I am well. I am writting this letter from home. After the trip to the Cyprus Jazz and World Music Festival I haven’t travelled abroad and I won’t until 3rd of February, when I will go to Paris, for the concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Au Fil des Voix.

And I started to write this yesterday, Monday 15th of January. The say it is the saddest day of the year. Well, I don’t feel like that. The last days many calls of professional events are been open. I talk about them below. I see how the activity returns after the holidays, and I like that.

This year, three of my artists, three pieces of my heart, are going to release albums: Vigüela, Xabi Aburruzaga, and Ali Doğan Gönültaş. It’s going to be fun. I have already planned many things.

But the truth is that it’s a coincidence that the protagonist of this edition has several record labels. In PIN Conference in Skopje I had the chance to share some conversations with Christian Pliekfe, our protagonist of this edition, and Asya Arslantaş, about who I have talked on previous occasions.

The conversation with Christian was long, and I think it was interesting. I always wonder what has happened in the lives of people like him, who do epic things like creating record labels dedicated to folk. Christian answers all my questions generously. I hope you enjoy it.

I hope this year brings you a lot of satisfaction. I also hope that we can all live our lives and develop them as we wish. Many times I think about colleagues who are in less stable situations than I am, for example, in Lebanon. Nabil Canaan updates us below on the situation of Station Beirut and Shuruq.

I have a little pastime that I started during the pandemic. Surely, many of those reading this also do it. Traveling on Google Maps, searching for areas with Street View or, at the very least, with photos of those spherical views. The pandemic may be over, but I continue to travel to Yemen on Google Maps. What do I want to tell you with this? Well, I hope that one day we can actually go to Yemen. That’s all. Thank you very much for your attention, and I hope you enjoy the content.

• Fira Mediterrània de Manresa
  The call for proposals is open UNTIL 18TH JANUARY

It will take place from 10 to 13 of October of 2024. The call for artistic proposals is open until 18th January at 12 am. In the previous edition I talked more about this. And this is the official website for the application.

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• A to Jazz. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER
  The call for proposals is open until 9 February 2024

This will be the second edition of this showcase, that is part of the Upbeat Plataform.

It will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, on 4th of July.
All the details about the application are available here. It is addressed to European emerging artists in world music. Check the website to learn what they mean with “emerging”, as the conditions to fulfill are very clear.

Eligible participants are legal residents (regardless of their origin and country of birth worldwide) of one of the eligible countries: All EU countries, Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Georgia, Armenia, Tunisia, Ukraine.

They offer a budget of 500€ (contract & invoice required), hotel accommodation for 3 nights (3-4-5 July 2024) in double / triple rooms, full access to the festival area, conference, networking sessions and delegates data base and video recording of the showcase performance.

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• Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER
  The call for proposals is open until 31 March 2024

Right now, to access to the conditions you need to login. You can create an account for free. Once inside, you can read the conditions. About the selection of the proposals, they explain that:
“The artistic direction picks around 60 proposals based on the following selection criteria:
· Priority is given to a premiere of a show or a new album.
· The artist/band’s own identity, artistic risk, and trajectory.
· The strengthening of the management firm.
· The selling power and economic and technical viability.
· The explanation of the project’s objectives (target programmers, territorial scope, etc.) and the importance of its presence at MMVV to achieve some or all of these objectives.
Proposals of all styles and musical genres can be submitted, except for classical music.”

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• MUM Meeting Music Market. VIII Jornadas Profesionales de la Música en Extremadura. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER. The call for proposals is open until 15 February 2024. 

So far, most of the artists that made a showcase in this event have been Spanish or Portuguese. On the website with the conditions, there is no restriction about the origin of the artist to be elegible apply. But it is only in Spanish. The conditions are reasonably good for the standard of the showcases.

It will take place from 18 to 20 of April in Mérida, a historic city with relevant Roman legacy.

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• Just for Spanish artists: BIME Bogotá. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER

Call still open for Spanish artists through ICEX until 25th February. More info, here.

 

If you like this content, forward it ⬅️

• Babel Music XP. Marseille, France. 28-30 March 

Hello, how are you?

I am well. I am writting this letter from home. I have finally almost two months without flights. My next flight will be to Paris, for the concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Au Fil des Voix.

One of my latest trips was to Skopje, for PIN Conference, where this picture with Antonis Antoniou (Monsieur Doumani, Trio Tekke, Buzz’Ayaz) was done. We met after many years, first in Skopje and the following week, in Limassol, in Cyprus, for the Cyprus Showcase of Jazz and World Music.

