I am well. On this occasion I wanted to open this editorial section with a photo from the dressing room from the Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon. There was one huge dressing room for me and one for each of the artists who performed with Ali Doğan Gönültaş there on 5th of November, at the Grand Auditorium, of which the 1203 seats were sold out.I began to write this words from home, in Spain, but soon in flught again, to Berlin, for some meetings, and after I came to Hamburg, where I am now, for the Festival Kurdistan, curated by alba Kultur and, later, to Brussels, for the first concert that I will attend in the theatre managed by Peter Van Rompaey. Here in Hamburg I met Alan Ibrahim, from Music For Identity (check the interview with him, in this previous edition).

Hm, the truth is that I am more than well. A few editions ago I talked about the beginning of Mapamundi Música as a record label. Below I share a news that made me very happy today.

Once again, I write this and think how fortunate it is to have this space in the world, where I can develop something like this letter I am sending you. I don’t mean the physical space. Today’s protagonist is Mehdi Aminian. I share a conversation with him but, previously, another day, we were talking about something like this. I was telling him that people like him and me, who share certain concerns (related to music and everything that goes with it in terms of culture and identity and openness towards others) live in a wonderful bubble. He told me that he thought that we are in reality and the bubble is where those who are not here with us are. At the time, I don’t think we were aware of it, but the idea of a bubble implies fragility.

Somehow, I don’t feel fragility in everything you have down here. The ideas they produce in me are heroism and excellence. I hope you find this content interesting or inspiring.

Mapamundi Música: How do you finance your activities? I saw you have some sponsors and I see that the people can send you money, they can donate, so you have more sources of income for Roots Revival. 

Mehdi Aminian: We started 10-12 years ago the idea of Roots Revival without any financing, we were a group of music lovers which we got a small loan for the first event and since then we have gradually developed various ways of financing the projects. Currently our main means of financing are Vienna city and public funds, ticket and album sales, fan donations and crowdfunding campaigns. For example, the financing of this year’s Root Revival series which is focused on the music of Afghanistan is coming from the Basis.Kultur Wien. It is an entity that finances different cultural projects. We applied for a grant and were lucky to be nominated.

For each project we have different sources of financing. We first try to define our projects and then we go see if we can find a way to finance it. Some projects are financed by an external party, like a festival or cultural entity would commission us to develop a project. For example, we had Woven Sounds, for which the musical project was completely covered by Morgenland Festival Osnabrueck and the documentary was financed by the Austrian Accademy of Sciences and by myself.

MM: And, the case of these acts that you make in this theatre in Vienna, let’s say, do they buy you the show?

MA:  Roots Revival series at Odeon Theatre is a collaboration. They don’t buy. They believe in our projects and they offered us the support and symbolically parts of our tickets sales even that we are sold out are insignificant for covering a meaningful part of the costs.

MM: How can the readers support you? What are you searching for that the international community could provide you?

MA: We are setting up membership Patron for people who want to become the members of Roots Revival. People can also always donate on our website or on different platforms. On YouTube people can support us and they can always buy our albums and projects.
If they are professionals, of course, for every musician, the biggest support is to get invited to perform, with different projects.

MM: So, if someone likes what you are saying and likes Roots Revival’s objectives and activities, how can they identify what they could buy from you? I mean, if, for instance, they want to book a show from you. Because in the website you have many things, you have many artists. Is there any list of shows that you could offer to them that are already done?

MA: Yeah, of course. There are several active projects which people can check on our website and on our YouTube channel. I would like to mention a policy we have which is that we put everything for free for our audience online on YouTube. We put all the concerts which the productions are very time intensive and costly. This was our policy even before monetization was popular. I’m talking about 10 years ago. That was our policy and, back then, it was very rare that people put the whole concert in a good production online for free. So, people always can watch and we, to be honest, we do not really believe it should be such exchange that if we give people something, they have to pay us back. We believe this is our mission and we find pleasure in our creations. And if anyone wants to support, they find their ways to support. I think it’s a primary human need to feel what one does is appreciated, and appreciation can come in different forms; some express it by kind words, some by feedbacks, and some by financial supports.

