Summary 👇 

Editorial

Talk with Christian Pliekfe, from Nordic Notes and CPL-Music

Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects 

Open calls: Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, A to Jazz, Mercat de Música Viva de Vic, MUM Meeting Music Market Extremadura, BIME Bogotá

An update from Beirut with Nabil Canaan

Professional events 💼 

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Hello, how are you?

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:

CHRISTIAN PLIEFKE, from Nordic Notes and CPL-Music

I stole this picture from his Facebook profile. Christian is the founder of the record label Nordic Notes and CPL-Music. He’s also behind CPL-Music Shop. He also launched FolkGalore, a magazine that led to the production of compilation CDs.

What else? There’s even more. He explains it himself in this extensive interview. I’ve divided the conversation into sections in case you want to jump to a specific part, although in reality, it was very fluid and has both entertaining and potentially useful moments. Without further ado, I’ll let you dive into Christian’s story.

The beginning of his record labels 

Mapamundi Música: When did you begin with the record label or labels?

Christian Pliefke: It was when I was very very young. It was 1992. I had long hair and a lot of piercings everywhere and I was in the punk rock mood.  I worked before in a radio station and then in a youth club and then it became in my mind to start a record label. A friend of mine, a half Finish half German guy,  had always a record company but he was doing it alone and it was very small. It’s called TUG Records, that means transformed underground. And then I joined in 1992 this small record company and then we built it up with some punk rock stuff from Germany and also from Finland.

And all the time till 2005 we formed two more labels for dance music: 9:PM for electronic dance music and also Humppa Records for Finish weird stuff. This was a time that I’m starting to work with folk and world music but with weird… It must be crazi and weird stuff, like a screaming choir of men, their shouting choir was fantastic.
But in 2005 I decide to go my own way because my partner he was more into this punk rock guy, alternative… I was a little bit more conservative so I wanted to focus and spread my mind much more. Then in 2005 I started with Nordic Notes and at the moment I have 180 releases, with different styles of music, mostly from Finland because… I don’t know why but it is how it is.

And in 2008 I started with another label called Beste! Unterhaltung, that means “best entertainment” and it was done for music from my area, from Americana stuff, singer songwriters… and it was with German artists. This is why I decided for a German name. The decision for the name must be very fast but it didn’t catch me totally. Then I started with CPL-Music in 2010, my third label, for all the artists which are not from Germany or from the Nordic area.

About FolkGalore magazine and the shop 

MM: So you have three record labels now.

CP: With Folkgalore I have four but this started as a magazine and then I made compilations for festivals like Rudolstadt or Bardentreffen.

MM: So Folkgalore was first a magazine and later you made a record label for making these compilations. So have four different record labels. And you also have an online shop. Was the shop after or before you started the record labels?

CP: I started with the shop in 2007 with an online shop because, before I started my own record company, I had also a record store with my half Finish partner. It called Kioski. We opened only Friday and Saturday and sold only Finnish music or something like that.

MM: And was it sustainable to open a shop only two days in the week and only for Finnish music in Germany?

CP: In Germany, Fürth, it is near Nuremberg. If you only count the sales of the stuff, of course it makes no sense, but we had our office there as well. This was a small shop, and we had our office behind and our warehouse there. So it was the same price as we had as we rent a normal office. Then we thought it was cool to have small shop and make some special event, like show some Finish movies and out of this shop we make also DJ stuff, we called Soundi-kone, in Finnish, in English it means the sound machine. And we made a Finnish disco. We played this kind of schlager music.. and, yeah, some kind of that.

About the connection with the Nordic music 

MM: So your relationship with the Nordic music is because you had this partner who was half Finnish or is it also because you like especially the Finnish music or is just by chance.

CP: I like this Finnish music and I like the people and also the culture. The Finnish people are so similar to the Franconian. I’m living in the Bavaria area in Germany but in Bavaria we have also split it in Franconian. And Franconians are like the Finnish people. Normally we do not talk that much. We are introverted people and we like to drink some beer and not talk that. And we are happy to sit alone or two people on a table and not 10.  We don’t like too many people around and Finnish people are the same.

MM: But that is curious in you, because I always meet you in a social context with many people. So you have to surpass this tendance of you.  I have been with you with many many people and you do it well. 

CP: You have to be alive sometimes or survive… But normally the Franconians are this kind of people, introverted and a little bit more this “What’s kind of people are these? From Spain? Arg, I don’t like Spanish people”. – Both laughing –

I’m going to take advantage of the Finnish theme to bring here something that Christian produces at Nordic Notes. One of my favorite albums of recent times is ‘Vainaan perua: Satavuotinen sakka’ by Emilia Lajunen. You can listen to this amazing 9-minute track while you keep reading.

About how he selects the music to work with 

MM: Thank you for being strong enough to surpass all these tendencies of the Franconians in your person… Then the next question is how you select the albums and artists you work with. We see you have this Finnish connection and also, I feel that, with the time, you are making more diverse things. How do you select the albums or the artists? 

CP: First, it must catch me totally. If I listen to an artist I must produce this special feeling, like these goosebumps. It must catch me somehow and I must be willing to buy by my own an album of this artis. If I see an artist and or I listen to an artist and I think “it’s just okay”, then I don’t want release it. Like these Galician artists (Caamaño and Ameixeiras), these do what I told you. Some kind of this might catch me. It must give me a special feeling and then I say “I will do it”.

MM: And if an artist wants to approach you, if they’re interested to release an album with you, what should they do to call your attention? How is the way that they should communicate with you? Shall they send you an email or a postal letter…?

CP: Email is nowadays enough and few words and a link to some music. It doesn’t need to be music totally ready to be released. It can be a demo tape or something like that and few sentences about what they are doing. This is really enough for me.

MM: And do you need anything else? I mean, when you decide to release an album, do you consider other criteria about the bands? For instance, if they have good pictures, what is their lineup, are these other things relevant for you to decide?

CP: What is really fantastic is if there is a very good picture of the artist, of course, to see how they will present themselves. That’s also very important. And instrumentally wise, I am not a big fan of this saxophone. But, yeah, of course, if they have a good picture and then the music is fantastic and the artists know what they want to present, this is important. And a few good words can catch me very quickly, of course.

About the crisis of the recorded music 

MM: So you have been working in the record music industry since 1992. You have seen all the evolution of the market with the CDs and after that, the crisis and the digital releases and all those things… How have you surpassed all these crises of the industry of recorded music?

CP: Only straightforward, only going straightforward, yeah. Of course, look left and right but not too much behind. The crisis, I think it is for the major labels, as if they are going worser and worser. For me, I’m getting better and better. In 2023, I have had the best year ever. I don’t know why. I have sold so many albums. And, of course, the digital sales are getting higher and higher. But I do not lose any from the physical. And if an artist is also playing a lot of live and he’s working super in the social media, thing um I’m sure that they can sell much.

MM: Do you sell CDs and also vinyls?