Today, 22nd of December, is the day of the Christmas lottery in Spain. I hear the TV of the neighbours. There, the kids from the school of San Ildefonso take the little balls from the lottery drum and sing the numbers. Every year on 22nd of December. It’s kind of the official opening of Christmas time. But I never buy tickets. I think I’ve already won the lottery.

On the 27th of December Mapamundi Música will be 16 years old. Every year there has been progress. In the year of the pandemic I lost my assistant Sherazade, whom I never got back. But I was able to keep the company alive. After that, other new people have arrived and with others we have strengthened ties and I have faced more and more demanding challenges.

2024 is going to require the best of me and I will be accompanied along the way.

I hope this last newsletter of the year will be of interest to you. My last protagonist has shown great generosity in her answers. Indeed, like all of them. This year I have had the opportunity to talk to a lot of people and share their reflections, struggles and missions. I believe that over the years this newsletter has become more useful and deeper. I hope you share my feeling. If you do, you can forward it to anyone you like. And remember that if you have content or news of interest to the international community working in one way or another in relation to world, roots, traditional or heritage music… contact me.

Arlette Hovinga: I’m Arlette Hovinga, I am from the Netherlands, I’m 32 years old and I am a PR manager and publicist in jazz and World music. I serve a number of festivals, mostly in Summer, and artists for their tour promotions and new releases as well.

I work in all of Europe, which is kind of special for a publicist normally; I guess many of us work in like, for example, the GAS territory, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, or only in their own country. For the Netherlands unfortunately that doesn’t really make a lot of sense, we’re really small and while we have a couple of good publications for jazz and world music there aren’t enough to really justify invoicing someone. And because in the Netherlands we get taught multiple languages in school, I speak reasonable German, I understand Spanish and speak a little bit of French, I understand that too, and English is my second language. So it’s relatively easy for me to converse and to communicate with journalists in other territories across Europe. And I think it keeps my job really interesting and really versatile.

MM: And you are specialized in jazz and also in world music. And there are not so many people specialize in world music. You work with these two different styles. I feel there are a big differences between world music and the other styles. Which are the particularities that you have to face when you work for something of world music or traditional music?

AH: At the end of the day, promoting an artist or a tour or a release or a festival… it’s about the story, you know. And world music is such a broad term that I’m not sure it really covers what it is. Because Africa is a continent, not a country, so what people call African music, as far as I’m concerned, is like a container of different things, but it’s not a thing in itself. It’s kind of saying, “well, okay, you know the Dutch and then the East Germans are the same people”, which is also not true, and we should grant the same privilege, I think, to people from other countries. It’s much like world music could also be from Latin America or it could be from Spain as like incorporating flamenco, or it could be from the Balkans too. I think it’s more important to tell an artist’s story than it is to focus on whatever world music actually means. And, honestly, also as a Western European white woman I’m not really sure if I am the one to redefine the genre in itself, because I don’t come from such a background and I think that those who created and those who are part of this diaspora should be the first to redefine that story if if that’s what they want and if that’s what they need.

For us as publicists, it’s our job to tell the story, the individual stories, and place it in a in a context that is understandable for journalists without really saying “well, this is world music”, for example, or ethnic music, or global music or however you want to call it. I mean I work in jazz and world music because this music resonates with me because I really feel it. And it’s something that that makes me feel something and that makes me explore new worlds and new ideas and I love that. I love these these genres and I love these artists and I love the way that it makes you learn new things. And it changes your perspective on a lot of different cultures and different ideas. And that’s beautiful.But I don’t think that the main thing is to present world music as world music. It’s the same as with jazz. If I say “hey, this is jazz” to someone who doesn’t normally write about jazz, oftentimes the first association will be “oh, this is like, you know, bebop or something”. And jazz is so much more than that, just like world music is so much more than… you know, the pamplets that a lot of cultural journalists that don’t really engage in these genres would immediately associate it with. So, that direct association stands in a different place, not necessarily higher or lower, but in a different place. Then is my role as a publicist to sell this music and enlarge my artists or my festival’s audience, I think.

MM: I totally agree with you in this because for instance, I think, in Spain, if I say something is world music they imagine some black people jumping. There are like different prejudices or preconception of what it is, so I feel, as I also work with world music, I feel that the difference with the other genres is that you need to explain also the historical background, the social background, the cultural specifications… of this artist. I think, that’s the key, maybe, to explain and it gives us also the opportunity of having a a storytelling about this, that other styles of music don’t have. So you have to focus on these ideas too, when you have to make this storytelling.

