Hello, are you OK? We are ok. In Spain we have been able to have a little walk 1 km around our houses from 2 weeks now. The situation is not the same in every region of the country. Madrid region, where I am, is still in the Stage 0, the most restricted one, of the de-escalation.
Somehow I have been extremelly busy the last month, so let me use again the same picture (by the way, the advocado tree hasn’t grown one single leaf…) Today the day is as gloomy as that one. In the last month many things have happened and you’ll find below a lot of contents. Therefore I won’t extent myself much here. The content is gold as some interesting friends and colleagues share their insights.
Remember that you can send any suggestion of content for the next editions. And if you like this, tell me. And share it and let your friends know. 
And once more here you have our playlist to accompany the reading –>
Thanks for your attention.
Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82
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Summary:
· Research initiatives to gather data
· Project MOST for dissemination of Balkan music and online talk TOMORROW MORNING!
· Mini interviews with festival managers: Zlatan Jaganjac, from Ritam Mediterana and Davide Mancini from Musicastrada Festival
· In the next edition
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RESEARCH INITIATIVES TO GATHER DATA
| Do you know any other initiative of data gathering that may be useful to disseminate between the sector? Please, let me know to share it. |
Survey by WOMEX, for all the countries To better understand the ongoing professional challenges and to assess how the Corona Pandemic has impacted the global music community, WOMEX team have put together a survey called Survey on the Impact of Corona Pandemic on the Global Music Community. Professionals not related to WOMEX at all are also welcome. Deadline to fullfill it is next Sunday, 17th of May. Access here.
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Survey by DISCE, specifically about EuropeI knew about this one thanks to Birgit Ellinghaus from alba Kultur. According to their website, “the DISCE Consortium puts together academic and stakeholder partners with a variety of complementary skills and competencies, joining their knowledge to tackle challenges of the Cultural and Creative sector from different points of view.” They have launched a brief survey for organizations with cultural/creative workers about their working conditions across a range of relevant sectors. It is called Who Cares about Creative and Cultural Workers in Europe? and it is open for any organization working in culture. Deadline to fullfill it is Friday 3rd of July. Access here.
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MOST, BRIDGE FOR BALKAN MUSIC
BRIEF OVERVIEW AND CALL FOR TOMORROW‘S TALK
MOST is a project lead by the well-known Hungarian firm Hangvető, co-founded by the Creative Europe program, which mission is to boost the music market of the Balkans, by connecting and supporting actors of the world music scene; artists, managers, festivals and institutions. It has four pillars of training programs and closes with a MOST Showcase event in 2023. Those pillars are explained here.
Why should it be interesting for you if you are not from the Balkans? Apart of learning that this is a project in which world / global / tradicional music has a relevant role, that has been supported by Creative Europe, they are launching lines of activity to connect the Balkans with the global music market. Some of their offline activies have been postponed (note it is a 4-year project) and they are keeping the flame alive with online events like their talks program. Follow their calls in their Facebook page. For instance, TOMORROW MORNING they will hold this talk. Click to access the details and to attend the talk tomorrow:
And this is the Facebook event for all the talks.
**** 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
Thanks to the MOST project I got to know about some festivals from the Balkans, that I was not aware of, as they have been selected for the Festival Exchange program. That is the case of:
- The Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania), about which we’ll talk with Dragos Rusu in June’s edition.
- The World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia), whose music director, Mirza Redzepagic, answered also our call and it will be featured in next edition too.
Also included in this project it is Musicastrada Festival (Tuscany, Italy). Find below the answers by Davide Mancini. And beside MOST, in this May edition we have another festival from Croatia, the Ritam Mediterana (Mediterranean Rhythm), in Zagreb, thanks to the answers of Zlatan Jaganjac.
Thank you all for the kind welcome to these questions. In this time of uncertainty I hope the dissemination of your insights will help someone to spread your vision.
MINI INTERVIEW WITH ZLATAN JAGANJAC FROM RITAM MEDITERANA (ZAGREB, CROATIA)
I knew about this festivals thanks to the initiative of Spanish Embassy in Belgrade. Our Spanish band Entavía is programmed to play in Serbia and in Croatia next Summer. Ritam Mediterana is the Croatian one. At this moment we are obviously not sure that this will be possible but I wanted to learn more about this Mediterranean music festival in Zagreb, a city in where I have never been.
The festival defines itself as a festival of the food, art, music and rhythm and the dates are 4 to 11 of July. The location is the Strossmayer Square, according to the festival website, “one of the most underrated parks, hidden among the trees between Zrinjevac Park and Tomislavac Park.” Let’s let Zlatan Jaganjac explain us more.
MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?
ZJ: The idea of Mediterranean Rhythm Festival was to present an event where in one place every visitor can get an insight into the contemporary Mediterranean, more precisely different Mediterranean countries, regions and cities.
Music, in the identity as well as the mean of communication, has always played a very important role and that is why performers at the festival should perform using their native language, preferably using the traditional instruments, all together to be authentic contemporary music artists who will present what can be heard if you visit their city/region/country today.
The Mediterranean Rhythm Festival takes every visitor on a kind of journey through the Mediterranean because it contains lots of paint works, installations, cuisine and even VR technology which enables virtual walk through different destinations.
ZJ: I believe that the festival has a huge potential to grow in years to come, and thus contributes to the understanding of diversity and interesting cultures at the Mediterranean. Through culture, gastronomy, books, movies… we get to know the Mediterranean, which is known as the “cradle of civilization”. I will strive to make this young festival live long and fulfilled, because it would mean helping many to present and create in a very interesting rhythm specific to the Mediterranean.There is a potential for the festival to be also hosted by city in Mediterranean other than Zagreb, where it all started. So I hereby invite any interested party to contact me in case they think we could cooperate on the project, and take the festival to their city/region/country.