CP: Also vinyls and there are some buts there… Every artists are asking for vinyl but mostly, when I focus in the German market, when you have a festival or in the shops, of this folk and world music, if you can sell 200 or 300 copies of CDs, then you maybe sell 20 or 30 vinyls. The CD, in the German area is a must. Also I have distribution partners in the Netherlands, Finland, the UK or in Japan and they are ordering a lot of CDs. What I often say the people who are telling me “no one is buying CDs” and I’m  wondering so… I don’t not see it.

On the other side, what we and what the artist and all this scene must be have in mind is that we have more releases nowadays than in the ’90s. In the ’90s, we had less releases but a lot of CD sales or a lot of physical sales. And now we have many more releases. Why are we thinking we are selling that less of physical?

About the greater ease of recording music in recent decades 

MM: Now if you want to produce an album, I think, if you have the purpose, you do it. In 1992 it was not so easy as now. 

CP: Yes. For the studio, to do a 16-track recording, you paid 2000, 3000, 4000 marks, 2000 euros, something like that. And now you have an EP… And now you can make everything alone at home. We have all this on the computer and so on. And this is makes things easier. Then we have a lot of releases coming out.

MM: And don’t you think that it also drives to a lot of frustration for many artists? Because, let’s say, it seems that the first steps are very much easier than in 1992, but to grow after that… Okay, you have an album and, after that, your competence is thousands of other albums. Do you think the situation is better or worse for the music itself? Has it a driven to a better quality or to have the chance to have more quality works in the market? Or maybe it just makes a lot of noise and the average quality has gone down? How do you feel about this?

CP: That is a very good question. I think there are a lot of great musicians, and they have good ideas but when I started, I think they had more feeling to the music. We had not this kind of good recordings with only eight tracks and something like that, that is what we can pay for. The improvisation was much better, I should I say. There were much more better ideas, the music was much stronger than today. Because today you can record at home, everything is cheaper and you can release it by your own. So I think the quality is going down step by step.

About the producing and the listening attitudes nowadays

MM: Yeah.. You listen on Spotify, for instance, the advertisements… They really suck, they say “hey, with this online software you can make a song in five minutes”. Spotify says that to the musicians who listen to it. But at the same time, you know Spotify doesn’t almost give return to most of them, so it’s like wicked, no? Yeah, they explain you can put your dog barking and make some effects and you have a song.

CP: And the main thing is the people who listened to this music they are nowadays also so low in the mind, yeah, so “oh, it’s a nice song”. And then you try to explain, “hey, this musician, for example is an “asshole”, they said bad stuff” but “the song is okay, we can clap our hands, this is super”. This is what Spotify are doing: you can release a song for in 5 minutes if you have a stupid lyric and some clap your hands, and then everything was done.

MM: Yes, this is an interesting debate. Also, how to make commercial music? Sometimes I see artist that are around me, who try to be successful and famous, sometimes they make so complicated songs with so long lyrics. And, of course, it’s wonderful music but you have like seven stanzas with complicated concepts… So I think they have to compete with what you are saying: just music with a very simple lyric and people can just clap so easily. We are very trained in listening, you and me and the people who are going to read this. 

CP: This normal clap your hands three-minute songs, I can’t listen to it. It bores me, so I like, for example… I listen a lot of pop and rock stuff so, Porcupine Tree, or the old Rush albums… I like this complicated. You can sit down in your living room, have a glass of wine or something like that and listen to a song, maybe 10, 15 minutes. This is so fantastic and this is why I can’t understand that people want to have hours of three minute songs to “clap your hands”.

MM: Yeah. I have an hypothesis about this: I think many people they just don’t like music or they are not interested. What they follow is all the other things around to feel they follow someone who is like a profile or paradigma and they really don’t listen.

CP: The  daughter of a friend of mine, she was 22 or something like that. And she’s going to this rock festival Rock in Park we have, and Rock am Ring, this is two times in a year. They’re playing Metallica, Suicidal Tendencies and also some normal rock stuff. And this girl is going there, and I ask her why do you go there, which is your favourite artist. And she said “It is the atmosphere. I don’t know who is playing.” You’re paying €200 and you don’t know which artist is on stage? Come on! While Kiss was on stage, I paid €200 to go as KISS was on stage and not for the atmosphere. I want to see the artist.

MM: I think that is not the music… I mean these musicians put the context or they create, let’s say, a world of concepts and people follow that more than the music itself. I think that’s why the image it’s so important now. 

CP: It is important that we are there and trying to catch these people to think about music, that music is not only a noise coming around, there’s more.

MM: Yes, of course, but I think you need to make an effort also sometimes. And I make this reflection, also, when… I rarely go to a pop concert but sometimes I go to a showcase and there is a band that is pop, other is jazz… whatever. And I feel the pop is so empty, let’s say, of all this content. Pop is what it is, they say what they say in the songs… but in the world music or traditional music, you have all the background, all the complications, all the social things of these people, you know. Also in the world music scene, some famous artists are from places with problems, they claim things about the social situation, the politics and all these things. So that’s complicated also. I think some people don’t want to be thinking about any complicated things. They just want to enjoy a moment only listening to a song of pop about love, about whatever.

CP: It is okay, that is okay… Sometimes I listen to stupid heavy metal songs, really short and noisy and it makes me also happy. But in total it cannot be all that. It is the same when you read the newspaper. A lot of people are reading only the headline and then they start to shout “oh, everything is blah blah”. No. You have to read the complete text, you must read it. There are some information inside. I think all this globalism make them afraid. There’s too much information for them.

MM: Yes, that’s what I mean. To listen to the music requires attention and effort sometimes.  You said about headlines of the newspaper. Also, the news newspapers now are online and, here in Spain at least, you see only the headlines and if you want to see more, you have to be a subscriptor. So you can see many different newspapers and you see the headlines and you don’t read more. 

So maybe the trend of the society is to make less effort and go to the super immediate things. And the things we do have so much content. They are in other languages that you don’t understand, different sounds of the languages and all the background of these people… And you think okay, Tuaregs, for instance. They are there, fighting, crossing borders in places where is Boko Haram or these kinds of terrible things. So maybe people try to escape of these terrible things of the world. So we have to compete with all this sometimes.

Finland is well, so far there’s no war, they are okay… But I think we have to understand that it increases the effort for the people and we are in a moment when the effort is not wished. I think people are trying not to make efforts. Everything is so immediate.  And it goes against music.

CP: A small wish what I have is trying to bring normal people into a festival or something like that. My formerly father-in-law asked me what I’m doing, the kind of music, “doing a normal job has much more income… and blah blah blah”. So I took him to a concert to Dresden, because he was from the Eastern part of Europe. I took him to a concert with Maija Kauhanen and Mari Kalkun, to show him how it works what I’m doing. He didn’t understand what I’m doing here. And he got it. You have to work that hard that 200 people are coming to listen to another music which he never heard before, because he’s a guy who listened to Rolling Stones or Schlager, a very easy guy. And nowadays he’s is coming with me to the Rudolstadt Festival every year or to the Bardentreffen Festival. He’s not buying a CD or listening privately that much but he likes the atmosphere, the artists and to see the different cultures.