AH: Absolutely.

MM: And how do you make this comparing with jazz? Because I think jazz is like more abstract.

AH: Why is it more abstract, you think?

MM: Because jazz is not so imbued with the traditions and world music comes very from the traditions of the people.

AH: I think that in the minds of a lot of people, especially people who don’t really listen to jazz, it is definitely traditional music. And it’s elitist music in the minds of a lot of people. I don’t think that, I think that jazz is freedom. And jazz is a a genre that is very much alive and that changes and grows and expands, which is what makes it so interesting, because there’s a lot of different ways to make jazz, just like there’s a million different ways to make something that could be perceived as world music music.

I think that these different perceptions that we get, especially when you’re promoting a tour and you’re relying on, well… I mean, regional or local media, you don’t always have the luxury of working with journalists who are really into the type of music that you’re presenting and I think that, like you said, world music and also jazz give us opportunities for storytelling. And I think it’s our professional duty to do that properly. And if we can master that, that makes us better at our jobs. But it also really gives artists a better chance at telling the story. That also means that an artist really needs to think about who they are and they really need to think about where they come from and what their music stands for, what they stand for as an artist. Especially now in times where, you know, inclusivity and diversity are basically keywords for every snazzy funding campaign that you can have, we have to think about this a little bit differently. Because, on one hand, of course everybody should be in favor of inclusivity and everybody should be in favor of diversity. But I do notice that a lot of times, for example, for artists from the Balkans where I work a lot, Eastern Europe, where I work a lot, it doesn’t do them any favors. They have to find other ways to explain themselves, because there’s a discrepancy there. that, I think, doesn’t always swing East, if that’s the politest way I can put that, probably.

MM: So, when an artist or a record label or a manager asks you to work for them, what do you need from them? What do do you ask them to give you?

AH: It depends on if it’s a tour or an album but, definitely, music, obviously, preferably also a live video… Something recent. All materials always need to be recent because I’ve seen artists been announced through potos, for example, that have lineups from seven years ago on it and that’s usually not the promoter’s fault, because they’re really busy. I do marketing for festivals as well and there were years where I wrote and translated up to like 300 bios for one festival, like 150 artists in Dutch and English. And we don’t have time to rewrite and research every artista, so everything that you deliver has to be up to date, it has to be current.

I need a biography that tells me what your music sounds like and what your story is. I don’t care if you went to Juilliard, to be honest, because the fact that you’re professional enough to reach out to a publicist or to build your team to have a manager, for me says that, at least, there is something good about your music. But I what I want to know is what it sounds like and what I can expect to feel when I listen to it. And I think that that’s one thing that musicians often overlook. I know that you know it’s great that you got into this prestigious school and you worked like… you studied under these famous people. But that really doesn’t tell me much about who you are.

So I need music, I need live videos, I need a good biography. Previous press really helps, although I always do my own research. As well, tour dates, obviously, if there is any street date that’s 3 to six months in the future, preferably. If there are single releases, as well, it’s helpful to know who’s in charge of digital distribution, so we can communicate about pitches and I can time my pitches together with single releases.

I think all of these, like, basically, an electronic press kit plus plus plus… It’s also because, you know, we talk about storytelling and we talk about visual materials and about videos and all of that… I think that in today’s day and age, there’s so much music out there, there are so many artists and it’s really hard to stand out. But if you build a consistent brand, that is relatable to people, people can be very loyal to this brand because… It’s the same reason for me to work with someone: if it makes me feel something, then I will sign up to work with you and I will probably stay with you until you decide not to be. It’s a better look for both of us if an artist stays with the same publicist and the same team for a number of years, because journalists will notice if you change teams regularly. And, if you don’t, that means that you’re probably a nice person. And to have a consistent team and to be with the same people and to build something together helps you to build your brand. And, the longer you work together, the better you get to know each other as well. So you can sort of design this brand, I guess.For a lot of artists branding is like like commercialism, it’s a dirty word, “I don’t want to sell out, it’s all about the music…”. Yeah, sure it’s all about the music. We’re assuming that the music is great and you’re a superstar but, how are you going to tell people that you’re a superstar? How are you going to actually build your way there? I think social media, you know, Facebook advertising and stuff, they are great tools to help you put butts in seats. And at the end of the day, that’s what everybody wants: we all want you to sell out a room, we all want you to be come back in a bigger room in the same city next time. We all want the same thing.