Our main vision is to represent underrepresented musical cultures and we work with the artists that are the connection between the traditions that we don’t have access to as non-natives to those cultures. We search for artists that are functioning as bridges to these underrepresented musical cultures. For example, you have Ali (added in edition: he refers to Ali Doğan Gönültaş). Ali is a great example; he is a connection with the Kurdish Alevi. He’s a young musician, he understands he can bring to the wider audience what is not accessible to them and that’s what we need in Roots Revival. We always find and look for people who we can work with and collaborate. Sometimes we might not be able to collaborate, but we can represent their works. So, this is the summary of what we do.

MM: Which are your main challenges? For what you say, one may be to find the financing for making each project. Any other?

MA: Time. Time is, I think, the biggest challenge. I’m the father of two daughters and that’s my full-time job, next to my other full-time job in academia at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. I’m also working on my PhD next to the creative parts of music and films and the less creative parts of running Roots Revival. Also whenever the opportunity arises I write music and also if I am lucky to get invited to other projects.
But at the same time, these challenges can be advantages. Of course, there are difficulties, everything and every situation has its unique challenges and one needs to first survive the crucial challenges and then struggle to transform them into the fuel for life and creation.

MM: With this current situation in the world, I mean with all these wars and conflicts… haven’t you found that there is, in the society, any bigger complication or a bigger understanding or bigger misunderstanding or somehow? Because Roots Revival has been working officially for 10 years. Have you seen any evolution from the society towards all this you do? Because many things are coming from a Middle East cultures and there are so many a complications there… How have you seen the reaction of the society in Austria related to all this? Have you felt any changes?

MA: What we do has several dimensions and I realized this in time. Roots Revival started only based on my curiosity to know about the other cultures. I was curious and I wanted to have access and I invited and tried many things to learn, study and work with other musicians. But in time, working with so many cultures and musicians, I realized that what we want to do is to find a genuine way of communicating between different musical cultures to find common elements. And the more we go into our path, it becomes clearer for me that genuine creations function as a shortcut to understanding for the audience. It is an unconscious process of realization.

The other aspect is for the artists: if we give them time and space and the specific attention every artist needs, they really can absorb and understand the other cultures they are working with and through that, they understand their own cultures, as if it functions like a mirror.

The third aspect is about the native audiences to the cultures we work with. Let’s imagine the Afghan audience for the year of Afghanistan. The usual way of multicultural projects are that they focus on bringing the projects to the suburbs or certain neighbourhoods where the immigrants are expected to be present. But what we believe and work towards is to provide access for the less represented sections of a society to the main cultural scenes and venues which are usually very centralized in Austrian spheres. In fact one of the reasons we set our mission to work on the underrepresented musical cultures like Anatolia or Afghanistan is that these beautiful and rich cultures are associated with large underrepresented populations in Europe. I think I even forgot what was your question!

MM: The question was if you have felt any evolution in the society in Austria during these 10 years because many things have happened. Specifically now the world is like in flame, is like a terrible moment. Some things has happened also in Iran yeah of course.

MA: That unconscious process of realization that is a shortcut to understanding, that’s what I am very interested in. I believe we have reached out to some of the audience in Austria and we are building our own ways of communication with the them and slowly, slowly, I have a feeling that our works find their ways and people understand actually what we want to communicate. Of course, this unconscious process of realization applies to us as the creators too.

The important element is that we give our projects time and space. It’s not like one day, two days, rehearsal quickly and put something together. It’s a three month, at least, of exchange between musicians who, in the first glance, don’t have anything in common with each other. But they try to find. So a musician from North Afghanistan from the mountains of Badakhshan comes and stays in touch with a renowned jazz musician from Vienna, a pianist. And they can have a good dialogue and communication even if they are coming from different cultures, completely far away. Both musically and culturally this is one aspect of the impact, and we want to do that and reach out. This reaching out to other culture in our times should become universal. It’s about understanding the others deeply and try to make a meaningful conversation and not to stay in your own bubble forever and just to see which are the differences between you and the other. Maybe seeing the other as the threat has been once a survival behaviour for us in the history, but we live in times where technically it is possible for the whole population of the planet to live in peace and prosperity. We need to get rid of this scepticism about the others as in our times it just brings destructions, not only to the others but to ourselves. Everyone shall find a way to contribute to this vital cause and we believe what we do in Roots Revival is our way to strive towards it.