About how approaching world music reduces prejudices 

I was thinking, maybe if we all in this world music scene have to take one person with us and to get in into these concerts… Sometimes he was also afraid of foreigners, “oh, hell, the refugees and the Syrian people there are bad because they are Islamic…” and something like that. And then he was with me and some of this kind of people and he said “they are not so angry and aggressive people”. No, they are not. Those are only the few people that we are seeing on the newspaper, who killed someone, they fight each other… But the normal Muslims are not aggressive people, they are normal like we are.

Did you enjoy Emilia Lajunen’s tune? Lakvar’s Sabotage and Tradition is one of the latest releases by Christian on CPL-Music/ CPL Musicgroup.

MM: Yes, of course, most of the people in the world not aggressive, they just want to make their life…

CP: Right, so this is what he understands right now. And it took maybe one or two years. But the normal newspapers give them this easy information and say “everything is bad and we are so great, and we are Christians, and we are much more than the others…” and so on. And now he understood everyone is nearly the same.

About the support, or the lack of it, in Germany for this kind of initiatives 

MM: So then, for what you are saying, I believe that you consider these kinds of music are very pedagogic also. In Germany, do you have support for these kinds of things? How is the situation now? I have like two kinds of questions in the same topic. First, how is the support for these initiatives like you, who are working with a in a record label of not commercial music. And, second, do you have or is there any specific intention from the government to support the minorities and the culture of the minorities who are there in Germany now?

CP: We have no support. We have to do it by our own. You can have support from the government if you’re doing German music, if you push German artists. But maybe you have seen that in festivals outside from Germany there are not German artists on the way. So we have not this folk and world music scene. The folk music scene died after the Second World War. A lot of these German folk musics when you play them… Suddenly some Nazis come around you if you make this German songs and you must stand there and say “Hey, I’m a German and we make German music but we are not Nazis”. This is why the Scottish and Irish music is very huge here in the market. The Germans want to listen to this Irish and Scottish music because it’s also simple. You must “clap your hands” and the language is understandable. But there’s nothing we can have from the government. For German artist we have some institutions. If you want to record an album you must fill out a lot of paper, then you get some money, as I have done this with a German artist called Gankino Circus. And they are trying so many years to go out from Germany and they are open to do it…

About the attitude of German artists regarding investing to export 

But the next hard thing is that Germans are not willing to spend that much money in their own. So, for example, go to Womex, to apply to Womex or go as a visitor, you have to pay the entry, the flights… And then, the German says “oh, it’s so expensive, if there’s not coming out one gig, then, no, I don’t want to spend that money”. That’s what they have in mind, they don’t want to push and power by themselves.

MM: Okay, maybe it is because they don’t need to export. Because we, Spanish in Womex, for instance, there is a Spanish stand but we have to rent the tables and we have to pay the expenses. We are not supported in that way. Some regions have a specific support. Not me. My company is in Castilla-La Mancha and I can apply, but so far I haven’t got support.  You know, there are many Spanish people in Womex. We are overrepresented, I think, because we have to export, because our national market is very limited for this kind of not commercial music. Maybe in Germany your artists don’t need to export because they have enough market inside.

CP: Not really anymore. Of course, the pop and rock music, they are independent, they are a huge market. But in the folk and world music it is so small… We have an institution called Deutscher Musikrat. They support classical music and jazz. And we try to tell him we have also folk music or world music but they don’t have this in mind. They just have jazz and classical music. This is a very long way and to explain them that there’s a lot of other music on the way. For example, this this Galician duo, they’re going on stage, they are acting of stage was fantastic… The Germans folk musicians are going on stage like they are, so they not change their clothing, they’re going on stage with socks and sandals… So, we are sitting in front of you, we have to see you one hour or more… Please take another clothing… They don’t understand.

About the presence of the artists on the stage 

MM: Well, in Spain it was like that some years ago. I think not Galicia. Galicia has always gone a bit more progressing but yeah the folk bands in Spain, they were a bit like that before. But with the time I have seen it in my own life. I mean, in 10 years it changed. Now they are taking care a lot about what they do on the stage but 15 years ago it was like that. They were performing as if they were making the rehearsal, the same clothes. They didn’t make any other decision of the image. So maybe it’s a matter of time. But the risky thing is that, for what you are saying, there your national scene is very limited, they are not making investment for exporting, so I think the folk music from Germany has not a lot of future… 

CP: The thing is that we have to work hard on it. I’m working with two German artists, and one is willing to do and go out and do a lot of things. And the other one is very okay in the German area but they don’t have this idea to go out. They are thinking “German language, no one is going understand this”. Yeah, right, of course but when I go to Womex, for example, I don’t understand the 90% of what they are singing. But it’s the music. And then I try to explain them that the language must be an instrument, it must fit into the music. Then, you like the music and afterward when you catch them, then you can read or translate it or something like that. But the first thing is that you catch the people with everything, not only the instruments: with the stage, with the language or something like that. But mostly the Germans they are happy to play there and they are angry and sad and say “everything is shitty outside and no one wants to have us”. But they don’t go out… And if I tell them that we have to make the booklet in two languages, in German and in English, they ask “why in English?”.

Now I’m working nearly worldwide so, of course you want to go out. I don’t want to stay only in Germany, but some of them don’t understand it.

About Christian’s future plans 

MM: Oh, my God, I hope many of them will read this interview with you me. They have to learn. And Christian, which are your plans for the near future?

CP: This is a good question. I don’t know, really. Maybe I will restart also a little this booking stuff because I have done it till 2016. I have also booked some of artists and then I stopped with them because booking is so boring stuff and I had a lot to do with my label and also make the promotion for the albums and working with publishing as well… But after the corona thing, a lot of agents stopped working and we have less and less people who like to do this job and sometimes I was thinking, maybe for two or three from my label, I can help a little bit if I restarted booking stuff. And the rest, let’s see. I’m looking forward in a positive way and I try to figure out the best for the artists. That’s all what I can do.

MM: Do you want to tell anything else for the interview?

CP: Yeah. Only love peace and harmony: this is what we need.

Thank you very much, Christian!!!

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in January 2024 is: Batsükh Dorj’s Ögbelerim: Music for My Ancestors
• Mundofonías: Favis 2024. You can discover the 21 favourite albums for Mundofonías in 2024 and listen to the two special shows about them, here.
• Mundofonías: the three favourites of the month are Petroloukas Halkias & Vasilis Kostas’ The soul of Epirus vol.II; Adam Semijalac’s Ode dite and Jan Wouter Oostenrijk’s Travelling east

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OPEN CALLS 

This section is open for news. It is free of charge. You can let me know if you have any open call of relevance to the community.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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AN UPDATE FROM BEIRUT WITH NABIL CANAAN

I recover this photo from the end of June taken in Ostrava, with Nabil Canaan. The world has changed a bit… Nabil is the founder of Station Beirut and of Shuruq. We talked about this in a previous edition. The news that has been coming in and the threat situation in his region have led me to stay in touch with him from time to time, and recently he told me the following:

The situation in the region is disturbing. We came to start our autumn/winter season in October, but had to cancel everything, partly out of respect for the tragedy barely 200km from Beirut, but also for security concerns. We are now (re)planning again to restart late January.