So, I think that, as someone who has a background in marketing, I think that’s the most important thing for artists before they hire PR is to have a solid online presence that is consistent and that is personal. I don’t only want to see “Hi, I’m playing here…”. That’s great but, how do you feel about playing there? And I think that that’s a part of your journey as an artist that I rarely see on social media but I’d be really interested in that. If you’re like playing like this beautiful venue, take me backstage, give me a video, give me a tour, give me something that makes me feel something. Don’t just send me information that I don’t know what to do with. Give me something that I can relate to, because I will never be on stage at this amazing concert hall. I’m not a professional musician. I play for fun, but… it’s really easy, in my opinión, to make relatable content and to, really, tell a story and… I know that I am guilty of not doing that enough myself but… this is like, you know, going to a painter’s house and seeing that you know, his window sills are blading. It’s a lot harder to do it yourself and I understand that I have it too. I said it in a panel a few days ago, like my social media presence on Instagram is like a crime against marketing, I think. But at the same time, I do understand how it works and I’m so busy doing it for other people… You see this with my first book, as well. I ended up finally hiring someone to help me book a book tour, because I just I I can’t fucking do it myself.I really prefer to spend my time on artists rather than on myself.

But still, seriously, making relatable content is the most important thing and it’s the biggest thing that I am really missing with artists. In the same vein, I meet artists at conferences, I met one yesterday who just said “Well, I hear you’re a publicist and I make pop and rock music. I’m like great”. And before I could tell him that that’s not what I do at all and I cannot be of any help, he spent 5 minutes basically pitching himself but also saying “Nobody wants to work with me” and “Nobody’s hearing what I have to say” and I just thought “hang on, breathe for a moment and if I can give you one piece of advice, always ask questions, don’t just barge in and start like blabbering about how… again, you’re a superstar. I’m sure you’re a superstar. You’re serious enough about your career to come to a conference and to be open enough to talk to people, but ask them questions”. Because he would have known 30 seconds in, that like, okay, I wrote a book about networking and visibility in the music industry, so okay, we can talk about that. But I cannot help you build your career because I have zero connections in. Well, I mean, not zero but not very many relevant connections when it comes to pop music PR. There are people here and in all over Europe who are fantastic at it and I would love to recommend them. But now he just wasted 15 minutes of both of our time, just because he’s so frustrated that there’s no career progress for him. And I I told him “All you do is put out frustration and information about yourself and not necessarily positive information or positive energy and we want this positive energy”.

I want to work with people, like I said, who make me feel something, but also who’s personality makes me feel something because, at the end of the day, audiences are going to be drawn to your energy as well and they’re not going to be drawn to you basically bitching about how nobody wants you. Nobody wants that. No audience member is going to be like “You know what? This guy says all the right things, like, he says everybody sucks”. Nobody in the history of promoting music has ever wanted to do something like that and yet so many musicians… I mean, I understand that it’s hard, okay, I’ve been in the music industry for like 15 years now. I started my first band 20 years ago when I was 13 years old. I get it’s hard. I volunteered for years, I had shitty jobs on the side, I worked my ass off. I really have. I get it’s the same for us behind the scenes. It’s not like we make like tons of money compared to, like, starving artists. We really don’t. But we are also in it for the love of music and we are also in it with an optimistic and positive attitude. And we want the same from the people that we work with.

Some people that, like some of my favorite people actually that I work with, I didn’t start working with until two or three or four years after meeting them and we became friends. We know that we’re on the same wavelength, we really resonate with each other. Peter Dimitrov (editor’s note: see the previous interview with Peter Dimitrov, here) is a really good example of that, like whenever, whatever it is that he asks me to do, the answer is always yes. Because no matter how busy I am, we have such a positive and hardworking and amazing vibe, it’s a fucking party. I can work 14 hours a day with that guy and still feel like I’m having the time of my life. And ideally you have a similar connection with artists, I think. An artist should want the same thing, you should expect me to really work my ass off for you. And  I really want to want to do that, if that makes sense.

So… I’m sorry this is a very long answer but I have a lot of opinions on this.

• Fira Mediterrània de Manresa
  The call for proposals is open 

• Babel Music XP. Marseille, France. 28-30 March 

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?

