Festival, for the participation by Ali Doğan Gönültaş with a concert and a workshop.- September, 7-9, Veszprém, Hungary, for the festival of BALKAN:MOST.
- October, 5-8, I will go to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Again, Ali will perform there and I will attend also as a delegate as in many previous occasions.
- October, 11th. Very special concert at the Alte Oper Franfkurt with Vigüela and several other Spanish performers for a program designed by alba Kultur.
- October, 18-21, Manchester. English Folk Expo, which this year hosts the annual meeting of the European Folk Network.
- And Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.
Just for the pleasure, I leave you here a little video of the performance of Ali Doğan Gönültaş at the Festival Polirítmia, with the participation as guest artist of Eduard Navarro playing the dolçaina:
WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS
Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.
We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 50 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com.
Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.