Editorial

A&A Music Booking, joint venture between Mapamundi Música and Asya Music & Management (Turkey)

Talk with Ludovico Esposito, from the Italian association Sud Sonico

Update about Babel Music XP from its director Olivier Rey

European Folk Day, how it was

Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects

I am well. I begin this editorial with a photo of myself and Ludovico Esposito. He is the protagonist of this edition. I met him at Balkan:MOST, but I had previously had my eye on him and contacted him to have a chat there.Some ideas I had seen on his profile on the festival’s intranet had caught my attention: “Ludovico uses music as a medium for recreational, educational, tourism, and humanitarian-environmental purposes, producing concerts, festivals, capacity-building programs, and fundraising events in support of devastated geographical areas“. In recent times I have been reflecting a lot on questions concerning the use of music (and also the use of the musicians). Also on other issues that I am recurrently mentioning here, such as the exclusion from the world music industry of many artists who make “world music”, caused by several issues. I will not dwell on this now.

But related to this issues, at Balkan:MOST I also met Amita Vempati, development manager of the organisation Artistic Freedom Initiative, which is dedicated to creating the conditions for artists who are unable to develop their work in their countries because they are experiencing censorship, persecution, forced displacement, armed conflict or humanitarian crisis.
They support them in several ways, like through legal and practical support to settle in the USA. They are also starting to work in Europe. We are talking about artists in situations like those who can be getting support from the French organisation L’Atelier des Artistes en Exil, about which I spoke in the previous edition in the conversation with Imed Alibi. Read that edition, the #62, here.

These people I am talking about have been an important part of my Balkan:MOST experience. Another essential part has been David Sierra, my colleague with whom I share many things (I made him an interview for this newsletter, that is available here). I want to mention him because we had some fascinating conversations. I was also able to meet other old friends who have been through this newsletter before, such as Bojan Djordjevic, from the Todo Mundo festival (his interview, from 2019, is here) and to meet in person others with whom I was in contact from afar, such as András Halmos, who was also a protagonist (his interview, much recent, is here).

The truth is that I feel very privileged to meet these people and to be at these events. All of this gives me a lot of food for thought. Perhaps for other people, being in these environments comes as no surprise. For me, it is still very exciting. Well, I have a lot of excitement coming up in October… I’ll tell you about it below. But now, it’s time to give a voice to others. They are sure to be of great interest to you.

Mapamundi Música: You have the Association Sud Sonico, the Festival Avant, the Xenomorph Sounds concert series, and Sagra Elettronica. 

Ludovico Esposito: Sagra Elettronica is not going on. The project stopped since Covid. It was designed to be a modern food and electronic music event. In South of Italy, sagra is a street food format dedicated to specific ingredients. It might be sagra of octopus, sagra of aubergine… So the usual is to go there and listen to folk music and eat non-quality dishes. We wanted to create a modern sagra as a very high-quality street food and with quality electronic music. So we did two editions, but since Covid we could not bring it forward. As a 1000-people capacity event, it was challenging to keep the public security-capacity balanced. Although it was a successful project, we just stopped investing energies in it, and instead worked on “safer” and smaller event concepts. Food, installations, people gathering, dancing and eating in old farms… Sagra Elettronica has been a great format, it has been done in the right time, and looked ahead of it proudly.

About educational. We produce “Avant Learn – Advanced Music XLR8R”, a training program to enable young people or even freelancers to work better on music projects. This project was funded by MusicAIRE last year and it is pretty unique in Europe. The idea of our educational approach is that, today, a sustainable and impactful project needs vertical skills and vertical vision. So it’s not only about marketing, communication or fundraising, but it’s about having a vertical approach, a vertical vision on projects. So we organize free-entry master classes about music marketing, communication, fundraising, production, but also contemporary and modern ones like music tourism, sustainability, international fundraising, digital project management, data & science, copyright. We help the students to be independent to and produce independently any sort of projects, from a festival, a record label, a technology start-up. I think that the reason why it got co-funded is because it is – and looked – as necessary for music organizations to cover so many different areas in terms of management, or at least, to have a clue on what it means to work on sustainability, music tourism or fundraising, and be able to delegate. We cannot do everything by ourselves, but we must be able to handle any area of a project and to delegate, to supervise and to track the impact.

About the therapeutical approach: we did few seminar and laboratories on music therapy, we did such activities for children, but even for adults or for disabled people. So we help people to feel better through sound and music. We recently slowed down our focus on music therapy too, at the moment is not a primary activity for us.

MM: You, about the educational part. You have at least to know that those areas of activity are there and they must be covered. You have to know that they exist. 

LE: “Avant Learn” is indeed meant to compensate such gap. For any educational section of the program, we hire a specialized professor, or we cover them ourselves. I can teach myself fundraising, project management, administration… For music tourism, I ask a colleague from Milan. For sustainability, I asked an Italian collegue, plus we collaborate with other entities in Italy and Europe that works on music festival impact reduction in terms of energy, water, waste recycling, purchase – any sustainability topics of the Agenda 2030.