We started bookings in Europe but even those are on hold for now, as they are supposedly “anti-semitic” events… We will continue our cultural activities as this is part of addressing the historic ignorance and propaganda. I will be monitoring the situation to manage Station’s venue programming, our Shuruq label activities and our marketing/booking services.

We have a role as cultural actors to provide some light in these dark times, whether it is inspirational, informational or simply a safe space to come together and envisage a brighter horizon ahead together.”

I didn’t want to fail to share it with you. I will keep in touch with Nabil and I hope he will be able to retake all his plans soon.

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PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

MEET ME AT

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

• 2 February. Festival Tradicionarius. Barcelona. Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş.
• 3 February. Paris, France. Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş at Au Fil des Voix.
• 7 February. Brussels, Belgium. Meeting of the board of the EFN.
• 9 February. Granada, Spain. Concert by Vigüela 😍
• 28-30 March. Marseille, France. Babel Music XP

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WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS 

Mapamundi Música is an agency of management and booking. Learn more here. Check our proposals at our website.

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 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. 

Summary 👇 

• Editorial
• Talk with Arlette Hovinga, or “that jazz girl”
• Transglobal World Music Hall of Fame: inductees in 2023 + Festivals Award
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects 
• Open calls: Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, Folkherbst, Budapest Ritmo
• Professional events 💼 
• My highlights of the year
• Meet me at ✈️ 

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AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
ARLETTE HOVINGA, OR “THAT JAZZ GIRL”

I think this is the first time I bring an interview with a publicist to this newsletter. I find the viewpoint of this role within the constellation of professionals very interesting. In particular, this specific publicist also has a book, called How To Build Relationships In The Music Industry, which I am currently looking forward to getting my hands on. It’s available from a number of online shops, easy to find and order.

She is Arlette Hovinga. I took this portrait from her Facebook profile. On her website you have a brief biographic information.

I met her in February 2023, when she contacted Mundofonías to inform us about “Bulgaria’s first-ever world music showcase”, the showcase A To Jazz, a new initiative that would take place within the festival of the same name. The truth is that I got the feeling that she put a lot of dedication into her work, and that she was a very charming person. In December we met at PIN Conference, in Skopje, and we had the opportunity to do this interview.

Mapamundi Música: Please, introduce yourself.

MM: No, no, it’s wonderful, it’s wonderful. I hope many many artists will read this, really. And I have one more question. How can people find you? Where to reach you? Do you have a website?

AH: Yeah. I have two actually, it’s https://arlettehovinga.com/ that goes to that http://thatjazzgirl.me, which is my PR website. And I have a book’s website: https://arlettehovinga.eu/. There are not so many Arlette in the jazz industry. I Googled Arlette Jazz a few days ago, out of curiosity, and that’s where I am. But I’m on Instagram and Facebook under Arlette Hovinga as well. I have like pages and stuff… that I try to be active enough on, at least. So I’m fairly easy to find. And I think, like the title of my book, obviously is is much longer than I would have liked, so my hashtag is just #howtobuildetc. But at the same time “how to build relationships in the music industry”. Tinder jokes aside, I get a ton of those. It’s not really that hard to find either.

It’s like a 200 pages book. I interviewed more than 60 people in the music industry in world music and jazz but like… Jimmy Bralower is in it, who was like a force of nature, he made the beats for Madonna’s Like a Virgin, he worked with Duran Duran, he did incredible things in his career. Jason Miles is in it, who co-produced with Miles Davis and Marcus Miller on Tutu and a couple of other albums. So there’s a lot of, like different opinions and insights but, at the end of the day, everybody feels the same way about the way that artists approach them and how you should be visible and how what, like the etiquette in the industry is.

And I think that we don’t talk about that enough. But if we would talk about it more, we would have less desperation among musicians and I think, as professionals, we should want, that because it’s very easy for me to sit here and say “Well, you guys are too negative and you don’t understand how hard it is for us”. That’s not what I’m trying to do. I don’t want to, like, wag my finger and say “I am right and you are wrong”. I think that we should be in this together more and we should, from both sides, be a little bit more mindful of, you know, it’s the music industry, it’s not a picnic and it’s also not a sales business: it’s a people business. And I think that more togetherness and more dialogue and more honesty about what we need as people, but also what we want and who we are, could really go a long way.

MM: So it’s a great present of Christmas and now we are in December, so…

AH: And it’s available everywhere, even on Amazon actually!

MM: Yeah, so I hope everybody who reads this will buy it and give it as a present for his or her favorite musician.

AH: I would love that and then also please tell me how you liked it because I love getting feedback on this stuff.

Thank you very much, Arlette!!!

TRANSGLOBAL WORLD MUSIC HALL OF FAME
Inductees in 2023

The Transglobal World Music Hall Fame celebrates excellence in the world music field. The Hall of Fame includes three categories and these are the inductees in 2023. 

🔸Artists
Zakir Hussain
Natacha Atlas
Valya Balkanska
Alim Qasimov
Choduraa Tumat

🔸Professional Excellence
Antonovka Records / Anton Apostol
Canary Records / Ian Nagoski
Joaquín Díaz González
Visa for Music

🔸In Memoriam
Shivkumar Sharma
Antonis Dalgas
Víctor Jara
Graciana Silva (La Negra Graciana)
Zilan Tigris

You can check the inductees in 2021 and 2022. 

+ FESTIVALS AWARD

The Transglobal World Music Chart launched a Festival Awards in 2018. Two editions have already been held: 2018 and 2019. In 2020, the Festival Awards was cancelled due to the pandemic. In November of 2023 it is continued and the application of festivals taking place in 2024 is announced. Check the details, here.

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in November 2023 is: Koum Tara´s Baraaim El-Louz (Odradek Records)
• Mundofonías: the three favourites of the month are Al Bilali Soudan’s Babi, Zakir Hussain & Rakesh Chaurasia’s ZaRa and Emilia Lajunen’s Vainaan perua: Satavuotinen sakka

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

OPEN CALLS 

This section is open for news. It is free of charge. You can let me know if you have any open call of relevance to the community.

PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

MY HIGHLIGHTS OF THE YEAR

It is inevitable to look back over the year at this time of year. This section is very personal and about me. As we say here, once in a while, it doesn’t hurt.

I am exhausted. This year I have travelled more than ever and I have worked on many things.