Editorial

Introducing Madrid World Music (MWM), a new concert series, by Madresierra

About Visa for Music

Talk with Said Chaouch, from Worldmusic Oasis in Gothenburg

Upbeat Platform: Best New Talent Award For Zarina Prvasevda

Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects 

But in France I started to play music for fun, not professional, just in the weekend to meet friends. And then I moved to Sweden and I was missing the world music. When you have grown listening to listen African music, Arabic music and you find yourself with nothing…  I am a social person. I have grown up in society where there are 100 persons around me. So to find yourself just with your love, in a small apartment… It’s it was not enough for me. In Sweden that time you had to choose to work in Volvo and I was not made for Volvo, you know, I am and artist. And the world music has given me the chance to travel all around. I have been everywhere in the world, I have met people and that’s for me… it’s not the money, you know.

SC: There is a hard competitions today for artists. My personal advice for an artist is to find a new music concept and:
•    Forget the boring artists’ standard
•    Mix your music with other genres, like that you can hear everywhere in the planet.
•    Make your music universal
•    Find your own look to attract curiousity
•    use Youtube
•    Invest to participate into music markets
•    Keep a good relations with promotors
•    Don’t give up

I work with different venues in Gothenburg, with Norway too, with Oslo I have a good collaboration. Each time they bring an artist to Oslo they send it to me to Gothenburg. We have four venues in Gothenburg. So when I find an interesting artist, I contact the venues. Sometimes, if it’s empty, I mean, it’s not booked already… To compare with my friend in Oslo, they have their own venue but I collaborate with different venues. But as I have said, if I have to give advice of what artist was working well, let’s say we have two different category of artist: you have artists like Fatoumata Diawara, Amadou and Marian, Salif Keita, it is something else. Those artists cost a lot and you need big budget. So for a small booker it’s a little bit difficult, especially now. With these big artists you have to be 100 % sure that the money you give for Fatoumata Diawara or Salif Keita, you’ll get it. But at the same time, me personally I have followed Amadou and Marian since 15 years, I’ve see them in their career, but there are today good artists, like Ali (Doğan Gönültaş), Bab L’ Bluz … all these small artists who are making really fantastic work you know… Altin Gun… I have booked Tamikrest the last time… These artists are really good and don’t cost too much and they are interesting.

For me, you know, I get too many emails from different artist, each day we get, sometimes from promoters, sometime from the artists themselves… And we are limited in how much we can book. I mean I can’t book just to satisfy the artist because it must work, of course. So that sometimes can be a bit difficult to explain to the artist that, of course, I like it, you know, but you have to find the right time, the moment, the place…

A good advice for a promotor is to work work work work work work work, I mean, for instance, like Thijs, the promotor of Tamikrest, he is a good promoter, working, sending mail, calling… You have to develop a good contact between promoters as friendly contact, not only business contact. Personal contact really helps a lot.

MM: Especially in this field of music, the world music, I mean, the personal contact is especially important. Because maybe in in pop and rock is not.

SC: No, no, no, that is different because in the pop the work is already done. But for the world music… Ali, a good artist, very known in Turkey but not too many people know him in Europe, so if you just send an email about Ali, it’s not enough. But when you get the contact, I mean, you trust the promoter, I became more curious with Ali now. That is the way to get a good contact for both, for the artist, for the promoter… Sometimes to be honest you don’t have the time to read all the mail.

MM: I understand, it happens to me in the other side, I am contacted by many artist who want to me to be their manager…

SC: That’s why I like Visa for Music, which I have helped a lot from Sweden to promote it, because there you come closer to the artists, really closer, as friends, and even promoters. You come really close. You go to take a cup of coffee with the promoter, you speak, you get more information from promoter around the cup of coffee… It’s more than just to send an mail for thousands of persons.

MM: Which do you think is the future for the recorded music? You explained to me how it was with the CDs, after CDs went down, vynils came super strong and so… What is going to be the future of recording music? Do you think there will still be needed physical editions or will they disappear?

SC: I think it will disappear, honestly. Now, for the record labels, it is good to produce vinyl. Everybody want to have the vinyl but nobody listen. They have it as a decoration at home. And the price of a normal vinyl is 30 euro. But the young people won’t buy them. This period of the vinyl will take maybe 5 or 10 years but it will not survive, because now the people need to listen quickly they, to find quickly and everything go fast today.

MM: I wanted to tell you something that I learned yesterday. A journalist here from Spain explained to us something that can give you a hope about the physical editions. There is an online distributor here in Spain called Altafonte. They are distributors not only for Spanish artists also for American artists, but they are working internationally. And recently they decided to remove the accounts, first for the artists in the Spotify who had less than 500 listeners every month, and after, less than 1000. So you are in the hands of this third part, the distributor, and you are not independent, you depend totally on this third part for your distribution of your music. So maybe this is a risk that the artist have to face. They have to understand that this can happen at any moment. Spotify or any of the others can change their criteria or your digital distributor in which you delegated your distribution, can change the rules and can say “okay, I delete your account, or you have to pay me X amount or whatever…” and they don’t own the channel. So they are in the risk of losing all their distribution. Maybe this will start to happen more often.

This I am talking about, Altafonte, is a Spanish distributor, founded in Spain, but they are working not only for Spain, they work for all the world, they are a digital distributor who puts the music of the artists in the several platforms. Ad they decided that they are not going to support little artists. They will remove them from the platforms because it doesn’t return money, even when the cost is very little because it is only administrative work, but it is not worthy for them to deal with the administration of having very little accounts of a musicians.

I wanted to tell you because they don’t get money from very little artists who have very few listeners, but they have to work in the administration, making reports and these kinds of things. So they deleted them.

SC: But they have to understand that each artist needs a time to be known, to get more people.  If you take for instance Altin Gun, from Turkey, no one knew them at the beginning. So the distributor has to support them. To this is not Rolling Stones what you are distributing, let’s say, it is not Manu Chao.

MM: Yes, but these digital distributors, these companies who are making this, they have thousands of artists. There is not an editorial line that they support, no. They just give the service, they put your music in Spotify and in other platforms and they have thousands of artists. So if you are one of those artists, they are not going to push you because they have thousands. If you don’t have enough return, they remove you. There is no editorial or promotional intention in these companies.

SC: That’s the monopole of the Big Industry who decides now who can be good or not good, you know. That’s why when I have been to Visa for Music, there I have met really young people, new people, good artists who need support. That’s why one of my goals working with world music is to try how to help these good artists who haven’t money. I mean, you can come to WOMEX, but which artists have enough money to come to WOMEX? So if at some time I have to make speech at WOMEX I have to say that WOMEX needs to help, to try to make small WOMEX in India one time, like they are doing with WOMAD, you know WOMAD is changing the place. So we have to do the same with WOMEX, to get little bit chance for people in Sri Lanka, in Vietnam… to be known. So that is the big challenge for the future. It’s not having Salif turning 60 years. I mean, I am happy that he still works but… you understand what I mean, you know.

MM: Yes, Said… This that you are talking about now is a big concern I am having recently, especially when I started to work with Ali but not only. The last times I’ve have been interviewing people from more complicated countries like Lebanon for instance, or Imed Alibi from Tunisia. And well this the people I talk with, of course, they are inside the industry, let’s say. But I think about so many artists that are excluded from this. You say “how are they going to come to WOMEX? They don’t have money to fly, of course, of course. But even, more basically, many artists they are out from the circuit of even knowing what WOMEX is. And they are there, and they are making wonderful things but they are not in the industry. The industry is totally looking to other side. And there is the other world that we don’t imagine, out from the industry. And me, Mapamundi is me. With Juan Antonio we make Mundofonías. But we are so little… And you are also you one person fighting all your life against all those crises. So what are we going to do to, somehow, try to amend this? Because there are so many artists totally excluded. They won’t even apply for WOMEX. What can we do?

SC: Your initiative to contact me is itself a great idea to cooperate in the future. Yes, I’m someone with long experience in the world music, working without a big publicity about me. You found me because you are curious about music and musicians. Each person, artist, have something to give. Never underestimate people. The people should learn to take intitiative like you, so that together we can get through the monoply of the music industry. Your contact made me very happy. I said to myself, here’s someone who understood what is going on. Together we can do a lot for the musicians and for the world in general. Music bring peace, help poverty and create jobs. We talk always about the new releases, the music charts, concerts, festivals but never how complicated it is the situation of artists. The visa problem, the war in Niger, sub-Saharan refugees. The problem of today is that we don’t know each other well as promoters or music experts, except by Facebook or Instagram or when we meet it is always in hurry somewhere in some exhibitions changing visit card witch we don’t know from where it comes. We need to come closer.

But we have to meet to speak about these problems. Because no one speaks about these problems. You go to WOMEX, you have artists performing, people they come, they sign a contract and that’s it. But all the work behind, like we have said, all the small artists who need to come, all the small promoters… I was on the way to go to Bangladesh but their Festival is cancel… I was very interested in going to Bangladesh to discover musicians there which I know they can do much in Europe when the people discovered them and at the same time you help these artists. I mean we can’t only think about the money, we have to think to find the better way than just to meet five minutes, interchange visit cards quickly. From Sweden I have tried to help Visa for Music because I know there are poor artists who are coming there and who are good. And through Visa for Music, many artists have succeeded, gnawa groups are touring now in the world, you have Bab L’ Bluz, you have really many artists who have been discovered through this small festival.

For us, small promoter and small artists, we need each other and to be closer and again, this contact can by the chance for the artist. It’s not a favour you make for the friend, no, it’s not that concept. I mean if Ali come to Stockholm I will try because he’s a good artist. I believe that people need to discover these artists. So of course, I do my best to help the artist best and the audience, because I know the audience trust me. When I bring an artist they know that Said brings something good.

What have I done? I have tried to make a definition of “world music”. Each people have their own definition. The reason to make this book is when I was invited to make a lecture about world music in a school. I thought it would be easy, it could take me five minutes to prepare the lecture. And when I began to read the books, each one has his/her own explanation. So what I have done, better than reading 100 books, is to find that people who created the concept in England in 1987. It was not easy. 27 promotors, journalists and music lovers met in London in a pub and decided to create the term “world music”. I wanted to know exactly which is the definition from that people who are criticized. It was not easy because they are in higher positions and they don’t know me. I sent them emails and they didn’t answer. Thanks to my contacts, like the manager of Tinariwen, I met people like Ben Mandelson, he gave me other contacts… After a few years I have met all that people. Sometimes it took six months before the answer. At the end, it was a long work, I have succeeded in interviewing all these people, asking them how the idea began, what was the purpose and why some people don’t like it.

All this is the book, to say the truth of what is “world music”. You don’t need to buy 100 books; I have made all those interviews and I have made a retrospective of before 1987 how they arrived to “world music”, from the African music of the 50s, how it has grown.Before France, Abidjan was the capital of the world music. And then in the 80s, because of the economic problems in Ivory Coast, all the people moved to Paris: Salif Keita, Mori Kante, Youssou N’Dour, Manu Dibango… all those people moved to Paris at the beginning of the 80s and there they began to produce. The book is not to about my life, it is about this complexity of the term “world music”. You understand this better from someone who have been close than from the books. I’ve got the information direct from the mouth of those people.

At the moment I have no idea of open calls.

About professional events, as I mentioned above, I will be soon in Manchester for the annual meeting of the European Folk Network. Short summary, from the website: “The Conference programme includes opportunities to hear about the situation for traditional arts in Ukraine from musician and festival promoter Anastasiya Vortyuk, about traditional arts surviving in crisis with the Armagh Rhymers from Northern Ireland, about cultural tourism (who does it benefit?), about Members’ own areas of work in special interest groups (such as artists, storytellers, national organisations and others) – and more opportunities to discuss EFN’s future plans including the European Folk Day project.”

The panel about cultural turism will include my partner Pablo Camino (in the portrait), from Spain is Music, a privileged mind oriented to create personalized experiences with music with roots always present. It will be enlightening.

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.

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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

I first heard about Imed Alibi in this interview ➡️ . Click on the picture to access it. It was at the height of the pandemic. I highly recommend reading it. It is in Spanish but I’m sure you can translate it automatically into your language with sufficient results. I have not forgotten it. It opened my mind to some ideas I hadn’t dealt with before.

At that time, May of 2020, I was involved in a series of conversations with colleagues from other countries in an attempt to create an informal network of people with similar concerns. I don’t know how, but I came across this interview with Imed. It was explained that, shortly before the start of the pandemic, Imed had been appointed director of the highly relevant Carthage International Festival. The news had been widely celebrated by the new generation of local artists. Why? It sounded worthy of further reading…

That edition of the festival was postponed and they had to opt for national artists, given the uncertainty about key issues that could affect them, such as international travel. In that interview, Imed said that the festival’s intention was not only to carry out a series of artistic activities but also to support the sector, which has been terribly affected by the coronavirus crisis. Later, he added: “In my humble opinion, the Carthage shows should retain the emotion of live performance, because historically they have always been linked to the audience. It is the essence of the festival. And I sincerely doubt that it can be transformed into a digital version“. I felt the same about many initiatives at that time.