“Avant Learn” offers a highly advanced learning model, as the students satisfaction rate was very high. In terms of scaleup, we work on different scaling approaches. We are considering if and how to evolve in also in a e-learning program, to develop a digital methodology-sharing platform and not only an in-presence project. We also envision it as a point of touch between European organisations seeking to hire new talents, and new talents looking for traineeships in Europe.

We are working to export it in several nations, by designing training programs tailored for the needs and goals of music organizations. For example, an organization in Europe asked us to train five of their volunteers in arts fundraising. So we designed an advanced learning project for that organization. A booking agency ask us to design a program for their artists to reinforce their skills in digital copyright, contracting, intellectual property… So we just produced one course, and not a complete training program. It results to be scalable, and shaped specifically for one organization or one specific project. We aim to help organizations, citizens, people in any form which is possible through sound and music.

MM: My newsletter is sent to professionals working on what I do and also from festivals. If they want to have a consultancy with you about those topics, can they contact you for that service?

LE: Of course. This specific project “Avant Learn”, but in general our organization Sud Sonico, works in two different fields: the production of our own projects and advise and support to improve specific areas of an organization or project in terms of management, fundraising, cooperation and scaleup, engaging with citizens, artists, public administration and municipalities, cultural bodies or festival organizations… We can cover pretty much any area which is needed today to make projects sustainable, make individuals independent, smarter, more flexible and ready to afford the new challenges of the music and creative industries.

MM: And do you make all this under the frame of Sud Sonico?

LE: Yes and no, my role in Sud Sonico as a President is not only to do fundraising, but to improve the non-profit projects of the organization in any possible capacity and scale. As a freelance, I offer music fundraising and project management consultancies. Our organization can collaborate with you mostly in some capacities, me as an individual, in others. Our associates and volunteers are amazing and their support in production and execution is fundamental. We are always open for collaboration ideas.

We recently launched a new project, that expanded our vision. It is called Música Etica (in English, Etic Music). It is a project which aim is to use music as a medium for humanitarian or environmental awareness purposes. We produced one even this year. As simple as it may sound, we played electronic music and we choose a humanitarian cause to support, asking donations to help us supporting it. This year, we wanted to support the victims of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. So, we settled a partnership with Save The Children Italy, and they were happy to help us promote the event and distribute the donations on site to children and families. We are trying and open to boost this project on an international scale, to open bridges with Middle East and, in general, with real humanitarian and environmental organizations supporting the planet in any form.

Sud Sonico is using music in many capacities, with many ideas and concepts, but the key goal is the same: to create benefits, to create a positive impact, not locally but worldwide.

MM: About Xenomorph Sounds, tell me more.

LE: It is a concert series, so it is a single one-day event. It is a kind of Avant Festival, in a smaller proportion. If there are not enough financial resources, we produce smaller, but always quality events, and Xenomorph Sounds is Sud Sonico’s live music event project. We have produced 4 events with Italian and international experimental solo performers. Xenomorph is about showcasing a wide range of new music genres: electronic, experimental, electroacoustic, ambient, jazz, impro, and anything we think can fit the context. Equally to Avant or Sagra Elettronica, or like Musica Etica, we have no sound limit: as far is it avantgarde music, we can book any act. And depending on the venue, the atmosphere, the period, if it is summer or autumn… we shape, we design a program that unites a series of goals and needs. We produced this concert series in castles, in cultural centres, in bars… our aim is to make avantgarde music the most accessible as possible. We invited exceptional musicians like Italy’s ambient wizard Gigi Masin, Italian saxophonist Laura Agnusdei, Austrian drummer Katharina Ernst, Japanese noise performer Yuko Araki, the band Give Guitars to People.

MM: Why did you come here to Balkan:MOST?

LE: Because I was invited as a delegate from the festival to run keynote about the topic “Music as a Medium for Impact”. I was invited in Athens earlier this year for another conference festival, Athens Music week, and in a panel we discussed a few project ideas – funding opportunities – to create a new expanded Southern Europe Network including Balkans. It is a vivid geographical area that has a lot of potential, and still not much attention from corporate and media. So, Georges Perot, the founder of Athens Music Week, together with other delegates, discussed the possibility of expanding the cooperation, vision and operational projects from Spain and Portugal until the end of the Balkans, with the idea to create a network for cooperation and collaboration in a broader sense and capacity. I’m here at Balkan:MOST to try bringing ahead this idea, and share it with other music professionals.

MM: So, in the artistic part, the focus of your work is the avantgarde music. Do you have any relationship also with the traditional music from the region of Lecce?