ZJ: Unpredictable development of the situation with the COVID19 pandemic, due to which mobility is suspended, as well as other measures that completely prohibit public gatherings I consider to be the greatest challenge at this point. My wish is to be surrounded with people that participate in the Festival and perceive themselves as part of the solution, with focus on human aspect of social contacts and live energy, rather than a virtual one.
ZJ: If you wish to experience the sound, taste, color and scent of the Mediterranean in just a few hours or even better in a few festival days, you don’t have to get stuck on an expensive cruise – it is enough to visit Zagreb and enjoy various gastronomic delicacies, wines, books, concerts while chilling in the appropriately created Garden of the Mediterranean!
- Zlatan portrait provided by himself
- Cover page of the festival’s Facebook site
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MINI INTERVIEW WITH DAVIDE MANCINI FROM MUSICASTRADA FESTIVAL (TUSCANY, ITALY)
I don’t remember when and where I met Davide Mancini. He is one of those colleagues that I have met in so many places… I was happy to see that his Musicasatrada Festival was also selected in the festivals from the West for MOST.
Davide Mancini is a music addict from a very young age. He has worked in radio, newspaper, played the guitar as a non-professional and finally became an agent, manager and festival organizer. He created an agency, Musicastrada, focused on world music and beyond, working in Italy and the rest of the world and since 2000 is the creator and artistic director of the Musicastrada Festival, the only itinerant event of world-global sound based in Tuscany.
The program is an itinerant event focused on music, photography and territory promotion, usually from the half of July to the Half of August. Concerts are free of charge with local and international artists coming all over the world. From small intimate squares to bigger ones, the audience may vary from 100 to 800 hundred each night. This is the description in their website and, even when I have never been in Tuscany, I am sure it must be a total delight.
I wish this awful situation ended soon, for me and for many colleagues, like Davide, Zlatan and so many that I appreciate and that are struggling and suffering. But let’s let Davide to take the floor now.
MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme?
DM: Originality, that means, original music, or, if he plays tradition (in the case of a world music artist), an evolution of that. I’m not interested in strictly folk, traditional or ethnic music, but at the same time it becomes interesting to me when it is mixed with modern sound, electronics, instruments usually not related to that genre, or when the artist use tradition to make something new.
MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
DM: Musicastrada Festival supports the transnational circulation of artistic works having a heterogeneous audience that usually cannot access directly to such events organized only in the biggest towns. In fact, most of the events are organized in small towns. From small intimate squares to bigger ones, the audience may vary from 100 to 800 hundred each night. Music is the way to overcome language barriers and support intercultural dialogue among different countries and different people.
MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
DM: Musicastrada Festival is a 21 years old festival. The organization used to be long and complicated but nowadays, being a free entry event, the only real issue is to maintain the necessary budget and finding the sponsors and or the public funds, both local and national.
MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
DM: The audience of the world music network is changing very fast and it’s very difficult to gather young people, under 30 years old.
MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival.
DM: Musicastrada Festival is “world summer music festival experience in Tuscany Italy” offering intimate atmosphere, small stages in small squares where all is organized for music, with artists and audience enjoying a real sound in the endless beauty of our country.
MM – Is this experience we are living now, the crisis of the coronavirus, changing your festival in any way (apart of postponing this year’s edition, if so)? (This question has been added to the questionary more recently than the others and is new in the mini-interviews)
DM: It’s very difficult to say right now. Nobody knows what and how things will change in the next future. But being a small festival we hopefully won’t be hit as the big ones.
- Davide’s portrait from his Facebook profile
- Banner from the festival’s website
IN THE NEXT EDITION
As mentioned above, in the next edition we will talk about two festivals from Balkan region in the mini-interviews section: the Outernational Days (Bucharest, Romania) and the World Music Fest Zeman (Novi Pazar, Serbia).
What else? We’ll see but in the meantime if you have any suggestion, open call or any useful infos to share with the global community of music, let me know.
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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.
The band is active and I have just asked them what is this piece about. So, Lidiya is the mother of the clarinetist of the band, Gal Klein (in the picture, without glasses, the other man is the co-founder, Amit Peled). He made the piece for her 50th birthday.
Before ending, I want to announce the initiative of the restless team of Sephardic Stories: Sephardic Collection, in which they are producing new contents and interviews, that you can find in their 
Over there, as he was unable to read music, it was difficult to enter in an orchestra, so he made his living playing mainly in weddings. Soon he became known for his eccentricities, like wearing extravagant clothes (sometimes he dressed like Uncle Sam with christmas lights or even with his pants down) and playing back to the audience to hide his fingers’ technique. He raised an earned reputation of gambler and a drinker and his behaviour would prevent him for keeping a regular job in any band. So, from 1920, he worked under his own name, he proclaimed himself as the King of Jewish Music and in 1926 he recorded one of my favourite pieces of the History of klezmer: Von tashlach / New Year’s Prayer at the River. Enjoy it here below.
This interview is with Ms. Yu Su-Ying, the artistic director (find her CV 
Madam Gaspard went to market.
I discovered David Kadoch by chance, searching for Sephardic music at the Youtube (the true is that I do this very often: it was a matter of time that I found him). He has a huge collection of wonderful recordings in 
Dr. Hans Bloemendal was chazzan at the Main Synagogue in Amsterdam from 1949. During the war he went into hiding. His family was killed in Sobibor.
I got to know Cantor İsak Maçoro at the Youtube some years ago, searching for Sephardic piyyutim. The picture of him and a short bio can be found in the website