From the European Folk Network we developed the first European Folk Day, on 23 September, of which I was part of the core team, with Nod Knowles and Eric Van Monckhoven. We got the support of MusicAIRE to do it. Hundreds of people and organisations participated in one way or another and it was really exciting.

In Czech Music Crossroads Spain has been the guest country and Mapamundi Música has provided three bands (Vigüela, Xurxo Fernandes and Xabi Aburruzaga).

At WOMEX I participated in a panel together with Martyna Van Nieuwland and Andrea Voets, about the “intellectual undermining of women”, as Andrea calls it in a very clarifying way. Honestly, since we started working on it, I understand many situations that have happened in my life in a different way. I don’t know if I am happier or less happy, but I am wiser.

I have accompanied Ali Doğan Gönültaş in a year in which we have achieved fascinating milestones, such as his performances on some of the most relevant stages in Europe and we have produced the album Kiğı in physical format, in two print runs, and I do not rule out having to make a third one. And it won an award from the association of the German record critics!!! In the picture (by Jorge Carmona) he is performing at Fundação Gulbenkian in Lisbon.

And of course, continuing with Mundofonías (thank you, Juan Antonio Vázquez), Transglobal World Music Chart (thanks also to Ángel Romero), all the conversations I’ve shared here in the monthly newsletter, which have broadened my mind…

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.

Summary 👇 

• Editorial
• Post-WOMEX Coruña
• Mapamundi and Medigrecian are hiring
• Talk with Mehdi Aminian, from Roots Revival
• Transglobal World Music Hall of Fame: period for nominations, open
• Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik for Ali Doğan Gönültaş
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects 
• Open call: Fira Mediterrània de Manresa
• Professional events 💼 
• Meet me at ✈️ 

➡️ This is the link for subscription

Hello, how are you?

POST-WOMEX CORUÑA

I am sure there are many chronicles and many mentiones on the social media about WOMEX. For me it was very intense. I started on Tuesday morning with a mentoring session to the new comers from the Canadian delegation, organiced by Global Toronto/Small World Music + the Northern Turtle Island Collective. This activies are always a great way to shape your experiences into something that can be verbalised and be of use to others.

And I already announced before that I would participate in a panel Reshaping the Narrative, together with Andrea Voets and Martyna van Nieuwland. I have put links in their names. Click to learn more about them. The picture is by Eric Van Nieuwland. Since I started working with them in the preparation of the panel, I have gone through some past situations in my life and understood them in a different way. I think some very profound ideas came out, much more than a confrontation between men and women, but an analysis of the impact of an inertia of thinking that we are not very aware of and how it translates into visible and non-visible facts of life.

In Womex I had several conversations and I started some collaborations. You can check the current offers from Mapamundi Música here.

WE ARE HIRING

With the agency lead by Alkis Zopoglou, Medigrecian, the collaboration has been going on for several years. Now we joined to search someone to work. The instructions to aply are explained here below.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
MEHDI AMINIAN, FROM ROOTS REVIVAL

I learnt about Mehdi Aminian and his organization Roots Revival from Birgit Ellinghaus. She told me he was attending WOMEX to present his video about the music that was performed while weaving the Persian carpets in Iran (this is the documentary video) and that I should meet him. The truth is that I couldn’t wait and we had a little online interchange before WOMEX and also after. Mehdi was going to WOMEX to present the documentary there and he would participate in a panel, “Documenting Music Traditions on Film”. This film is just one of the activities developed by him and the organization.

This is how they define themselves:

“Roots Revival is an international and cross-cultural entity which aims to promote the musical heritage from around the globe, to enhance the mobility of artists and intercultural artistic dialogue and to create high quality music content that binds tradition and innovation and with the focus on global contemporary challenges humanity faces.

We provide the basis for an innovative, sustainable, long-term international cooperation incorporating both national and international artists and audiences.”

On the website you have information about the several artistic projects that they have developed during 10 years. I got really impressed from the diversity and the size of the concerts. I really recommend you check the website before reading the interview. You can also check their Youtube channel and select one of the recordings to listen to while reading.

Before ending this section dedicated to Mehdi and Roots Revival, I’d like to share two pieces of his work. This is a Virtual Rebirth of Roots Revival’s Cancelled Performance at the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück in Germany. All the credits are in the description of Youtube. I find this music and the video extraordinarily beautiful:

And this is the documentary Woven Sounds that I mentioned at the very beginning of this section and of which Mehdi explained that was financed by the Austrian Accademy of Sciences and Mehdi himself:

Thank you very much, Mehdi!!!

TRANSGLOBAL WORLD MUSIC HALL OF FAME
Period for nominations, open until 26th November

The Transglobal World Music Hall Fame celebrates excellence in the world music field. The Hall of Fame includes three categories: 

🔸Artists
The Artists category honors solo and ensemble living artists who have achieved lifelong artistic and technical quality or historical significance in the field of world music. (5 annual inductions)

🔸Professional Excellence
Professional Excellence celebrates influential music professionals (not artists) and media individuals and organizations who have provided increased visibility and recognition to world music and its multiple subgenres (3 annual inductions).

🔸In Memoriam
In Memoriam includes posthumous inductions that honor historically inventive and influential artists or industry professionals who passed away in previous years or decades. (5 annual inductions)

Send your proposals, here.

THE NEWS THAT MADE ME HAPPY:
The 1st album by Mapamundi Musica Record Label, Kiğı, by Ali Doğan Gönültaş Preis Der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik: Quarterly Best » 4/2023, Traditional Ethnic Music

Ali Doğan Gönültaş self produced his extraordinary album Kiğı in 2022. One year after I started a record label to provide the administrative needs and the manufacturation of the physical CD, in order to create a touchable product that would stay for the future generations.

And now the jurors of the German Record Critics’ Award recognise the production Ali Doğan Gönültaş: Kiğı. Quarterly Critic’s Choice, Category Traditional Ethnic Music.
“The best and most interesting new releases of the previous three months are awarded a place on the Quarterly Critic’s Choice. Evaluation criteria are artistic quality, repertoire value, presentation, and sound quality.”

For more info, clic here. And you can listen to the album, here.

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in November 2023 is: Luzmila Carpio’s Inti Watana / El Retorno del Sol

• Mundofonías: the three favourites of the month are O’Tridal’s Triumvirat, Times New Román’s Jól élünk and Los Ruphay’s Kimsa pachanaka / The three seasons of the Andes

OPEN CALLS

Perhaps there are more. There are probably more and I haven’t heard about it. This section is open for news. It is free of charge. You can let me know if you have any open call of relevance to the community.

PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

• PIN Conference. Skopje, Macedonia. 30 November – 2 December 

• Visa For Music. Rabat, Morocco. 22-25 November. Plus 40th General Assembly of the International Music Council

I already talked about this event in the previous edition. Also, it was mentioned in the conversation with Said Chaouch. This year, the box office income will be donated to special funds to support earthquake relief efforts. This will be the 10th edition of the event. Learn more on their website.

In adition, 40th IMC General Assembly of the International Music Council will take place in Rabat during the Visa and they have some shared activites. The website of the Assembly is this.

I’d love to attend this edition of Visa and the Assembly but it is too much. On day 22nd I will be in Brussels in Muziekpublique.

• 10th Cyprus Jazz & World Music Showcase 2023. 8 – 10 December. Limassol, Cyprus.

MEET ME AT

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

• 22 November. Brussels. Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş in Muziekpublique.
• 30 November – 2 December. Skopje, Makedonia. PIN Conference.
• 8 – 10 December. Limassol, Cyprus. 10th Cyprus Jazz & World Music Showcase 2023

Summary 👇

➡️ This is the link for subscription

Hello, how are you?

I am well. On this occasion I wanted to open this editorial section with a photo not only of me, but of this artistic team that has worked on one of my milestones of the year, the show Beyond Al-Andalus, for which I have collaborated with Birgit Ellinghaus, from alba Kultur. She is in charge of several concerts each season in the Mozart Hall of the Alte Oper Frankfurt.

The artists have been Vigüela (old friends, you probably already know), the sister duo from León Tsacianiegas and the charming Galician singer and tambourine player Tania Caamaño. Each time something like this happens I feel that magic has been created, that the stars have aligned, that providence has seen fit to give me this unforgettable moment. On the other hand, as the world goes, it seems that this is a delicate marvel that could break at any moment.

Honestly, I am in one of those very stressful moments, I hope you will forgive me if there are any typos. I am writing this the day before I travel again, to Manchester this time, to the annual meeting of the European Folk Network, at the same time as for English Folk Expo. Back on Saturday night and early Tuesday morning, flying again, to Coruña. I have the honor of being called to mentor some delegates (by the way, this is starting to be more or less usual and I am open to requests of mentoring) and I love it but I’ll have to get up at 3am…. As my father would say, may all sorrows be like that. Totally agree.

I hope this content is of interest to you. I have enjoyed it very much. The conversation with Said was great. And to be able to announce that in my land there is a new world music programming initiative is a great joy. You will see it below and they are open to proposals. Thank you for your attention.

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

INTRODUCING MADRID WORLD MUSIC (MWM), A NEW CONCERT SERIES, BY MADRESIERRA

A couple of weeks ago I saw on Instagram that Huun-Huur-Tu were coming to Madrid. It was announced by Madresierra‘s profile, whose slogans in the Bio are “💫 Cultural promoter of exclusive sounds 💫 🥁 World Music Movement 🌍”.

I didn’t know about this initiative so I inquired and saw that my friend Patricia Alvarez, dancer, researcher and creator, had them in her circle of contacts. She put me in the background and I got in touch. I asked Juan Cobo for a statement to present his initiative. And here they are. Obviously, I was very happy to learn about this new initiative in Madrid and I hope it goes very well and that they can establish themselves strongly.

They are open to proposals so, if you have something for them, contact them on their Instagram. I leave you with Juan’s words:

“I am Juan Cobo, creator of Madresierra, a Spanish cultural promoter of exclusive sounds. We present Madrid World Music (MWM), a cycle that aims to bring to Madrid (Spain) root music, ethnic music, music from any corner of the planet that has emerged from the earth itself. A place for the restless spectator, who wants to feed his soul and intends to discover other sound and cultural worlds.

MWM only has a start date, not an end date, nor intermediate dates. We are collecting proposals, and when they touch our hearts, we look for the best way to program them. Likewise, it will be itinerant, since depending on the type of artist, the space will be one or another: concert hall, theater, auditorium, non-conventional spaces…

We know that it is a difficult job, since in our country it is difficult to spread this kind of sounds, but we also know that there is a huge minority of people who love this kind of music. We see it as an opportunity to attract a type of public that, in our opinion, is becoming orphaned of “ethnic” spaces. Festivals like Etnosur, Pirineos Sur or La Mar de Músicas, which were born with this “label”, are turning to a more commercial programming, without so much exclusivity, since they repeat names that are already in other Spanish “multi-style” festivals.

We will cover this target and we are waiting for your proposals!”

VISA FOR MUSIC WILL TAKE PLACE: RABAT 22-25 NOVEMBER

When we knew about the earthquake in the Atlas mountains and it’s effect in cities like Marrakech, I though Visa for Music might be cancelled but no: not only is it not cancelled, but also, the box office income will be donated to special funds to support earthquake relief efforts.

This will be the 10th edition of the event. Learn more on their website.

– MEET ME IN BRUSSELS –

While I was writitting this, I received an email that made me very happy, with this drawing of Ali Doğan Gönültaş’s in for the banner for Muziekpublique. This is the reason why I can’t attend Visa for Music. On day 22nd I will be in Brussels for the premiere in Belgium of Ali Doğan Gönültaş. Here you have all the details. It will be at the Théâtre Molière, managed by Muziekpublique, the organization of Peter Van Rompaey, a lantern of culture in Europe. I made a long interview with Peter, that you can read in this previous edition. This concert is part of the tour Klangkosmos, produced by alba Kultur, lead by Birgit Ellinghaus, another landmark for our community, who has been mentioned often here. For instance, here you are an interview with her.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:

SAID CHAOUCH, FROM WORLDMUSIC OASIS

Said will attend Visa for Music. He told me that this is the reason why he won’t come to WOMEX this year. He explained to me about the meaning of this kind of events, like Visa for Music, for him. Below you can read about it.

I took this so nice portrait of Said from the page About us, from www.worldmusicoasis.com. I think I may have crossed paths with Said at a Womex but we never spoke in person until a few days ago. I think that in this photo, the photographer has captured the warmth that I have felt in Said in the long conversation we had through the screen. That’s why I have chosen it to open this interview.

When we spoke to make the appointment, he told me that he was finishing a job. It’s about the book of which you have the cover here below. He was going on a trip soon and we would talk when he returned. The purpose of the book is to explain the concept or term “world music” from his own experience. He explains that “The term has been subject of criticism since it have been created. What is world music, how to define the term, why people dislike the term.” In the book, he is trying answer those questions through interviews with 50 music experts, journalists, producers, etc… and telling the story about how he started a music store in Sweden. The book will be published and available on his website soon. I will send news about it when it is already available.

Here below you will learn the steps that made he set the store Worldmusic Oasis, and many other interesting facts.

Mapamundi Música: You founded Worldmusic Oasis, a shop in Gothenburg, to sell world music mainly, you sell also jazz and other styles… but what led you to establish the store? Why did you start this?

Said Chaouch:  This is an interesting question. In my book, which hopefully will come soon – but this book is not to sell, it is book just for friends and the people who like music – there I explain a little bit more how when I moved from France. I was living in Paris before, and I was playing in France as musician street. Just as a hobby, you know. I´m born as a painter and studied painting, not as a musician but both go into each other. I´have been playing music for fan but don’t want to call myself a musician.