LE: Not that much, because of my personal choice, or yes, depending on the perspective. The music heritage traditional music in Lecce is mainly traditional music, and has little to do with avantgarde. Not many traditional musicians here contaminate with contemporary languages. If musicians play just one instrument, it normally doesn’t fit on our idea of avantgarde programming, although we made exceptions. It is not that we don’t like traditional music, but our artistic direction selects avant-garde music and not traditional-only artists. One exception is Maria Mazzotta: a local singer who recently started a project with Raul Refree, a Spanish composer and producer who also released music on Mute Records. I appreciate much their new project, because it is about our tradition, and about electronic music. We have several folk avantgarde projects that we would like to invite but it depends on the kind of event, the funding… There are many things that should come together for us to give space to an avantgarde yet traditional performers.

MM: Why do you do all this? Which is your personal background that took you finally to make this?

LE: I started to work in the field almost 10 years ago. I started to play music by case, 15 years ago I played electric guitar, and 10 years ago I started to collaborate for the organization of some music events. I attended a lot of events in Berlin, which shaped my vision and taste very much. When in Berlin, my taste and my vision kept improving and I started my own agency We Care PR. It was a promotional & pr agency for artists, record labels and festivals. I collaborated from the smallest blog to BBC Radio, placing electronic, experimental and club music in different channels, media and helping artists to reach new audiences. At the same time, I was organizing club events in Lecce, my city. First, semi-legal techno events, inviting the artists I was dancing to when in Berlin. The success and network were getting stronger and stronger… And 8 years ago, I started to realise that the projects should find a sustainability in medium-long term. As I have a degree in social & consumer psychology, and a master in marketing and communication, it was natural to me to approach fundraising. So, my background helped me approach medium-big corporations and get funding from the beginning. And I continued to diversify my vision and skills. I continued to invest on myself in advanced training, and to share new skills and goals with my team. I started to do fundraising myself, starting from corporate, and moving to public funding and philanthropy. I think there must always be space and time to learn new skills. In my opinion, individual donations and philanthropy are the solution for music, arts and creative industry on an international scale.

.

Here on Balkan:MOST we have just listened to Mila Georgieva talking about the major part of the cultural organizations relying too much on public funding. I realised this myself 5 years ago and I started to work on fundraising diversification for my own organization, but as well to advice other organizations to start diversify and not relying only on municipalities, Minister or Creative Europe. I work on Sud Sonico’s fundraising, but also support other organizations in achieving new funding, and expanding the network of potential funding partners. I believe this is the solution for us to be independent and to continue to work with creativity even without public funding which, in my opinion, will be continued to be cut down, year per year for the next 15 years. The cultural and economic panorama of Europe is changing, it is decreasing, and we need to work on other directions. As a person with wide interests in geopolitics, humanitarian topics, cultural topics, circular economy topics… I try to look very much ahead and be ready for the change that is imposed for the cultural organization.

MM: What are the corporations searching for, to decide to give you some thousands of euros? 

LE: The goal of corporate can be focussed on the improvement of different areas: social & cultural impact; environmental & green sustainability goals; employees’ welfare; sponsorships. Corporate basically support non-profit projects to achieve results in one or more of the aforementioned areas of public interest. Marketing and external relation offices do look actively for projects, and the best fundraising consultants would analyse the profile of the corporation, the marketing managers, the corporate external relations manager and, from the analysis, the consultant will find strategy to penetrate. Which is not easy. It takes time, effort and knowledge, sensibility and capacity of negotiation, flexibility of approach.

The goals of corporations are different from the goal of other private bodies, like foundations. Private foundations release funding in order to pursue social, cultural, environmental purposes, and more. Of course, there are some foundations supporting health, foundations supporting welfare and so on. Foundations are ruled by their own statutes, so it is necessary to analysing the formal aspects too. The analytical process we applied for corporate, should be reshaped for other funding partners.

And the approach to request funds is different from corporation to corporation. It needs to be a tailored fundraising approach, it is not possible to automatize the process: I would never suggest a non-profit organization to send the identical request to many corporations and many foundations. Fundraising is about a constant analysis, design and craft of words, goals, perspective of project development, perspective of project scale up, impact tracking, and budgeting. It’s very complex: there are many areas to enhance in one system. This approach to project management and development is, in my opinion, the only solution for non-profit organizations to survive, be independent, and getting a decent remuneration.

MM: Do you want to share any last idea? 

LE: I would like to specify once again – in case it was not clear – and I and we want to use sound and music as a medium for worldwide impact. We desire and want to cooperate for humanitarian projects, environmental projects, cultural projects, cultural heritage projects, tourism projects, educational projects, performing projects, networking projects. We are a young organization but incredible skilled and ready to face any project in any capacity, and we look forward to continue our growing path and continue helping as many people as possible.

Thank you, Ludovico! 🙏

I already mentioned this event. This is a reminder. This morning I was talking with my colleagues to prepare the next steps and we are thrilled.

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.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS