How are you? I hope well!

Womex took place again in person, with an atmosphere that almost seemed normal, with close to the usual number of delegates. I have many tasks pending and many emails to answer related to Womex. Life as it used to be.

It was a delight to see so many colleagues again and to finally meet in person some of those with whom I had only been in contact from afar. I have also received thanks, face to face, from some of the subscribers to this newsletter and it has strengthened my commitment to it even more. And it took place the showcase by Hudaki Village Band, my Ukrainian band, that was a success!

I have also missed some people, some who have not come because of the situation of still some uncertainty related to the international travels and others, for a different reason. For example, Leo Ličof, creator of the Okarina festival in Bled, Slovenia. He was our protagonist in this edition. I will focus on him for one reason. Last month I commented on how the pandemic has accelerated some things and made it easier for others to be destroyed. During my stay at WOMEX, Leo warned me that the festival was disappearing, there would be no more Okarina Festival, by decision of the city council. I’m sure there are many similar situations that I don’t know about.

But there is also hopeful news for our community and colleagues who have managed to retake their activities with the usual strength, like today’s protagonist, Peter Van Rompaey. I share with you some of this good news and, as always, if you have any news to share with the community, let me know.

Thank you very much for your attention. As always, if you have any news of interest for our community, let me know. 

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 
Subscription is available here.

FLASH NEWS

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in November 2021 is: Susana Baca’s album Palabras Urgentes (Real World). 
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for November are the albums: Magija djin muzika vlahilor / Vlaška muzička magija / The magic of Vlach music: Gergina 2009-2018 (V.A.), In the year 2021: Looking back at 40 years of JARO music (V.A.), Göç by Cihan Türkoğlu. 

• Out colleague from World Music Charts Europe Milan Tesař and me will participate in an online presentation in the Rio Music Market, to present their platform and the Transglobal World Music Chart, as resources for the musicians, record labels and promotors. It will be on December 8th at 15:30 CET.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: PETER VAN ROMPAEY

Mapamundi Música: Why are you doing this? What is your personal background? 
Peter Van Rompaey: I am the only son of a family of butchers. As my parents were working everyday from 7am until 11pm, I was much alone at night. So, I listened a lot to the radio. One way or another, I’ve always liked a lot of music. And one evening, on the television, I saw the Flemish traditional singer Wannes Van de Velde. As he sings in Flemish, he is not known abroad. Unfortunately, he has passed away in 2008. In Belgium, we are a crosspoint between many countries and it is a flat country, we couldn’t keep the traditions. Some parts of Europe could keep it easier. Some mountainous regions, or Irland… But in Belgium, we have a lot of influences from abroad, and we had the radio and television, the Beatles and the Stones and everything… So, we’ve lost our musical tradition. But Wannes Van de Velde, who lived in Antwerp, still was real traditional singer, who learned it from his father who also was a folk singer. Wannes sang in the pubs and he met a lot of sailors… He was almost our only living link with the traditional scene. When I saw him on television, he did not perform a traditional song, but he was singing an alphabet: A is America that is governing us, B is the bomb that us threatening us. C is the culture that is dying because of all those laws, D are the thieves (dieven) who are stealing from us the artists. That you could talk about society in a song, a political song, was a real eye-opener for me. I was very moved by it. I realised that you could say critical things with traditional music. It went straight to my heart.

Mapamundi Música: How old were you? 
Peter Van Rompaey: I think I was like 14 or 13, I don’t remember exactly how old I was. I started to be really interested in traditional music, but more in the topical songs. Every week I went to the library to get new records and to find out about protest singers who sang in the languages that I could more or less understand, like Victor Jara, Atahualpa Yupanqui, some English ones, Dick Gaughan, American folk singers, Woody Guthrie…Some years later, at university in Leuven, I’ve met a lot of friends who were active in music. My neighbour, Bert Bernaerts was a bass and trumpet player. He is still running some very creative musical brass bands. Bert and I discussed all the time about music, discovered artists together such as Charles Mingus (who was also a topical jazz musician), Paul Bley,…  Still another friend, Sam Versweyveld, was a jazz trumpet player, now playing with the Belgian mestizo band Chicos y Mendez. Thanks to him, I’ve discovered Miles Davis, Chet Baker. We went to see the first Belgian concerts of then young jazz artists such as Roy Hargrove and Joshua Redman together. Another friend played blues guitar and harmonica and he introduced me to the music of the old folk blues artists such as Robert Johnsson, Lightning Hopkins. We started organising blues concerts together with people like Honeyboy Edwards or Spencer Bohren. Another friend was Piet Maris, the accordion player and leader of Jaune Toujours and Mec Yek. For a very short moment, I was Jaune Toujours sound man, I must have been the worst sound engineer in the world, but at least I was wearing a yellow overall, fitting with the name of the band, which means always yellow in french. Together with Piet I organised concerts in unusual places in student town Leuven such as a solo concert with soprano saxophone player Steve Lacy in a swimming pool.One way or another, all my friends were into music. And also my wife, who I met at university, was playing music and very interested in accordionists and Irish folk music. With them, I starting making radio. I also started writing about music for a student newspaper and a Belgian folk magazine, and I made my first steps organizing concerts of jazz and blues.

After university, I followed my wife to Brussels and started teaching Dutch to people with migrant background. In the class, I was always singing traditional songs to teach them dutch. One of my students was Marisol Palomo, of whom all the family were making Galician music. They also organized folk nights. Marisol knew that I was writing about music for some world music magazines, and that I was very interested in folk music. So, she asked me if I could write the texts for their folk dance nights, which I started to do as a volunteer. At that time, I worked as a freelance journalist, mainly writing about economics.

At that moment, the Palomo family, who were also running the Galician association of Brussels had renovated La Tentation, an old big shop of curtains in art nouveau style in Brussels. They turned it into Galician cultural center with a capacity of 700 people.  They asked me to help them to organise folk music concerts. At the opening night we invited some of the best Belgian folk bands to play, among them my all time hero, Wannes Van de Velde.

Very quickly there was so much work for the Galician cultural center that I had to tell my friend “I have not enough time for my job as free lance journalist anymore. If you want me to continue, you will have to give me some sort of paid contract”. And I started to work for them. We were organizing concerts of traditional music on a regular base, one or two concerts a week, most of it of European traditional music. Little by little, we opened up to other parts of the world. And we added music lessons, becoming a small music school, with teachers such as Didier Laloy, Wim Claeys or Anne Niepold (button accordion), Luc Pilartz (violin), Veronica Codesal (pandeireta),…  But after 4 years they fired me, together with my former student Marisol Palomo, who was the daughter of the president of the Galician association. It was also a family problem. As La Tentation had become a very fructuous concert place for traditional music, with the concerts and the school, we decided to start a new association, which is Muziekpublique.

Mapamundi Música: What was the name of that Galician cultural center?
Peter Van Rompaey: Centro Galego de Bruxelas and the building was called La Tentation. We had people playing there like Kepa Junkera, Breton singer Erik Marchand with Tarab de Caráncebes, the Irish folk band Dervish, also Habib Koite from Mali, Gacha Empega (the first band of Manu Théron from Lo Cor de la Plana)… It was the place to be for traditional music from the world. Mariza played there her first Belgian concert, we had Czech singer and violin player Iva Bittová, the Klezmatics… It was a very nice period but also difficult. First of all, there was the discussion about being mainly Galician center for Galician culture or opening up to different cultures, … They also wanted us to become more commercial than what we wanted to do. They could not understand that it was great to have Alim Qasimov playing there, or Monâjât Yulchieva… that sort of people, and that in those concerts you would do a break even, and not earn a lot of money. They wanted us to make salsa concerts where you can make five thousand or ten thousand euros with the bar instead. That was the discussion all the time: “you should do more commercial things and less those types of concerts”.

Mapamundi Música: And they fired you because of that.
Peter Van Rompaey: Yes. Also the building was very special. When the musicians came, they were impressed. So, when we had to start again from scratch with Muziekpublique, we did not have the charm of the hall. In that building, La Tentation, we had every night 700 people… It was really working a lot, well situated in the center of Brussels and we thought “What we do is great, we have a great program, we’ll do the same type of program”. When we started as Muziekpublique we noticed that in fact there were quite some people coming for the building, that they were used to that place. With Muziekpublique we had to travel between concert halls all the time, because we didn’t have our own hall. And then, we had 100 people for the same artist for which would have come 700 in La Tentation. So, that was a very hard reality check.

Mapamundi Música: Who made Muziekpublique with you at the beginning? 
Peter Van Rompaey: We were four at the start. There was Marisol Palomo, who is one of the singers of Ialma, and two of the other collegues of La Tentation and a lot of volunteers. Most of the volunteers of La Tentation followed us, as did the teachers of our academy, except two. So, we started from scratch but already we had great help.

Mapamundi Música: So you had to work in other places. And what happened with the previous building, La Tentation?
Peter Van Rompaey: They still continued doing some concerts but not with the same taste, much more latin, more commercial music. What was hard was that some people who used to come to the concerts before, from the traditional music scene, were angry on us, considering us as traitors… It was a very hard period. I lost a lot of hair and it became grey.

Mapamundi Música: When was this?
Peter Van Rompaey: 2002. The family didn’t own the building, but had the possibility to buy it for 300.000 euros. If you see the building you know that the real price should be a least ten or twenty times that amount. It is a large, very beautiful building. They could buy for 300.000 euros in the first 3 years of their renting contract of 30 years. The government was ready to give Centro Galego a 300.000 euros grant to buy it, but they had one condition: they wanted to have one observer in the board. Unfortunately the board of the Centro Galego didn’t accept it and they have never bought the building. Now, 20 years later the Centro Galego de Bruselas has gone bankrupt. They don’t have the building anymore. Now the building would have been worth at least 3 million or 4 million euros, maybe double.

Mapamundi Música: Oh, my god!
Peter Van Rompaey: There are many stories. Once with did a concert with Roma musicians and we managed to have the Romani singer from Romania Nicolae Guță. I don’t know if you know the record “La grande voix tsigane de Roumanie”.

This is the album mentioned by Peter. You might like to listen to it while you continue reading the interview.

Peter Van Rompaey: He is a hero for the Romani people in Romania. In our hall, half of the audience were Roma living in Brussels. It was crazy. In a certain moment they started to give him money and he was almost not singing anymore, but always saying “this song is for you, and this is for you” and he got his pocket full of money. But the president of Centro Galego got very angry that we did such things: “We are not a place for Gypsies”…When we left and started Muziekpublique, we had created an association, that was called La Tentation, in order to have government grants to support the cultural activities. We changed the name La Tentation into Muziekpublique. As we had left the building, we needed a new name. Brussels has two official languages. How can you be working with traditional music and be open to everyone and not like the persons who speak the other language? By having a name with the two official languages – Dutch and French – we made a statement of openness, tolerance for the others. However, there is more in the name: of course, “Muziek”, that is music, that was logical, and “publique”, to work with the audience, music of the people. We wanted to make contact between the audience and the music. For us, they are not separated worlds like in most of the concert places, the theatres, where you have artists on the stage with a huge distance with the audience. You come to the concert, you go out and do not get to talk, meet the artists… We want to create links between them… Muziekpublique is music of the people, for the people and with the people. That was the idea. In addition, “publique” means public, something for everyone.

The first years we travelled around Brussels. Next to the concerts, we continued the music school, where you have the smallest gap between the musicians and the audience who become musicians themselves. We grew little by little, first slowly. At the beginning, it was very hard. I think we wanted to stop every two months, because it was so much work every time. We were organizing like every week at least one concert, sometimes two. We had to use gym halls where we had to put up the stage ourselves, install the lights, do everything ourselves. It was so heavy, physically exhausting… Sometimes you think “Why are we doing this, it is crazy”. And after a while we had some fixed partners, halls where we could go. After three years we found a very nice hall in the centre of Brussels, which would be given to us by the city of Brussels. We had a press conference where the city council announced it, etc… But then, which is a typical Brussels thing, the region of Brussels with other political parties in it, decided to break the decision of the Brussels’ city council. So we were still homeless… Our dream of a place where we could have the concerts, the music classes, the rehearsals,… together, fell apart.

Luckily, one year later we found an empty theatre in the African neighbourhood in Brussels, Matonge, which is also the name of a neighbourhood in Kinshasa. Belgian has a diaspora from Congo, as it was a Belgian colony, a dark page of our Belgian history. The renovation of the Molière theatre was a neighbourhood project of the city of Ixelles (other part of Brussels), to restore the neighbourhood. So, thanks to that project and thanks to the city of Ixelles, we finally found our concert hall, where we still are situated.

It was really a big push. Having a fixed place, is much easier for the communication. We are easier identified as Muziekpublique at that place. Before, when were travelling between halls, people often thought it was a program of that hall… It was very difficult to communicate and get known. Sometimes, we couldn’t find a free hall to organize our concerts. That’s the reason that in our second year, a small festival that was born. As we had no concert halls, we decided to go into peoples houses. “Living Room Music” is a festival in 10 living rooms in one neighbourhood. People discover one Brussels’ neighbourhood and can see three concerts of different artists in different living rooms.

Mapamundi Música: In houses? 
Peter Van Rompaey: Yes. It has become a classic in the Muziekpublique program. Every year we go to another neighbourhood in Brussels. It is very nice. It is again linked to the meaning of our name. We tell the people of who live in the house “This day you are the organizer, you are the hall, you present the artists, you welcome them”. Ok, we have volunteers doing the ticketing, etc. It is not that they are all on themselves. But, they also have to keep in mind the timing of the concert and… This small scale festival creates relationships with the owners and the neighbourhood. Afterwards, we have a party together with all the owners and the volunteers. That’s the place where to owners get to see the other artists, who played at another house.  There, the musicians play together in a jam session. For us, Living Room Music is a way to connect with a new audience.

Traditional music represents the 99% of the music of the world, although we only get 1% of attention on the radio or in press in general. However, there is so much diversity in the world… Still it is only that 1% what people get to know. Often they do not know traditional music or have bad ideas about it… We try, with those concerts, to attract people who wouldn’t go to hear traditional music. Because they are curious to discover the apartments in the neighbourhood or discover a new neighbourhood. Sometimes the owners get in contact with music they wouldn’t listen to. In our program, we often try to find new ways of getting another audience.

Mapamundi Música: How did you manage this in the legal side? In Spain, everything is so bureaucratic, and you have to guarantee there is an emergency exit and these kind of things. It is no easy to make that in Spain. Did you have to face any difficulty?
Peter Van Rompaey: Not really. In Belgium, per meter of exit, you can have one hundred people. Of course, you need an emergency exit. As the concerts are for 30 or 40 people, they don’t make a big problem of it. One year, we had a problem with our ticketing system. We always work with three languages, Flemish, French and English. That year, our registration system didn’t take into account the subscription for the Flemish and for the English pages, because of a bug with the website. Before we go to visit the apartment and we estimate for instance that there is place for 30 people. For every concert we give 5 tickets to the owners to invite their neighbours. Because, if the neighbours hear there is music it can be disturb them. That’s why we encourage the owners to invite them. They also make connections; start to know each other better… So, for an appartement of 30 places, there should be 25 tickets. At that time our ticketing system didn’t count the registrations in Dutch and English. So, we were really overbooked. Everybody was packed in the apartments. It was really too much. I remember one person in the public asking for the emergency exit. One of the musicians opened the window behind him, which was on the second floor, and said “It is here, madam”. At the end, the concerts went well. We did not need an emergency exit.

In the first years of Living Room Music, you could go to one concert. After a few years, we have decided that you have to choose three concerts, all of different styles, so, for instance, someone who likes flamenco has to take two others, that could be a Syrian musician or Belgian traditional music, or African… Therefore, the audience has to choose two other concerts they normally wouldn’t go to. In this way, we push the audience to discover. We oblige the audience to be curious and see other things.

We always try to find ways that people go to concerts they normally wouldn’t go to, by combining artists from different cultures, doing a double or triple concerts. For instance, the theme would be violin, but different styles of violin. Maybe you like Balkan music and you would go to hear a Balkan violin player, but you’ll find on the same concert night a solo violin player from Tajikistan or someone from Norway playing hardanger fiddle. We often try to do this. We also do free noon concerts with solo artists, where we put all the audience on the stage around the artist. There we have another audience. People that are older and wouldn’t go out at night, still come to those kinds of concerts. When it is holiday, there are a lot of families coming to that type of concerts.

As I told you, when we had finally managed to find the hall in Matonge, it gave us a lot of opportunities. The hall has great acoustics. It sounds good, it is not difficult to amplify. One day we started recording. We thought “Muziekpublique is now existing for 5 years. We will make a compilation of local artists that we think they are worth to be known. Sometimes they have good recordings, sometimes they don’t.”

When we started, there were still a lot of world music or traditional music concerts in the cultural centers in Belgium. But often it was imported music for me. For instance, you saw the artists who were popular in World Music Chats Europe or Songlines brought to make a tour in the cultural centers. That is very nice but I did not see them develop artists or picking out emerging artists that deserve to be known. In the city of Brussels, there is such a large community of artists from everywhere… Sometimes you have artists that are better than those who come on tour. They might your neighbours, but sometimes you don’t know it and you only see an old man or the lady who is cleaning buildings but in fact he or she is an important artist. That’s why we wanted to work with artists from Brussels or from Belgium, that we think are worth to be known. And we try to get them known outside of Belgium. For the migrant communities is important to see that their heroes are also known outside of their own communities. Sometimes they are stars in their own community. It’s important in Belgium but also in other cities in Europe that people with migrant background can think “In my new city they like the artists of my own community”. It is important, it makes you feel that you, as a newcomer in the country, are also accepted.

The first artist we recorded an album with was Malick Pathe Sow, a Senegalese Fulani (English) or Peul (French) musician. He plays hoddu, what is called djeli ngoni in Mali. It is a small lute, like the one that Bassekou Kouyate plays. At that moment Malick was my teacher of guitar of African Senegalese style. During the classes we discussed lot and I felt his love for the more traditional Fulani music. At that time, he was playing a lot of mbalax music, a mixture of pop, rock and traditional. He was doing that because he didn’t dare to play his traditional music. Malick had made some CDs with quite success before. He had played with Baaba Maal. But he was afraid to do the more traditional things, because he thought he would have more success with mbalax. He was one of the artists we wanted to put in a compilation for the 5 years of Muziekpublique. The recording was done by a musician, Emre Gültekin, who is a baglama player and a sound technician. Malick played one song with his band, and we asked them to play more traditional. It was a difficult process because the musicians were so used to the previous things… They recorded such a nice song and they played another one and at the end we didn’t do the compilation, we made a complete album with Malick Pathe Sow. The album was a lot of work, because Malick himself wasa ready to play more acoustic, more into his roots, although it is not 100% traditional because he plays his own compositions. Not all the musicians were Fulani, something that happens when you live abroad: you don’t find enough musicians from your own community. The other musicians were Bao Sissoko, a Mandinka kora player from Senegal who is not Peul but as he had played with Fulani musicians such as Baaba Maal, het felt the music they were going to record. Another came was from Guinea Konacry, playing balafon and guitar, the percussionist was from Togo… They were used to play the more commercial mbalax and we had to ask the percussionist not to put the accents with cymbals. We wanted to hear the calabash. The recording of our first album ‘Maayo Men’ took a long time, but thanks to the vision of Malick and Emre, it turned out to be a beauty.

This is the album Peter is talking about:

Peter Van Rompaey: We did not have the intention to become a record label, because we already had enough work organizing the concerts and running the music school. We tried to find another label to edit it. We had other good musicians in mind we wanted to record and proposed to be a sublabel of another record label that would do all typical label work, printing, distributing, dealing with author rights… We almost made an agreement with Home Records, but at the end we did not agree. They wanted us to have the artists recorded in their studio with their sound engineer and we wanted to continue with Emre Gültekin as sound engineer in our hall in order to be able to follow up the recording process. As we did not find another record label, we finally became one ourselves.Initially we didn’t want to do the bookings or the management of the bands either, but all the people that we found wanted Malick to make again the more commercial mbalax. So, at the end we though that if we left him to another agent, in two weeks he would be playing mbalax again and we didn’t want that. At the end we started doing it ourselves and since then we have a record label and do the management and booking of the artists on our label.

Mapamundi Música: So, why were you working as a freelance in economy? Did you study economics? 
Peter Van Rompaey: I studied Germanic languages. I started to write for a students’ newspaper, a very good one, almost like a professional newspaper. Every week some of our articles got into the national newspapers. Some of the news topics we found or wrote about, they took it over and it went to the national newspapers. I was the coordinator of that students’ newspaper for one year. Afterwards I tried to find a fixed place in a newspaper. I almost got to be hired in one of the two major Flemish newspapers, but at the end they took over someone else from another newspaper, and I felt really depressed, because my dream had felt apart.
I worked a freelance journalist tackling many topics. I wrote a lot for the economic pages of one of our major Flemish newspapers. I did not write about the hard economic subjects such as the stock exchange, but I wrote about weapon exports industry, pollution by the industry and how to clean it, about people having debts… Topics that were still economics but with a social character. Subjects that went a bit broader than hard economics. How Eastern Europe changed from communist system to capitalism. I wrote about the case of Slovakia going from state market economy to free market economy. At that time I used to go to Slovakia very often for a social Gypsy project. When the state companies were privatised the Slovaks received bonds or actions of the big state companies, but after a very short time all the bonds were already owned by very few people, often linked to the government. I wrote about that kind of subjects. I put a lot of time in each of the articles, doing a lot of research and interviews. I liked it a lot but I had to stop because I didn’t earn enough to do it properly. If I wanted to make a decent living, I would have to do a lot of shit articles, go to press conferences that were not interesting and quicly write an article to earn my money. I did not want to do that kind of journalism and I had to find to do something else.

Mapamundi Música: So with Muziekpublique you organize concerts, you are a label, you make management and booking and you have the music school. You also organize festivals, like the one in the living rooms and like Hide&Seek Festival. And about the school, you started when you were at La Tentation? Why? 
Peter Van Rompaey: One of the reasons comes back all the time. There are some sorts of musics that are not well known and, what is the best way to understand them ? I’ll give an example: kora music. When you learn kora music yourself, you have learnt to play a basic song, like Jarabi, you are in a concert and Toumani Diabate plays Jarabi and you will understand much more what he is doing and you will listen differently. So, always the ideas about educating the public so they can understand what they are listening to, is one of the things.

This is Toumani Diabate playing Jarabi, the piece mentioned by Peter.

Peter Van Rompaey: A second reason is that the market for the concerts of these musicians is so small that they have to find other ways of earning their living. One of the ways is teaching. We offer them the possibility to make part of their living with the teaching.The third reason is that we want to form new musicians because the tradition can’t get lost. We live in different contexts than you in Spain. You are maybe able to keep more of the rural society with some traditional ways of transmitting the music as it used to be done before in some communities. But we in the city are in a different situation. We have lost that way of living and transmitting music. That’s why we have to find other ways to make the music continue and live on.

Those are the main three reasons. And it is also a way to create connections between the artists and the audience, “Muziek” and “publique”.

I experienced it myself when I was student of Malick Pathe Sow. Even though I didn’t learn to play very well because of my limited talents, it was an incredible experience to have a master musician as a teacher, who also tells you all the stories of his country and his tradition. It was magical. I would advise anyone to study, once in their lives, with some master who is very rooted in the tradition and wants to share his passion about it. It is an incredible experience to listen to the master or to talk a lot with him or her. You do not only learn to play but get lessons in history, live, philosophy… Those moments are magical. That is why we are privileged in our world, because we have those contacts with the musicians and we can learn a lot from them. In general in culture and traditional music, we do not earn a lot of money but the artists pay us with their culture, their experiences… We are very privileged in a way.

Mapamundi Música: Was it easy to find students? What is the profile of the students? 
Peter Van Rompaey: Students are mainly adults. We started with 8 or 9 lessons and now we have 50 classes. It has evolved enormously. We don’t have a lot of children, because we are not specialized on that. Since this year, we are more and more together with schools.

We started mainly with adults. Some people have stopped classe because they though it was easy, because it is world music. People that want to travel with their instrument and that think that in one year of lessons they can travel and play in the streets. That is the extreme example. But most of the students are music lovers. Sometimes they have music education, sometimes they don’t. The ones who have, maybe they want to broaden up their horizons. Some are ambitious and want to become professional musicians or they already are, and some are amateurs. Some of the students just come for the atmosphere. That is not so nice for the teachers when they see these students are not advancing enough.

The profile of age can be from 16 to 80 maybe. Almost all ages, except very young children. It is quite diverse, but it depends on which class it is. So let’s say, diatonic accordion is less diverse or will be another profile that qanun. For qanun they can be more Moroccan people and for diatonic accordion they are more Belgians. In our ideal world there would be a Moroccan playing diatonic accordion or a Portuguese playing qanun, but it is their choice.

Mapamundi Música: So you have 50 classes. 
Peter Van Rompaey: Yes. There are some dance classes but most of them are instrument classes: from bagpipe to ud. We have also ensemble classes, where students get the chance to play together and make bands.

Mapamundi Música: So you have a lot of teachers. What have been the main challengers of working with them as teachers? Were they all already trained as teachers or did some of them start to be teachers in Muziekpublique?
Peter Van Rompaey: Most of them started to be teachers in Muziekpublique. It is out strength but also our weakness: we are not imposing them a method. So about the balafon teacher, in West Africa they don’t teach. You are just sitting there with one of the older people and you do what they do. Our balafon teacher makes a compromise between teaching in Africa and teaching for Europeans. It is difficult to explain but it is not like a method with notes and so.
Others are stricter, with notes and everything written down… It is a little bit free and when we see it is not going well we try to help them. As I said, it is also our weakness that we give them a lot of liberty on how to approach it.

Mapamundi Música: I think it is not easy to give lessons of a skill like that, because in their communities those are learn intergenerationally, you learn in the ambient where it is happening, so, how do they deal with this, do they need support, do they ask to the other teachers how do they do it, how can they assess the development of the students? You mentioned they want the student to learn, sometimes they are not fast enough, and they can get frustrated, so there must be a way of evaluating the progress of the students?
Peter Van Rompaey: We don’t have an exam but once in the year most of the students play for an audience. We have like a students festival for two days and they have to play a the Moliere theatre, where is Muziekpublique, on the big stage, to be seen by the audience. That is the exam. There is some goal, because you have to play.
But sometimes it doesn’t work and we try to help the teacher but sometimes at the end we have to say “Sorry, it will never work” and we stop the class.

Mapamundi Música: Do you need each teacher to have a minimum number of students? 
Peter Van Rompaey: We need at least 3 or 4. It can happen, exceptionally at the beginning, when the class is starting, to start with 1 or 2 and then it grows, but we use to start with 3 or 4 minimum.

Mapamundi Música: So you must have at least 200 students.
Peter Van Rompaey: We have 650. Some teachers have 4 or 5, others have 20.

Mapamundi Música: How do you manage all this in the financial side? You make a lot of things so at the end, some amount from this, form that and from the other… keeps the structure alive. How many people are you working there and how do you support it economically?
Peter Van Rompaey: We are 9 people now. When we started, we were 0 paid. We’ve done two years with all volunteers. But now we are 9 people, equivalent to 7 and a half full time for technics (sound and light), accountancy, production, communication in French and Dutch, the music school, the volunteer coordination, the label and the bookings,…

And how do we pay it? We have grants from the two communities, the French and the Flemish. It more or less pays the employees. The rest, we pay with the tickets sales or the drinks at the bar or all the other incomes. Grants are like 35 to 40% of the income, and the rest is 60%, that is our own revenue.

Mapamundi Música: Which is the total budget for one year? 
Peter Van Rompaey: Around one million or one million two hundred thousand. It is difficult to say with covid. The last turnover I have is around one million, before covid. The first year it was about one hundred thousand, but many artists supported us, playing for free.

Mapamundi Música: And since you started working with these kinds of music, not only since Muziekpublique, what do you feel that is the evolution of the public? Sometimes, I think that many of us feel that world music has been getting weaker, at least in Europe. What you have been doing must have supported the creation of new public, of giving more knowledge to the big and making them appreciated more these musics. How has been this evolution? 
Peter Van Rompaey: Until now (the last year it was different -Covid-) we have been growing every year. More students,… Everything has grown. On Muziekpublique level, it was going very. But in a broader sense, I am sure that world music is losing strength in general. It is very hard to convince people… let’s say, decision makers, the national radio… to show them there is really an audience, with also young people. For them, the young people should be listening to either urban music, hip hop, rap,… But I can show you, when we have a jam session, it is all young people having fun, having as much or even more fun as people doing hip hop… We don’t find a real way to convince of our reality in fact. It is a neverending battle to get into the broader national media.

Mapamundi Música: You have public radio. 
Peter Van Rompaey: We have some exceptions, like Didier Melon, with his daily show ‘Le Monde est un Village’ on La Première (French speaking national radio). And we still have radio programs on the national classical radio. For us it is a gift that Didier Melon is still there. We touch wood to keep him, because we are so lucky that he still has his program every day of the week, and he is also thinking about the musicians and supporting them… He has an exceptional personality, who is not afraid to go against the ideas of some of his superiors. On the Flemish radio it is worse. They are really looking down on traditional music.

Mapamundi Música: And in these radios, they are supported with public money, aren’t they?
Peter Van Rompaey: They are supported with public money but in a way they think very commercial. They interpret their public function in their own way. But we think that radio has a mission to also play other music than the popular music, or classical or jazz. At the moment, jazz is highly regarded, it got some standing that the traditional music don’t have. It is difficult to explain why. The radio directors have the idea that when you put traditional music on the radio, people won’t listen any more.

We’ve had so many discussions with, we have gone so many times to the radio to complain and to suggest them to find other ways… For instance, we have a radio station which main objective is to give news items. We told them to link music to it when they dig deeper into a subject, for instance about what has happened in Kabul in Summer of 2021, “Why don’t you play some Afghan music? You have music to illustrate the news from all over the world, but you play Radiohead or Lady Gaga… Why don’t you try to illustrate it?”. They don’t care.

Mapamundi Música: What are you doing now and what is the future?
Peter Van Rompaey: We are still trying new ways to bring new audience. This Summer, and the next years, we are doing the “Firefly sessions”. In Belgium you can only see the fireflies during three weeks. We go to into the woods in Brussels, we do a walk, it takes around one hour. One of the musicians, Raphael De Cock, who is Flemish and is one of the singers of Voxtra and Toasaves, is not only musician but also a scientist specialized in fireflies. He is the guide. We do into the wood to see the fireflies and he explains about it and about nature until we reach a small lake. There we invite other musicians to play a small concert acoustically. Often they do something together with Raphael. They play or sing one or two songs and then the fireflies arrive and we go back to the woods with all the fireflies. That is really magical experience for the people. It is a way also to have people discovering traditional music but in another setting. Sometime they know a little about nature in Brussels, but they don’t know about fireflies in Brussels. We continue the Hide & Seek Festival, this year it as the 6th edition. It has the same philosophy. By choosing special places in Brussels, sometimes unknown places where you can’t go often and doing concerts there, you attract another audience that wants to see those places and they see a concert of traditional music. For me, it is a way of programming artists that would attract 50 people in the hall. In the context of the Hide & Seek Festival, these concerts will sell out. The audience shows up thanks to the magical setting. With the Hide & Seek Festival we combine the promotion of Brussels and the discovery of new places with the promotion of music.

Of course, we continue the line of our actual work. More and more we try to make connections with schools, with younger kids, because we are aware that they are the future of our society and of traditional music. It is very important. We didn’t do it before because there were other organizations specialized on that but some of them stopped working so we decided now to, little by little, develop this aspect.

For the label, we have just released a new album by Tamala, a trio with two West African musicians, Bao Sissoko, who was already in the album by Malick Pathe Sow, kora player, Mola Syla, who is a singer, and Walter Vandenabeele, Belgium violin player. It is their second record. And for the next year we are planning the release of a group called Toasaves, that means in the dialect of Antwerp something like home port, the port where you feel at home. It is all about the songs of Wannes Van de Velde, his traditional songs, but with the spirit of opening up to all the influences you get into a port. You start from the Flemish tradition but it is often linked to melodies you get from other countries that come with the sailors to the port. It can be combined with an Afghan traditional song or with something from Creta… It is a very exciting project.

And we will do a new album by Refa, that is the new version of Refugees for Refugees. They changed the name because the musicians do not want to keep the label of refugees. They want to be seen first of all as humans or musicians, and leave behind that they were refugees, or are refugees. We are preparing a new album with the band which has evolved a lot. They have done great things together lately but they haven’t done any recordings and we have no way to show it.  We are also preparing an album with the Syrian band, Jawa, the last breaths of Aleppo. The rich musical Sufi tradition has been transmitted orally in Aleppo for decades. Jawa’s mission is to preserve this heritage, which has been threatened by the Syrian war. The Sufi masters, who kept the secrets of this musical tradition, are gradually disappearing from the scene, threatening to lose a treasure of songs forever. As guardians of this rich cultural heritage, Jawa revives the music and does so in a contemporary way. Las Lloronas are working on a second album. We will probably release others.

These are Refa (formerly known as Refugees for Refugees):

Mapamundi Música: Do you want to share anything else? 
Peter Van Rompaey: We are working now with a large Congolese project. We have decided to do more about Congolese music, because we are situated in the African neighbourhood. Congo had the statute of a Belgian colony. We should be proud of Congolese rumba as Belgians as well. We have the Congolese tradition and we have big masters of the Congolese rumba, so we are working now with a great friend who is Klay Mawungu, who is like a passionate person about Congolese rumba, he also sings not professionally. We are trying to do things together, we are hosting a large band with Congolese musicians from Brussels and from Paris. The band is called MRCI!, that is like merci, thank you in French, and also Mythique Rumba Congolese International. We are trying to restore the spirit of the old rumba. And with Klay we are also developing projects of teaching the History of Congolese rumba, but with a live band. So they will play the different styles, how they evolved and the links to our past. It is linked to the dark pages of Belgian history, that we had those colonies, the crimes our country did, the reactions of the Congolese, which songs they created to protest… So it is at the same time a music and history lesson and a concert.

These are the Mythique Rumba Congolese International band:

Peter Van Rompaey: Many things are going on, some of them might not happen… That is also part of the story: sometimes you try out things and sometimes they don’t work out well.
We are also dreaming, for a long time already, of an online music school. If it will happen, you will find out in the next years on https://www.muziekpublique.be

Do you have a call of interest for our community that you want to share? Let me know asap.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. This place is for sharing useful dates and I don’t charge for including news here ? 

• European Folk Network face to face meeting: Budapest, 17th and 18th of November. Taking place from tomorrow and the registration is closed.

• MOST Music Balkan Explained above.

• PIN Conference, in Skopje, 25-27th November.  The registration is right now open here and I don’t know when is the deadline.

• MusicConnect Italy, in Pistoia, Italy, 2nd-5th December. 

MEET ME AT…

• PIN International Music Conference, Skopje, North Makedonia, November 26th and 27th. 

According to the website, “PIN is the first and only international music conference and showcase festival in Macedonia. […] 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.”

• Lisbon, Portugal, for the second concert of the series of Músicas Escondidas at the Museum of Orient. 10th December: Egschiglen

The first concert of this series two times postponed was on October 15th. It was by the Nouruz Ensemble and it was an outstanding performance in a venue full at the 100%.

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. 

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Subscription is available here.

POST – WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL TODO MUNDO

I had the luck to attend the festival and to participate in the round table that took place on September 25th. It was the first time that the festival included a round table and, according to Marija Vitas, it will most likely be kept on the programme for future editions and I think this is a very good news as it is a new opportunity to interchange ideas and meet colleagues, specially interesting when it happens in peripheral areas.

The topic of the conference (and the focus of the festival) was women in music. My colleagues in the session of the morning were Ivana Maraš (read her interview below), Iva Nenić (ethnomusichologist and scholar), Sofia Labropoulou (composer and qanunist) and Svetlana Spajić (singer and researcher) and we were moderated by Marija Vitas and joined for some time by Bojan Djordjevic (director of the festival and journalist in Radio Beograda). The conversation was recorded by Radio Beograda and I have to say that it was really interesting. In the afternoon there was another discussion session, with Sotiris Bekas, Julijana Baštić, Rok Košir and Giuseppe Bortone.

In the artistic side of the program, I want to highlight the Serbian artist settled in Austria Jelena Popržan (in the picture, by Juan Antonio Vázquez). Her solo concert was a wonderful and indescribable madness. She has an amazing talent full of originality.

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• DEADLINE COMING SOON! Transglobal World Music Chart (TWMC) call for proposals for the Hall of Fame is open until October 31st. Check this web to learn more and to send your proposal. 
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in October 2021 is: Monsieur Doumani · Pissourin. 
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for September are the albums: Petrona Martínez’s Ancestras, Guy Buttery, Mohd. Amjad Khan & Mudassir Khan’s One morning In Gurgaon and Abdelli’s Songs of exile.

A PINCH OF SPACE FOR SOME THINGS OF MINE THAT MIGHT INTEREST YOU

Learn more about the first proposals we are offering with this collaboration:

• Rodopi Ensemble
• Marina Liontou Mochament & Alkis Zopoglou + friends
• Kontrabando Ensemble

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AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
IVANA MARAŠ, DIRECTOR OF ESTAM WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

I met Ivana at the round table in Todo Mundo. She is the director at Student Cultural Center Kragujevac, focused on the cooperation with young, talented people, as well as on creating conditions that allow them to express and achieve their creative goals and to make their work recognizable to a wider audience. Ivana launched the World Music Festival – ESTAM, that aims to present current events from the domestic, regional and world world music scene.

Mapamundi Música: How did the festival start? Who and why started it? 
Ivana Maraš: Estam world music festival started four years ago as a need to promote this genre in our city and district. We have had world music concerts in a music program at our cultural center for years. So, we wanted to start to promote the musicians and program from the world and local scene through the festival, build the audience and present quality and the most significant artist of this genre. We live in a big city, university town in central Serbia, and we feel there is a need for this kind of festival.

MM: What do you search for in an artist when you program? 
IM: We search for quality and actuality in our program, searching for world musicians with a strong artistic signature and attractive musical tradition. But also we try to obtain a young audience with something close to their affinities but not giving up on our goals and concept.

MM: Which are the global objectives of your festival?
IM: We would like to be recognized as one of the significant music festivals in Central Serbia, want to impose quality and be a part of the world music festival network in the region, to improve the status of world music and their artists, and bring their work closer to the wider audience.

MM: What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival (specifically in yours)? 
IM: The most complicated issues are the support of local authorities, financial and logistic support, and how to promote our work in a society which has a big problem with the media (in our town there are almost no shows anymore about culture and there is a lack of professionals in the media in this field), but we are trying to use regional media as much as posible.

MM: Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposal like yours (in general, not exclusively in yours)? 
IM: The answer follows the previous one, state and local cultural authorities don’t recognize the significance of this genre and do not give deserved status to world music and its authors.

MM: In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival. 
IM: For these four years every participant, performers as well as the audience, left the festival full of impressions, first one because of the audience reaction and energy, and second one because of the strong music experience.

Credits:

• Portrait of Ivana, provided by her.
• Logo and banner, from the festival’s Facebook page.

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OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. This place is for sharing useful dates and I don’t charge for including news here ? 

European Folk Network face to face meeting: Budapest, 17th and 18th of November

• After the meeting in Brussels in November 2019, the EFN calls again for a face-to-face meeting. It will be held in Budapest, at the Hungarian Heritage House. The program of talks will include:
• Raisa Siivola & Maria Silvennoinen (from Jazz Finland) on Green Nordic Touring and Promotion;
• Tom Besford (from English Folk Expo) on Reaching Audiences both In-Person and Online;
• András Lelkes (of Hangveto, Hungary) on A Bridge For Balkan Music;
• Miklos Both (Hungary) on Folk Music Education for Future Generations;
• and more TBA;
• plus DISCUSSION sessions on subjects chosen by members including The Future Work of EFN and Folk Music and Commercialisation and more TBA;  plus the EGM for Elections to the Board.

Check all the information already available here.

PIN Conference, in Skopje, 25-27th November. 

More info in the next section. The registration is right now open here and I don’t know when is the deadline.

Proposals of participants for the think tanks of MusicAIRE 

MEET ME AT…

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POST – MIGRANTS MUSIC MANIFESTO, COLOGNE, SEPTEMBER 13-19

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• Transglobal World Music Chart (TWMC) launches the virtual Hall of Fame. The proposal of inductees for 2021 is open. Check this web to learn more and to send your proposal.
• TWMC has released the list of the best of the season 2020-2021. Check the complete list here. Find here the Best of each of the categories:

• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for September are the albums: The lost maestros collection, vol. I (V.A.),  Boubacar «Badian» Diabaté’s Mande guitar: African guitar series, volume I, and Changüí: The sound of Guantánamo (V.A.)
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in September 2021: Namgar’s album Nayan Navaa, released by ARC Music

• And there are also fresh news from the colleagues of the World Music Charts Europe! They will launch the compilation double album “The Great Tunes from the World Music Charts Europe” next Friday, 24th of September, with the label CPL-Music. Great news, Milan Tesař and team of the WMCE! 

A PINCH OF SPACE FOR SOME THINGS OF MINE THAT MIGHT INTEREST YOU

• From the end of April to beginning/mid of May, Rodopi Ensemble, the masters of the Thracian Greek music will be touring in Switzerland and countries around and we have dates available. Click the picture to see a video ? and ask me if you are interested in booking them. Remember!
• Hudaki Village Band will perform at WOMEX on Saturday at 21:45 at the Coliseu! If you can’t attend, anyway click on the link to watch them live and let me know if you need them!
• I have more proposals, all of them are outstanding. Check my catalogue. And I will send news separately about other dates, i.e. with Monsieur Doumani in January and others. Vigüela will launch their 9th album in January and I can tell you in advance that there is nothing like it! 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: STEPHANIE SCHUMANN, DIRECTOR OF DELICIOUS TUNES

Mapamundi Música: Which is your background, what made you become an agent for world music artists? 

• We are required by the artists but, at the same time, it seems we are a bit invisible. Do you feel that? 

• How could we explain briefly which is the value we, the agents, provide to the value chain? 

• Portrait of Stephanie, provided by her.
• Logo of Delicious Tunes, from their website.
• Screenshot of their homepage.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. This place is for sharing useful dates and I don’t charge for including news here ? 

• Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, from 14th to 18th of October.

• European Folk Network face to face meeting: Budapest, 17th and 18th of November

MEET ME AT…

• Za Beograd! Todo Mundo World Music Festival, Belgrade, Serbia (25th-28th September)

I can’t help that when I think of Belgrade this song automatically comes to mind. Sorry, I am not their manager! 

• Lisbon, Portugal, for the first concert of the series of Músicas Escondidas at the Museum of Orient. 15th October. 

• WOMEX, Porto, Portugal, 27th-31st October.

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. 

MIGRANTS MUSIC MANIFESTO, COLOGNE, SEPTEMBER 13-19

The Migrants Music Manifesto (MMM) event seems to me to be of such depth that it deserves its own space in this newsletter.

I think the best way to present it is through its own presentation, which you have on the website (that is in German but you can use the automatic translator inside and it works quite well):

The MMM includes debates, workshops and concerts and a group of 28 musicians will become the MMM Project Orchestra, that “will be dedicated to contemporary music from other perspectives than the European one. The 28 members of the orchestra are young, talented musicians as well as award-winning master musicians with many years of playing experience and international experience, who all understand their artistic work explicitly as part of the current contemporary music creation of European metropolises. These musicians with roots in diverse non-Western musical cultures will present a joint concert programme with new compositions by Bassem Hawar, Hindol Deb, Rebal Alkhodari and Kyriakos Kalaitzidis.”
.
MMM is organised by alba Kultur, directed by Birgit Ellinghaus (in the picture, by Johan Morin, from alba Kultur website). By the way, she gave us some very interesting insights in February 2020, in a short interview which you can find here.

• alba KULTUR (DE)
• Muziekpublique (BE)
• Musiques de Nuit diffusion / Rocher de Palmer (FR) 
• ENCC – European Network of Cultural Centers (BE)
• Associazione Abusuan – Intercultural Centre of Abusuan (IT)
• EDRA – Kinonikes Sineteristikes Drastiriotites Efpathon Omadon (GR)
• ARI Institute – Joint Research Unit 5319 Passages CNRS – EHESS (FR)

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CHINA: INTERNATIONAL MUSIC EXPO (IMX), DIGITAL EDITION, 11-31 OCTOBER

It was a wonderful coincidence that I was contacted this morning by Jane Polubotko, the International Marketing Manager of Kanjian, to tell me about the IMX, just in time to include their fall in this August’s edition. This event is organised by Kanjian and IMCO. 

I think China could be an interesting market for the music we work with in this global community, but, well, what could China not be an interesting market for, with the magnitude it has and how it is transforming itself? The fact is that their presence in the fairs organized in the West has not been very extensive so far, and it seemed very difficult to me to generate connections in the country, so I found this initiative very interesting. I hope you find it interesting too!

The website is in English and is very easy to navigate to find the information you need, so I invite you to visit it and here is a brief summary.

IMX, in this online edition, includes:

• The conferences Music Ally China Digital Summit, three days for talking about topics for the Chinese music industry (7-9 September, in Chinese) and the IMX Sessions, with a series of panels, that will take place from 11 to 31 of October, at the same time as the showcases and the expo. 
• The showcases (pre-recorded): IMX Main Stage, with free application for any artist, and the IMX Primetime, with cost. Check the details here.
• The expo: “The IMX 2021 Expo runs for a first time and is supported by a number of GOs, NGOs, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations from around the world. The event will be streamed online for free across all major platforms internationally and in China.” There are 3 Expo Packages, with a cost from 49 dollars. Check the details here.

You can watch the showcases and talks of the edition of 2020 in their Youtube channel.

I will attend and submit some applications for my artists too!

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
EDUARDO QUEZADA, DIRECTOR OF EMPRENDE MUSICA LATAM… AND MUCH MORE

A few months ago Piero Cremaschi (muchas gracias, grazie mille) put me in touch with Eduardo Quezada to let me know about the work he is developing in Latin America with his LATMUS and Emprende Música LATAM projects. And I think it is very interesting to contribute to the dissemination of his work among the global community.

I believe that his work has two main lines that clearly converge and feed each other: one oriented towards the professional education of artists and other agents in the world of music and the other, in relation to creating and strengthening collaborative networks.

I am very grateful to Eduardo for this brief exchange of ideas, which is only a first impression of what this man has to contribute to the world. Without further ado, let us begin.

– ABOUT EMPRENDE MÚSICA LATAM –

MM: As I said, I have never been to Latin America, my contact with Latin American people has been mainly at international events in Europe and of course through the Internet. But I have an impression, please tell me if I’m on the right track. Here in Spain and I think in a good part of Europe, many artists maintain the idea that they only have to dedicate themselves to their music. It seems to be changing, I have to admit that, but there is a fairly widespread idea that marketing, communication, customer service and so on, are not their responsibility. My impression is that there in Latin America they are aware that this part of the work is also their responsibility, although they would like to be able to delegate it if possible. Is that the case? 

.

– ABOUT Encuentro LATMUS –

– ABOUT Red Iberfest –

• Portrait and banner of LATMUS, from the Facebook page of Encuentro LATMUS
• Logo of Emprende Música LATAM, from its Facebook page.
• Logo of Red Iberest, from its Facebook page.

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• About Mundofonías, we are on holidays! Our monthly favourites for August are the same as for July, the albums:  Hanin: Field recordings in Syria 2008-2009 (V.A.), Polifonika tragoudia Voreiou Ipeirou (V.A.) and 2 Chamadas Não Atendidas (by 2 chamadas não atendidas) 
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in August 2021: V.A. · Henna: Young Female Voices from Palestine

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. 

• WOMEX Summer rate, until August 27th

• Creative Europe (Already present in the previous edition of the newsletter)

• International Music Expo (IMX) (NEW)

• Arts Midwest Online Conference (Already present in the previous edition of the newsletter, some news added now)

Check all the deadlines in this web page.
The Arts Midwest’s Online Conference will take place from 17th to 22nd of September and it will be online. Read the interview with Katie Ortman, from the organization, in this previous edition.

And note that AGIMA will have some relevant presence. Don’t miss their newsletter, for which you can register for free here at the bottom of the page, to be updated!

• Afro Pepites arts market opens the call for artists until 31st of September (Already present in the previous edition of the newsletter)

This call is open to artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba or any other artists inspired by Africa. The registration form is here.

MEET ME AT…

• Cosmopolis Festival, Kavala, Greece (26th-29th August)

• Migrants Music Manifesto, Cologne, Germany (13th-19th September)

• Todo Mundo World Music Festival, Belgrade, Serbia (25th-28th September)

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. 

August 2021 edition, here

FOCUS ON THE US

Hello, how are you? I hope well!

In this meantime, the first batch of artists to perform in the official WOMEX selection has been released. Mapamundi Música has the joy to present Hudaki Village Band, from Ukraine. They are the third artists we have in the official selection. Viva!

Apart from that, this edition of the monthly magazine has a lot of content. Three interviews with three people from the USA. In recent months I have been in contact, in the framework of AGIMA, with Danielle Devlin, from Canis Major Music, USA. It’s always very interesting to know what’s going on “over there”. I put “over there” in inverted commas because this is going to be read by people who are in that “over there”. With these three interviews I pretend to open a window to begin to intuit its idiosyncrasies. I have never been to the USA until now. I hope that will change soon.

On the other hand, on the pandemic, next Sunday I will receive the second dose of the vaccination. It is one step more in the recovery of the life I had. I love to hug and kiss the people I like.

On the 4th of July, Monsieur Doumani performed in Ibiza. In the last weekend of July I have two concerts of Vigüela in central Spain. This last weekend it took place a festival that hosted 50 thousand people in Catalonia, the festival Cruïlla. The attendants had to pass a quick test before entering (289 were positive) and wear a FFP2 mask. You can read more about it, here. For now, there will be more festivals like this, unless the situation worsens dramatically. By the way, this festival, when it began, was called Cruïlla de Cultures, that is in Catalan, “crossroads of cultures”, and the programme was basically world music. The “de cultures” has long since dropped out of the name. It is clear that the “cultures” no longer matter and only one culture matters. After all, it’s business. But this is another story.

What restrictions there are in Spain depends in part on the particular autonomous community, so there will not be one single situation. Right now in the community of Valencia there is a curfew for 14 days and the situation in Catalonia is not good, so they could be the next. I hope it will not be necessary.

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JOIN ME TONIGHT AT THE “SQRZ TALKS WITH WILL WILLA”

IN DEPTH WITH DANIELLE DEVLIN, FROM CANIS MAJOR MUSIC

It is a pleasure to share these insights from Danielle ?.

Mapamundi Música – Which is your background, what made you become an agent for world music artists? 

Danielle Devlin – I’ve been fortunate to have many great careers that have led me to this point. I’ve worked in marketing, software and technical support, customer service, engineering, as a pastry chef, and in theatres and nonprofits for development and project management, prior to working in the music industry. All of the skills I learned through my various careers have benefited me in becoming an agent, coupled with my personal passions for world music and dance arts from the MENA and North Atlantic regions. I was lucky to team up originally with one of the leading agencies in global roots music to “cut my teeth” on the industry, as a result of my personal and dance connections with artists that had befriended me. I had previously owned my own business, so it was natural that after a few years of working for another agency that I began my own.

MM – From your training, education, previous experiences, which ones of the skills or knowledge you got have been the most useful for your career as an agent of musicians? 

DD – My customer service and project management skills learned through all of my past careers are part of what helps me in this career. I love connecting with people and consider it an absolute honor and privilege to be working in this field and representing my artists. I have an amazing team of creatives behind me with the artists I work with and my one colleague, Eric. We all support each other and communicate regularly. That to me is a big part of our success–the caring, the people, and the communication.

MM – Apart from that or those skills, which other do you think are essential to succeed in this field of work? 

DD – I think being flexible and understanding is important. I’ve worked on both sides of the equation–the presenting side and the agenting side (as well as a visual artist myself), so I feel I can understand the challenges faced by both the presenters and the artists and keep both perspectives in mind when discussing booking. Time management is also key, as well as good written and verbal communication skills.

MM – Any particular advice for a fellow newcomer or someone who wants to get started in this field?

DD – I think agenting is a very unique career, and that the best way to really understand what is required is to intern with an agency if you can find the right fit and someone that is willing to mentor you. The difficulty is that in most circumstances, you don’t see any financial compensation as an agent until your bookings actually occur. So you may be working essentially for free 12 months out or more until your bookings are realized and you start to receive your commissions. It’s a slow build up and requires some financial independence to get started in this field.

MM – And now, for the artists. I’m sure you get requests from artists every day to be their manager. I am sure because it happens to me too, and many colleagues tell me the same thing. Do you have any recommendations for the artists, so that they can improve the way they communicate when they do it for this purpose?

DD – I regularly connect with artists regarding that ask, for certain! I do spend the time almost every week connecting with an artist to share my feedback on how they are positioning their music, reviewing their marketing assets and social media presence, and providing general advice on what they might improve or who might be a good agent for them. For me, it’s an important part of being in this position. I was given the opportunity to intern (without payment of course), and I feel like this is part of my payback for making this far at this point. I love helping people, discovering new artists, and am happy to do what I can in this regard. A couple of the things I so often note is that people don’t have a strong social media presence, or else don’t have appropriate messaging about their work, nor good marketing assets.

MM – Do you think it makes sense for the artists to try to find an agent? Have you ever started a stable collaboration with a band or artist that approached you in their search of an agent? 

DD – I think that an agent can truly help an artist further their careers. They have to be at the right point though, and be willing to put some work in that the agent or manager may require or ask. And for me, fit personality-wise is as important as musicality and genre fit. I have to really personally love their music. Most of the artists I work with are on my roster because they sought me out.

MM – I think there will be still, at least for many years, a lot of artists and a much smaller number of agents, that is the current situation. This makes me think that we are not in a very interesting business, otherwise there would be many more agents working in world music. Nevertheless, it seems the artists require us. Something seems to be wrong, what is it?

DD – I believe the reason is that financially it is very difficult. I only get paid a commission when my artists play their gigs. I do not get a base salary or retainer from them. So, if someone wants to change careers, they need to be financially independent to some degree in order to build up future gigs and not realize any payment for all of that work for many months, and even still it takes a lot of time to build up enough gigs to receive a liveable wage. I think that is the biggest hurdle. It is stressful work, but I love it so very much!

MM – Especially in the last year, many of us, independent agents or micro-companies, have felt a bit alone and misunderstood. I have heard claims from colleagues from different countries arguing they have not been considered in the support for the arts after the ravages of the pandemic. With this in mind, I have several questions.

• We are required by the artists but, at the same time, it seems we are a bit invisible. Do you feel that?

DD –  I do not feel invisible, but perhaps some could feel under-appreciated. It can be a very “heavy lift” to build a viable tour. Sometimes presenters think they are doing artists favors by contacting them directly to book, and in these times especially, I have noticed that more (and the artist acting directly upon that). This can become a quagmire of a situation and end in a bad result.

• How could we explain briefly which is the value we, the agents, provide to the value chain?  

DD – We provide the friendly interface and act as intermediary curators in presenting the right fit options to presenters who have come to trust us from prior working relationships. We are people that connect the dots in a very directed and personal way. Additionally, we negotiate the reality and manage the expectations on both sides. I think we can be better advocates for our artists in most cases. That’s the value we add.

MM – My last question. Explain in one or two sentences, to the wider culture community, the reasons to book musicians from around the world that give a relevant presence to their roots.

DD – In my opinion, nothing brings down barriers more easily than sharing music in a live environment. It’s easy to find something relatable if the music makes you move. Live global roots music can create an appreciation for and understanding of cultures different from one’s own. It can spark a curiosity in a listener that leads to more engagement, even advocacy.

MM – And the very last. Is there anything else you want to share or disseminate? 
DD – From another perspective in answer to the above, it’s important to support such artists in that they are carrying on a tradition that may otherwise be decimated by time and inactivity, dying out quickly with just one generation if the mantle isn’t taken up. There is much to be lost if we don’t engage artists working within this realm.

Credits:

• Portrait, provided by Danielle.
• Logo, from Canis Major Music’s Facebook page.
• Screenshot, from Canis Major Music’s website

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A BRIEF TALK WITH KATIE ORTMAN, FROM ARTS MIDWEST

On several previous occasions I have shared calls from this organisation, Arts Midwest. They are based in Minneapolis and work with communities throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin, and beyond. Apart from the conference, they have a series of programmes that support artistic creation, through events, context creation and grants. Check their current and past programs, here.

About their mission, “Arts Midwest promotes creativity, nurtures cultural leadership, and engages people in meaningful arts experiences, bringing vitality to Midwest communities and enriching people’s lives.”

I had a first direct contact with this organisation by Adam Perry during Førdefestivalen in 2019. He recently left his position, looking for new paths. I wish him all the best. In 2020 I was able to participate in the conference, which took place in an online format, and the 2021 edition will also be online. Registration opens on 22 July and the conference will take place between 17 and 22 September. You have the concrete information here.

Katie Ortman – Folkefest was a grant-funded program that concluded in March of 2021. With support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, we were able to work with ensembles from Finland and Sweden to do week-long residencies in communities with Scandinavian heritage in the Upper Midwest. We don’t have plans to continue Folkefest at this time.

MM – About World Fest, you are currently offering an online edition, with artists from Israel, Japan, Brazil, who have recorded performances and also conference-style workshops. Have you also been able to develop some real-time activity between them and the public? 

KO – In a normal year, we do at least 18 weeks of touring where ensembles participate in week-long residencies in small to mid-sized communities around the Midwest. When touring was interrupted by the pandemic, we wanted to find a way to maintain a connection between our partner communities and ensembles. Our World Fest Online work, which came as a result of the pandemic, included pre-recorded videos as well as live connections between the participating ensembles and our partner communities. We aimed to create content that could be shared widely, but also make room for connections where our partner communities could engage a bit more deeply with the musicians. Throughout the last several months, we’ve had many Zoom workshops between the musicians and classrooms or community groups. In one case, Paulo Padilha e Bando from Brazil worked with a group of music students from University of Wisconsin-Stout to film a collaborative music video surrounding the Brazilian holiday of Carnaval.

MM – When you have been able to do the live programme of the World Music, I understand that the artists are in each community for several days, doing workshops and performances. Specifically, in the plans for 2019 to 2022 there were 9 communities involved. I guess for this, you need artists with a certain set of qualities. What are you looking for in those artists that are particularly useful for your goals with this programme? This question is obviously connected to this: Which are your objectives with this World Fest? I think it makes sense to ask them together, feel free to answer them together or separately. 

KO – When it comes to ensemble selection, we generally look for three things. The first is artistic excellence – of course, we want musicians who are talented performers and who are good at what they do.
The second is commitment to education, which is especially important because workshops are a huge part of the World Fest residencies. It’s important we work with groups who are just as (or more) excited about doing workshops as they are a concert. During each week-long residency, ensembles end up doing 10-12 workshops with groups ranging from 300 elementary school students in a gymnasium to 30 seniors in a retirement community.
Finally, we look for ensembles who are eager to share about their experiences with their home country and culture. World Fest is a cultural exchange, so it’s important that musicians are interested in sharing personal experiences in addition to their music.

Our objective with World Fest is to bring musicians from a range of countries, cultures, and experiences to small to mid-sized communities throughout the Midwest for a cultural exchange. We think it’s important to give small and mid-sized communities access to musicians who couldn’t otherwise visit so easily. We hope the experience helps small communities less experienced in hosting groups become more comfortable doing so, so they might join the field as active, experienced, adventurous presenters in ways they weren’t doing before our partnership.

We also think music is an important medium for connecting people, and a platform for learning difference or similarities. And in regards to the “exchange” element, we’re also eager to have communities share a bit about themselves with the visiting musicians as well.

As for the musicians, we hope World Fest can be a good experience for them too – World Fest can give new ensembles exposure in the US market so they can perhaps tour here again someday, and in some cases we’ve helped ensembles connect with agents so they can take the next step.

MM – And these communities, once you have established who they will be for this period, do they all receive all the artists or is there a different distribution?

KO – With World Fest, each partner community will host each participating ensemble over the course of the cycle. We choose a partner community in each of the nine states in Arts Midwest’s region of the United States. Of course, the pandemic interrupted the 2019-2021 (now 2019-2022) cycle a bit, but by the end of the cycle, each community will have had visits from all four groups. Next cycle, we’re moving to a three year model – so, 2022-2025 will feature six ensembles which will visit each of the nine communities.

This ? lovely picture is an illustration by Simone Martin-Newberry in the website of the Arts Midwest Conference.

• Logo, from the Arts Midwest website
• Portrait, by Jason Walsmith, from the Arts Midwest website
• The illustration by Simone Martin-Newberry is in the Conference’s web page.

A BRIEF TALK WITH PETER RUSHEFSKY, FROM THE CENTER FOR TRADITIONAL MUSIC AND DANCE

In recent months I have come across this organisation on several occasions. Because of their Beat of the Boroughs video series, but also looking for information on Jewish artists for my Music Before Shabbat weekly newsletter. I have never been to New York. It is for me an imaginary place that I see in movies and read about that took in so many people who had to flee Europe many decades ago. 

According to their web page about their mission and impact, it was founded in 1968 and assists New York City’s immigrant communities to sustain their distinctive performing arts traditions and promotes cross-cultural understanding by sharing these art forms with audiences across the city.

Peter Rushefsky – That looks good. I would just add that all of our work is in partnership with members of the immigrant communities, so the programs are very much led  by community-based artists and cultural activists.

MM – Why was it “formerly known as the Balkan Arts Center”? Perhaps this is related to its beginning. Could you let me know how the CTMD started, who founded it and how, with which means?  

PR – CTMD was founded in 1968 by Martin Koenig and Ethel Raim, folklorists whose work at the time focused on music and dance of Balkan communities.  For more info on Martin/Ethel: https://folklife-media.si.edu/docs/festival/program-book-articles/FESTBK1999_30.pdf 

MM – You are organising, since March 2020, the online series “Beat of the Boroughs”, with short performances with an educational touch, sometimes interviews too, by artists from many different origins, available in your Youtube and facebook page. Will you continue doing this when the pandemic ends?

PR – We have funding to produce 100 videos in the Beat of the Boroughs program which will continue through the end of 2021 and probably into the first part of 2022.

MM – I think all the artists participating are settled in NY, aren’t they? If I am wrong and you also include artists settled in other places, is there any way of sending proposals from artists from other places in the world? 

PR – All of the artists in the program are based in the NYC metropolitan area.

MM – What are the criteria for the selection of the artists in this series?  

PR – Many of the artists we have worked with for a number of years, but the series also features some artists that we have not worked with previously. In general we seek out artists who are 1) leading representatives of their community’s performing arts traditions and 2) working to sustain these traditions so that they continue to be a vital part of their community’s cultural life.

MM – I am especially fond of klezmer music so I really appreciate the impact of your organization in the revival of klezmer. I find your website and your youtube sometimes when I am searching for information for my weekly bulletin of Jewish music, Music Before Shabbat. For instance, you have some wonderful recordings of Dave Tarras, the clarinetist of klezmer, or of the Shashmaqam Ensemble, the Bukharian jews. I understand that the An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture is inside the CTMD, as a part of it, and not independent. Is this correct?

PR – The An-sky Institute for Jewish Culture is a partnership between CTMD and the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center, a Yiddish cultural organization in the Bronx.

MM – About the An-sky Institute, in the website you explain that “Between 1911-1914, An-sky led a team of experts on a remarkable trip to systematically collect Jewish folklore through the Ukrainian regions of Volhynia and Podolia.” And this produced an archive. Do you have it in the CTMD? If so, is there any plan to digitalice the contents and put them public?  

PR – We are a partner in the Klezmer Institute’s crowdsourcing project to digitize many of the klezmer manuscripts that were collected on the An-sky expedition. https://klezmerinstitute.org/kmdmp/

MM – Since June 10th you have been able to organize offline concerts. I see you have made at least three at the Wagner Park. For your activities with live music, do you only work with artists settled in New York or do you also book artists from other origins who are touring in the area?

PR – While from time to time we do feature touring artists from other places, our organization’s focus is on presenting and assisting artists in NYC’s immigrant/ethnic communities.

MM – Will you continue organizing live concerts during the Summer? And after the Summer? I think it may be too early to know, as it may depend on the evolution of the pandemic. If everything continues improving as it seems to be now, what are your plans for Autumn and Winter?

PR – We are continuing to program live concerts through Autumn and Winter, though plans obviously could change quickly if COVID-19 becomes a greater risk in the NYC area.

MM – Let’s assume that the pandemic ends. What else are you planning to do after the Summer?

PR – We are working on a new program with Inner Asian communities (from the Himalayan region and Outer Mongolia). Our staff folklorist Andrew Colwell, Ph.D. is an expert in Mongolian musical traditions.  Additionally, 2022 is the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Soviet Union, and we are working with local immigrant communities from the former Soviet Union and its sattelites on events that will educate the public on the contiunity of traditional arts within the USSR/sattelite states and how diaspora communites have reclaimed and are reshaping these art forms in the post-Soviet period.

MM – This is a more general question. Which are the main challenges for your organization? 

PR – Because we work with under-the-radar immigrant communities and focus our presentation in the city’s immigrant neighborhoods which are underserved by mainstream arts institutions, it is often a challenge to attract audiences, visibility and funding.

MM – If you want to announce or explain anything else, please, proceed! 

PR – We were excited that one of our long-term artists, Joanie Madden of Cherish The Ladies, was just named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. CTMD began working with Joanie and Cherish when they were teenagers in the Bronx, and have watched the group blossom to become international ambassadors for women’s involvement in Irish music.

Credits:

• Logo, from the CTMD’s Facebook page
• Portrait, by Bob Blacksberg, from Peter’s Facebook profile

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums:  Hanin: Field recordings in Syria 2008-2009 (V.A.), Polifonika tragoudia Voreiou Ipeirou (V.A.) and 2 Chamadas Não Atendidas (by 2 chamadas não atendidas)
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in July 2021: Kkismettin, by Antonis Antoniou.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. 

• WOMEX announced a good bunch of the selected artists

And Mapamundi Música has the honour of presenting Hudaki Village Band. Check the list here.

I hope to be there in person but we will see what happens with some of the artists from outside Europe. Mazaher from Egypt, Sahib Pashasade Duo from Azerbaijan, Rangamatir Baul from India… Will they be able to perform in person? Hopefully, it would be really wonderful.

• Creative Europe (Already present in the previous edition of the newsletter)

• Making Tracks, call of individual musicians (Already present in the previous edition of the newsletter)

• Arts Midwest Online Conference (in the previous edition of the newsletter it was announced the application call for artists)

MEET ME AT…

• Cosmopolis Festival, Kavala, Greece (26th-29th August)

• Migrants Music Manifesto, Cologne, Germany (13th-19th September)

• Todo Mundo World Music Festival, Belgrade, Serbia (25th-28th September)

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. 

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Summary ? 

• This bulletin reaches 3 years??
• In depth with David Sierra, from Sierra Contratación Artística ?
• News flash!  Good news from Miriam Brenner ?
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects  ?
• Open calls… and juicy ones 
• Meet me at… (yes, I have plans to travel abroad again?)

Hello, how are you? I hope well. I am happy because this is the 36th edition of this monthly newsletter. What does that mean? It means 3 years ?.

Thank you very much for your attention. As always, if you have any news of interest for our community, let me know. 
Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música |  info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 
Subscription is available here

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics? Let me know.

IN DEPTH WITH DAVID SIERRA, FROM SIERRA CONTRATACIÓN ARTÍSTICA

• Portrait, provided by David.
• Logo and screenshot, from Sierra Contratación Artística website
• Picture with David, Jitka Keltie and me, done in WOMEX 2014, taken from our Facebooks walls.

NEWS FLASH! GOOD NEWS FROM MIRIAM BRENNER

Congratulations, Miriam! All the best for you and the team of Días Latinos! 

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums: Balkan Odyssey, by Captain Stambolov, Sebastião Tapajós & Pedro dos Santos, by themselves, and the choral work Mien (Yao): Canon singing in China, Vietnam, Laos (V.A.). This is the edition in which we announced them.
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in June 2021: Meridiana, by Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

Just a little bunch of them, the ones I have identified. If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know. 

• Creative Europe NEW

• Mundial Montreal, call of artists NEW

• Making Tracks, call of individual musicians NEW

• Performing Arts Discovery 2021 Showcase Application, by Western Arts Alliance – for artists from USA NEW

MEET ME AT…

• Cosmopolis Festival, Kavala, Greece (26th-29th August)

This part of the festival will start the day of my birthday. In 2019, my birthday happened in Samarkand, where I was with Vigüela and in good part, thanks to Husniddin Ato and of course, of the Embassy of Uzbekistan in Madrid. I hope this year it will be in Kavala, the birthland of Alkis Zopoglou, my dear friend. He is the artistic director of the festival, of which we talked in a previous edition. The festival includes not only concerts, but also workshops, stands with products from the countries of the artists… and some speeches for the local and regional artists, to inspire and guide them in their careers and their internationalization. 

• Migrants Music Manifesto, Cologne, Germany (13th-19th September)

After many talks in the distance, I am so joyful for going to meet Birgit Ellinghaus again, and in this thrilling event. There is an expression in Spanish, I don’t know if it is said in English, something like “if Birgit didn’t exist, she would have to be invented”. I hope you will forgive me this public expression of admiration, for she deserves no less. Please, learn more about the Migrants Music Manifesto event in alba Kultur’s website. It is in German but for sure the automatic translation will allow you to understand most of it.

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. 

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This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

Summary ?

• Next Thursday, Conference on Digital Transformation and Resilience in Culture (event in Spanish)
• In depth with the Belgian World Music Association, Piet Maris as spokesperson. Their showcase is next Sunday!
• In depth with Ken Day, from D Tours, about being an independent agent 
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
• Open calls and professional events. Premio Andrea Parodi deadline coming soon, job opportunity in Mundial Montreal (a new one), 3rd conference of the European Folk Network + Afro Pepites open call

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the world musics? Let me know.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 
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CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND RESILIENCE IN CULTURE (event in Spanish)

Next Thursday May 20th I will participate in the Conference on Digital Transformation and Resilience in Culture organized by Agetec, the association of cultural managers of Madrid, of which I am part of the board.

This conference will be done in person and streamed in real time. We will speak in Spanish. If you want to access, register for free, here.

I will talk in the round table about “Experiences of adaptation to the new cultural environment”, about the experience of ConcierTajo, the artistic event that Mapamundi Música designed and developed with the band Vigüela, specifically for the online environment, for the International Labour Organization, Office for Spain. If you want to know what was it about, check this post in English.

You can attend in person (with health measures, of course, and there are still a few places left) or in real time online. Check the complete program and register for free, here.

IN DEPTH WITH THE BELGIAN WORLD MUSIC ASSOCIATION, PIET MARIS AS SPOKESPERSON

 An aside: if you want to learn more about AGIMA, visit the website and sign up for the news. 

Mapamundi Música: Back to the beginning, on the website you say “In 2012 it became clear that a federation needed to be founded.” Why was it clear? Which was the vision for that federation at that time?

Piet Maris / Belgian World Music Network: We observed with various players in the field (musicians, collectives, agents, promotors, journalists) that world music was being pushed away in our media, more and more, in favour of mainstream musical programming.

At the same time, we felt little organised as a sector for the genre: everyone was a bit isolated in organising activities. So the aim was to bring the sector together and put world music (back) on the agenda.

The first 2 years, the network was organising and active only at the Dutch-Speaking side of the country, but fell silent somehow. Things were not organised in a structural way at at that time. The organisation was still a de facto association, in which dynamics depended mostly on the initiative of a few people.

A few years later, out of the same frustration, a new media campaign was launched towards the Dutch-speaking National Radio, demanding to pay more attention to specific musical genres and world music in particular. In 2017 then, we decided with some key players to take on the network in a broader, more serious set-up, stretching it to the other side of the country as well – to the French-speaking side. From then on we started organising and communicating in and towards the two languages, Dutch and French, seeking to represent the sector for the whole of Belgium.

MM: How did you translate that into more concrete objectives, how did you set the main lines of activity to develop? 

PM: As concrete objectives, we formulated:
– Creating more opportunities, both nationally and internationally, for world music production in Belgium
– Promoting cooperation and reflection in the sector
– Creating more attention for world music in the media, in education and in politics
– Positively portraying the social diversity through music
– Asking attention for the situation of the artists (correct salaries, statute, …)

And to be able to organise all that and guarantee continuity, we “professionalised” the network, making it a “vzw/asbl”, a non-profit association, with a board.

MM: After meetings on a regular basis, the non-profit association was officially established in 2019. So they were 7 years of work to give shape to the network. Why was it so long? Which were the most complicated issues to agree on?  

PM: Cfr. here above: it’s not that we disagreed, but the network activity fell silent for some time. It was only after picking the network up again in 2017 again in a structural way and on a national level, that things indeed got more serious.

MM: You have at least 3 and at most 11 directors in the board of directors. The rules for the elections and re-elections periods are clearly set. And you have 51 active members (organizations) and 30 associate members (individuals). It seems there are a lot of voices and also, in the field in which we operate, there is a very great diversity in all senses of the word. What is the decision-making process like?

PM: Decision-making within the network is based on consensus, themes and goals being initiated by the members of the board. But the sector is also widely consulted to determine whether objectives are correct or should be added, as we’ll do at the upcoming on-line meeting on Friday 21 May, not coincidentally on the World Day for Cultural Diversity.

MM: How do you organise the work? Do you have thematic working groups, with volunteers, or in other ways?

PM: Up till now, the work has been done by the active board members. For one theme, “World Music, what’s in a Name?” (reflection on the term World Music, whether it should be kept or replaced as a term in general but also as part of the network’s name), a working group has been formed with extra players from the sector. On a longer term, on some of our objectives, we want to organise more working groups like this one.

MM: Do you have any secretarial or administrative staff? 

PM: For more than 4 years, we ran everything on a voluntary basis with our board, without a real secretarial or administrative staff. But very recently, we recruited an administrative support: Hélène Spitaels is now working for the BWMN, on a part time basis, since end of March 21.

MM: Which have been the main challenges during this time?

PM: You mean the last Corona-year? The main challenge has been to guarantee continuity, keeping together the network and the sector; but also organising our activities: scheduling, postponing, rescheduling… The showcases for 2020 which were due for May 20 but have been postponed twice and in the end have been broadcasted in February 21. The meeting, each year normally in May, has been split up in several digital meetings in May, November and December 21, converted in days with digital workshops, presentations, webinars and virtual meetings…

MM: Now, 9 years later, we are in an extraordinarily complicated moment, because of the pandemic, but leaving aside what the last year has been like, how do you assess the achievements of the Network?

PM: Well, at least, we still exist, that’s already an achievement No, seriously, I think the achievement standing out the most in everyone’s perception is the fact that we manage to organise our national meeting and showcase night on a yearly basis, for the fourth time now (consecutively since 2018). The Belgian World Music Meeting and Night really do mean a significant impulse for the sector. On a less notable level: we represent the sector on various levels of consultation, in different councils at both sides of the country and even towards the national media. Then again, the latter results in a yearly collaboration with the Dutch speaking National VRT Radio 1 on the broadcast for “Reis Rond de Wereld” (Travel around the World) and different world music radio sessions, on the occasion of the Belgian World Music Meeting and the World Day for Cultural Diversity (21st of May) as in a yearly collaboration with the French speaking National RTBF Radio La Première, on a more diverse programming on that very 21st of May, with extra help and attention from La Première’s world music program Le Monde Est Un Village – program which supports the whole sector (us included) significantly throughout the year.

MM: If you want to announce anything or add any relevant insight, this is the moment. 

PM: Check out the showcases on the 23rd of May and to get in the mood, check out the BWMN Spotify-playlists! If you’re curious about what is happening in Belgium on the level of world music production, those playlists offer already a pretty good idea.
· Bel Mundo: Music from the Belgian World #2 = playlist which has been playing in the Brussels Metro on the 8th of February, all day, on the occasion of the opening of the Belgian Music Week and the broadcasting of the showcases 2020 that same day (the list also includes the names of the longlist for the 2020 showcase selection).
· Belgian World Music Network Longlist 2021 = playlist with the names on the longlist for showcase selection 2021.

Credits:

• Logo, from the Facebook page of the Network
• Portrait of Piet, provided by himself

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IN DEPTH WITH KEN DAY, FROM D TOURS

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums: Manbarani, by Natik Awayez, Levaino! by Xurxo Fernandes and Djourou by Ballaké Sissoko. This is the edition in which we announced them.
• And #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in May 2021: Djourou by Ballaké Sissoko.

Do you have a call of interest for our community that you want to share? Let me know asap

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

• Mundial Montreal – job opportunity for communications and marketing coordinator! 

In the previous edition of this newsletter, the announced opportunity was for event producer. So note that this is a new one. It was announced to be open until day 14th but it seems to be still open, check here. And their last post in Facebook is this opportunity. Besides, that, artist submissions period will be open soon. 

• Afro Pepites arts market opens the call for artists until 31st of September

This call is open to artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, Jamaica, Cuba or any other artists inspired by Africa. The registration form is here.

• Premio (Award) Andrea Parodi – open call for artists until May 31st

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. 

This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.