Akli D comes from the same area in Algeria. We lived not far from each other. He did play music already in Algeria before he left to France in the beginning of the 80s. We meet often in Paris outside Centre Georges Pompidou where we shared the place and played for fun for tourists. Akli didn’t have a band at that time, he was just playing with his guitar. We were many sharing the place and the streets in Saint Michel. I left him in Paris where he succeeded with his career and met 20 years later in a concert in Paris. He recognized me.

Manu Chao helped, Akli, like he did with Amadou and Marian, at the same time. He made a big success, he was everywhere, but was really a short time. He made and international career and I moved to Sweden because, at the time, I have met a girlfriend in Sweden. That’s reason I moved to Sweden.

MM: The usual reason to move, hehe.

SC: But then, the problem was that when you arrived in Sweden it was not like if you move from Paris to Madrid or to Milano or to Athena. Sweden was special that time. There were not many foreigners. Now it’s something else. But at that time, it was a cold, quiet, calm country… So, I thought “Here, I can’t stay”. And at the same I had my girlfriend; I had moved for her. So, I had to find something to compensate. So, at that time, 1985 it was that time when the word music had start in France: between 1983 until 1987 it’s that time where there were many many artists playing in France. So, the world music had started exactly that period when I left. So, Sweden was for me really empty. I had to find a compensation in Sweden. I am musician and if I went to a shop to buy a North African record or a Latin record, they were not. Even in the three big stores in Sweden, in the three biggest ones, you could find, maybe, in the world music section, maybe 10 records and that 10 records were traditional drums records. It was empty, there was nothing.

So, each time went to Paris there were friends who told me “Please, Said, can you bring for me Franco’s album? Can you take me…?” You know, so each time I went to Paris I returned with a bag of 50 CDs. So, I thought there was a market in Sweden. And I had to find something both to get money and to get back to me the atmosphere that I had in France and that I was missing. It was for me as oxygen. I need it. It was not for the money. I needed to get this people around me.  That is how I started the store. And the store was really unique, except one which had opened a few years before me in Stockholm called Multi Kulti, but now they don’t exist anymore. But after them, mine was the second biggest store in…, not only Sweden, maybe in whole Scandinavia, even from Norway, Denmark and Finland.  My specialty was world music. And it was the people who gave it’s the name. They said it was an oasis of world music, which was true. So the name is really meaningful.

Important – I would never have been able to have such a long career in music without the enormous work of my wife Eva, who encouraged me to open the store and who supported me in the shadows during all these years while working as much as me in addition to her full-time job.

You may feel like reading on while listening to the aforementioned Akli D:

MM: Where were you born?

SC: I was born in Algeria and I have grown in Algeria. But after the high school I moved to Paris. I moved to study painting. I have made many exhibitions. My career should have been more of a painter than a musician but it was difficult. It was difficult for a foreigner to get a job, as a painter or as an artist, it was difficult to survive. So I had to leave it on the side and continue with music. And it worked well, especially at the beginning with the store, because it was needed. It was an empty market in Sweden. At that time, there were people maybe from 100 nationalities who came to the store: people from Namibia… There were two persons from… let’s say, from India living here. They spoke to each other. At that time there was no WhatsApp, there was no Facebook… The people told to each other about the shop in Gothenburg where you could find music from Sri Lanka or music from Sudan or music from Somalia… The news spread really quickly.

MM: So you had those two objectives when you made the shop, the make your living, to get income, and also to fulfil this gap that you were feeling. And it run well between the people. You didn’t need to make advertisements or nothing…

SC: No, no, no, that time there was no Facebook no WhatsApp. But the information spread really quickly. People talked on the telephone. And they called me on the phone. It was fun but it was also too much work, because I learnt about the artists from the people, from the customers who came to buy. Let’s say there was someone from India who came to the store and asked about about Zakir Hussein. At that time, I didn’t know about Zakir. So I learned all the artists through the customers who had come and asked me about their musicians. There was not a book where to read about all the artists.

MM: What is the situation right now about this? Because it’s totally different. Now everybody’s on the internet.

SC: Exactly. That is one of the reason why I am writing in this book I talked about before. 10 years ago, when the CDs began to disappear, when it came the crisis with the CDs, it was really difficult: I found myself with a stock of CDs. All my economy, all that I have got under 20 years buying records, I found that I can’t sell them anymore. So it affected me really too much. And it was before Covid. But at the same time I lucky because the vinyl came back.  It made a compensation for the CDs. The price of the vinyls is high, so all the vinyls I had allowed me to continue.

And at the same time what have helped me is that, thanks to the contacts I made through the records, I began to book artists. At that time, around 1995, I was maybe the only one in Sweden who had the telephone number to call the African artists. There was no Internet, and I had the contact of most of the African and Arab artists in France through the records companies I bought records from. And the records companies, each time I went to France to buy records, asked me if I can book their artist in Sweden. That’s how I booked Papa Wemba. That’s how I book him the first time he came to Sweden. Or Tinariwen, with whom I have good contact, I was the first who booked them in Gothenburg. Or Orquestra National de Barbes. So when the crisis of CDs came, I compensated it with clubs, I have different music clubs, and booking artists. I compensated it with clubs, opening different music clubs, booking artists, DJing and giving lectures about world music.

And then the Covid, of course, came and destroyed everything again. There were no concerts, I could not sell records… It was a really tough period where I thought it was not possible to continue to pay the rent for a big local… At that time, I started to think to make the website. Until that time, I have thought about website because it was for me enough to sell for the people here and I didn’t need to sell for the people outside Sweden. Already the market in Sweden was already enough. But when the crisis came, I thought now it’s the new world we are living in, so we have to make now good website and try to get more contact with the world.

MM: So you make also bookings… So you have all these different lines of activity with music but why do you have this engagement with music? You say you were a musician yourself when you were in Paris. But your path was going to be a painter, not a musician. But what is your relationship with music? Because at the end all your life has been devoted to music. How did this start in your life? Were your parents musicians or did you study music in Algeria?

SC: About the painting, when I was in school, at six or seven years, I was already the best in painting. That was already in my heart, in my mind. But you know, I have grown in a country where the artists don’t have a high value so I was a good artist but I knew that I couldn’t make the living as an artist because I can make an exhibition and people come, they can write good review, “oh, you are wonderful” and that’s all. So I came to France to continue study painting in the University. It didn’t work as planned for different reasons. I worked in small jobs and left behind the studies.

There is someone who writes in a newspaper here in Sweden and said when Said’s career is finished, he will not be rich in money but his career is full of meetings, of all these people I have met, all these artists I have met, I have a book, I have spent the time. For me that is the sense of the life. It’s not to get a big house, you know. Maybe if you compare all that money I have spent on this, maybe I could have six big houses but it’s not that what I was looking for.

MM: No, no, of course, you need to make meaningful things for you and also for the world, I think. Your passing through the Earth must make something, not just being one part of the chain. I feel very similar, not with the recordings, but with the booking and management of artists so I feel very identified with all this you are explaining about traveling in the world for music. Yeah, I understand you.
I wanted to ask you, you are advisor for several organizations that make concerts there. When you book or advice about an artist, which could be the characteristics that the artist will have for being interesting for you?