Despite this, we personally had a fantastic experience with Vigüela in an event commissioned by the International Labour Organization. We called it “Conciertajo”, a words game with concert + Tajo, that is both the river in the village of the band and a slang term for “work”. It was designed specifically for the digital medium, taking advantage of the options for interaction with the public. During some weeks before, we incorporated the public directly into the artistic creation. During the concert, we kept the talk with them. The concert was the culmination of a lot of previous activities. But it is true that most of what was done was to put a camera and broadcasting.

Back to Imed, he also said something that still resonates with me to this day, perhaps even more strongly: “As we know there are many very talented artists but they are not good communicators and in that case inequalities can be created if we don’t receive support or advice from specialists or record labels. And well, these are the difficulties faced by artists in our countries and I would even say in the world in general.”

The whole interview is very interesting. Imed talks about the digital alternative and to what extent it was useful, about copyright in this area, about the conversations with the government to support artists, about the situation of artists in authoritarian regimes….

I contacted Imed to invite him to the talks with colleagues but the initiative fizzled out as the challenges were pulling on all of us and we didn’t manage to meet up with him. But luckily I have been meeting him on a few occasions and discovering more interesting things. The last time we met was in Ostrava, for the Czech Music Crossroads, of which I already spoke in the previous edition.

Portrait by Cedric Matet.

In Ostrava I learnt that he leads the department of music of the Atelier des artistes in Exile. That reminded me immediately about Alan Ibrahim and his organization Music For Identity, with whom I made a long and deep interview in this previous edition.

And I said before, Imed is a musician himself. He is a percussionist and composer. This is a video from his Youtube channel: Imed Alibi Feat Kel Assouf et Natanael Ramos.

Mapamundi Música: For the interview, as your profile is so special, I will separate the questions in two parts: 

1. About your work as artistic director and artistic advisor of music festivals.

🔸MM: This newsletter is received by artists and managers from many places of the world. What can be useful for you? Are you interested in any specific profile of artists? Or, in other words, what do you search for in the artists with whom you could collaborate specifically for the advisory work you are doing currently? 

🔸What is the best way to approach you? Or how do you find the artists that can be of your interest? 

🔸MM: Have you identified any common mistakes or shortages that the artists/managers do when approaching a person like you, who can be the decision maker in a festival or can have a strong influence on an artistic program?

Thank you, Imed! 🙏

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in August 2023 is: Amatssou by Tinariwen (Wedge)

• Mundofonías: this year we decided to take holidays in August so we don’t have any favourites. But we have news. RadiONeria, from Corcubion, Galicia, started to broadcast Mundofonías. 

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. Specific day and time details will be announced at a later date.

The first ever European Folk Day will take place on 23rd of September. The call for participations is open (indeed, until the very last day). There are already 67 events aligned to the concept. All the information is available on the website.

The European Folk Day is a pilot project co-ordinated by European Folk Network (EFN) with financial support from the MusicAIRE project jointly organised by the European Music Council and Inova with funds from the Creative Europe programme of the European Commission.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

About professional events… 

🔸September, 7-9, Veszprém, Hungary, for the festival of BALKAN:MOST. 

In the picture, David Sierra and me, with the violinist Jitka Kubesovà. In Veszprém we will take new pictures:

MEET ME AT

If you happen to attend these same events, drop me a line. If you are not, they can be interesting for you too in any case. They are special events.

• September, 7-9, Veszprém, Hungary, for the festival of BALKAN:MOST. More info above.

• October, 5-8, I will go to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Ali Doğan Gönültaş 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. In the picture, Mari Nieto, singer of Vigüela, one of the protagonist of the event.

• October, 18-21, Manchester. English Folk Expo, which this year hosts the annual meeting of the European Folk Network.

• Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.

• 18-19 November. Hamburg, Germany. At the Elbphilarmonie there will be a wonderful program curated by alba Kultur, called Festival “Kurdistan”. Click here to discover the full program. It includes the performance of the dengbêj Saîdê Goyî. It will be a very special event, as Goyî rarely performs in this kind of professional environments. Thanks to the will of his son to take his art out of the private environment, in the past two years, the dengbêj has recorded two albums with the musical direction of Ali Doğan Gönültaş: Stranen Dile Min (2022) and Jinê (2023). These steps set the beginning of a path that would took him to this his first performance abroad: this unique event in Hamburg! Gönültaş (voice, tembur) will perform also with his own trio and he will accompany Saîdê Goyî, also together with Emrah Oğuztürk (mey, kaval, duduk, zurna).

In the picture, Ali Doğan Gönültaş and Saîdê Goyî in the surroundings of Şirnak:

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.