MM: Related to what you were talking before, my next question was after these 10 years. Which do you think that has been your impact? 

MA: Well, I think I’m the wrong person to ask that question. I don’t think about what my impact would be. Maybe other people can say.  Maybe some say it is nothing or maybe there are some who would say different.

MM: I think it’s a very good answer, very humble. So what do you want to achieve in the next 10 years?

MA: Everyone has a vision and they want to climb the mountain they see in front of themselves. So I want to continue to learn from the mistakes we have done and to improve, get better, include more people in our team, have more artists to work from different cultures. And I hope I do not loose the curiosity and wanting to learn myself. I think we have a team that that shares this curiosity. They also enjoy and have pleasure in learning. In this process we try to keep things fresh and touching for ourselves and it hopefully results in some other people also to find what we do interesting and inspiring.
At the moment we are doing different activities but we are thinking of getting into teaching and education as well.

MM: And what are your future plans? You have now presented this documentary about the Woven Sounds from Iran. Which is the next culture in danger that you are going to work with?

MA: We have several. We have a team and we are always discussing and brainstorming. We have preferences but also, we have to always look at the possibilities logistically, financially… So we are focusing on a few regions. One is North Africa, maybe focus on Algeria. One is the music of Mongolia… Music of India…Music of Ethiopia…

• Fira Mediterrània de Manresa.
  The call for proposals is open 

Normally October is full of events, but now November and even December also host a busy international agenda. I will mention some events in which I won’t participate but that are relevant.

Perhaps it is that I get more information with the time, but it seems that the number of events like these are increasing. I talk about showcase events with some more activities, like mentoring sessions or conferences. It is great for the countries or regions that can do it. And at the same time, I feel it contributes to increase the gap with the ones who cannot do it (that can be for many reasons, not only finantial).

• Napoli World. Napoli, Italy. 30 November – 2 December 

I will attend for the second time. The first time it was in 2021. I knew about this conference because Hudaki Village Band, the Ukrainian band with which I have collaborated for years, were invited to perform there.

The near conclusion of the MOST Balkan Music project, which I have talked about on many occasions before (for instance, in this interview), coincides with the 10th edition of the PIN Conference, taking place in Skopje from November 30th to December 2nd. The lineup includes some of the artists who have participated in MOST, such as the Upbeat Best New Talent Award winner, Zarina Prvasevda.

I, for sure like those directly involved, have wondered about the lasting legacy of this ambitious 4-year project with four pillars that has involved many Balkan countries that has been MOST Balkan. It’s too early to tell, but for now, it seems that the professional network among them and with agents from other European regions has strengthened. I hope it leads to a permanent facilitation of access for artists from that region to the international circuit and the dissemination of their work among the public and, in short, an improvement in the working and living conditions of artists and the cultural fabric.

This is from the website of PIN:

“PIN is the first and only international music conference and showcase festival in Macedonia.
Since its first edition in 2012 the conference is organized by the Association of culture and arts “TAKSIRAT” and as a part of the renowned Taksirat Festival  – member of Yourope and ETEP.
Inspired by the community-building aspects of such events, PIN is a standing out project of “Taksirat” in which we fully and solely invest our capacities and connections in the industry all around Europe. Our goal is to enrich the local music sector by bringing the diversity of best practices, up-to-date knowledge and people who will be part of this development in Macedonia and the Balkan region.”

I will attend this event for the first time. The program is not announced yet. They explain on the website that: “The event primarily aims at the future involvement of Cypriot artists in international festivals and overseas organisations, thus creating a platform for exchanging artists’ experience and practice on an international level.”

In a future edition I will talk about this experience.

There is an event that would be happening now and will not take place. It’s the showcase in Israel. I hadn’t planned on going this year, but I’ve attended three times in previous editions. I can imagine the horror, frustration, and sense of helplessness that the people I’ve met there, who work organizing this event, must be feeling. Also, of course, I can imagine the horror of those who suffer from the conflict on the other side. Well, I guess I can’t fully imagine it. Fortunately, my life has never had the terror that is part of their daily lives. It’s been more than a month of destruction. When will it end?