Let’s listen to Tamikrest and send a greeting to Thijs Vandewalle:

MM: It’s a great idea to talk between us about these things because, as you said, WOMEX is a is a business and I understand we can’t ask them to resolve this situation because it is a private company. They also have to fight for their salaries, they have to make their work and they have to have profit. So all this conversation of the last minutes is something parallel to the industry and how to include these people. For me, the important is that these people in those countries get a better living and that their art is not lost and is known in the rest of the world. Because it makes me so happy when I listen wonderful things. For instance I have tried to bring an Albanian band to Western Europe. The musicians that are wonderful but they don’t speak English. The flights are super complicated and they have to go by road to Tirana… So it’s so complicated for someone like me. I have to convince someone to give me 10,000 euros for bringing them to Spain or to Portugal. And sometimes who has that money doesn’t have that sensitivity to realise this is worth of it. So this is the fight I have inside me, how to make this, because these people are over there and the rest of the world is losing their art, we are not enjoying that and, also, the people in those countries, with the time they will just do other things. If they can’t make a good living in their life with music they will just quit music, they will do other things and we all will lose this. So I’m very concerned about this.

SC: There is something too which we have think about, there is a second problem with visas, you know. It makes me sick because I have direct contact with artists. Now from Niger, the last time they haven’t come, even Tinariwen, you know, they are big. They have cancelled the tours of the last year. I have been with Tinariwen in their home in Sahara, they are not interested in living in Paris or in New York, you know. They are not. They are making their job and they return. There are big artists like Fatoumata Diawara and Amadou and Marian, they have to unite and to speak about these problems, to put pressure on the government. The artists together they can make too much pressure on the government. Like in the 80s, there was a big gala of solidarity for the people in Ethiopia.Now there are too many things happening with all these refugees in Mali, in Niger… you know. I mean, who can speak about them. if they are not the artists? Some artists don’t even get visa, even if there is a promoter to pay everything. Me and you, of course, together with the artists, with all these people, we can make pressure to the governments. For instance, if you get a card of artist, you have to get visa, there’s no discussion about it. But this solidarity is again needed but no one speaks about it. Maybe if an artist didn’t come, the day after, the newspaper writes that it is because they didn’t get the visa. So, again, we have to together, media, promoters, artists… There is too much work left.

MM: Yes and we have to identify who else has this thinking because maybe not everybody cares about this, yeah.

SC: Exactly, you are right, that’s why we have to make people understand that. We must be united to fight against the monopoly of the big industry, as an exemple, the ones from Spotify. The meetings on WOMEX can’t be just to promote artists and be a meeting place for promoters. There are other problems we need to talk about. It needed more panels and people engaged to raise visa problem.I’d hope there will be more engagement from artists as Youssou Ndour, Salif Keita, Manu Chao, etc… to organize charity concerts, to find a way how to do charity concerts to help people, as it was done before. These artists has a big power to put pressure on government.

MM: Next year WOMEX is in Manchester. For some more people it is a problem because even the Serbians, for instance, need visa for going to United Kingdom. So it could be a good frame to talk about this.

–    After this latest reflection, we made some little plans for the future, but the interview hasn’t ended yet –

MM: I wanted to talk with you because I think your example can be very inspiring, you have a broad vision of what has happen and I wanted, before ending, you to talk a bit about this new book that you have prepared.

SC: To work on it is really interesting. I have always been fascinated about this concept of “world music”, created by English people in 1987. Some people don’t like it because they bring all the music from the world in the same the bag, you know. In France you have the parallel term, that is is “sono mondiale”, created in 1983. At that time, according to the director of the music distribution company Melody, at the beginning of the 1980s, if you went to America to promote an African artist, there were no shops of world music, there were of pop, rock, jazz, classic… So he went to the jazz store and they didn’t want albums of African music together with the others. So, where to find African records in France? In the African small stores, that are selling food, textiles… they know each other and they had some cassettes and CDs.When the producers began to find this music, they got fascinated music and began to promote it but they didn’t have where to put them in the stores. That’s why those English people created the term “world music”, so, when you go to the store and you want to find Salif Keita or Boubacar Traoré or Ali, you go to “world music”.  Many people don’t like the term because they say that those English people put all the world music in the same bag: Latinos, African, Arab, Indian…

UPBEAT PLATFORM: BEST NEW TALENT AWARD FOR ZARINA PRVASEVDA

I like this news. When I participated as a jury for this award together with Balázs Weyer and Chris Eckman, this Macedonian singer was one of those I supported to pass to the next step. After our judging, a shortlist of 10 finalists was created, which went on to the voting phase by the public. The truth is that there has been an extraordinary level and several other artists would have also been excellent winners. You can consult here the list of those 10 finalists. I hope they have the best of luck in their careers and, for now, congratulations, Zarina! 

Here is Zarina live with her band:

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in October 2023 is: Jarak Qaribak, by Dudu Tassa & Jonny Greenwood

• Mundofonías: the three favourites of the month are Aga Khan Master Musicians’s Nowruz, Bolinus brandaris [V.A.] and Eliza Carthy Trio’s  Conversations we’ve had before.

Reminder
TALK AT WOMEX: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE

The complete name of this panel is Reshaping the Narrative – Gender, authority and new approaches to music journalism.
The other ladies are Martyna van Nieuwland and Andrea Voets. Click on their names to read a bio.
It will happen on Thursday 26th of October at 15:15 in Conference Room 2 | Palexco. More details, here.

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

MEET ME AT

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

• October, 18-21, Manchester. English Folk Expo, which this year hosts the annual meeting of the European Folk Network.
• Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.
• 18-19 November. Hamburg, Germany. At the Elbphilarmonie there will be a wonderful program curated by alba Kultur, called Festival “Kurdistan”. Click here to discover the full program.
• 22 November. Brussels. Concert by Ali Doğan Gönültaş for Muziekpublique.
• 30 November – 2 December. Skopje, Makedonia. PIN Conference.

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.

Summary 👇 

Open calls and more news from professional events 💼

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Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

A&A MUSIC BOOKING, JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA AND ASYA MUSIC & MANAGEMENT

Let me tell you a story. In February I travelled to Istanbul. It was the same week as the earthquakes. I’m sure you remember it. I almost didn’t go… I was going to travel for a concert of Ali Doğan Gönültaş. We were going to shoot a video of the concert and do a photo session.

Both things were cancelled but I kept the trip. I had already paid for everything and I had some meetings that we were still able to keep.

One of the meetings was with Martin Greve, who I was going to meet for the first time, after the suggestion by Birgit Ellinghaus. Martin and me had arranged to meet in Üsküdar, in the Asian part of Istanbul. But due to a misunderstanding, I ended up in Kadıköy…

Martin came over, we had coffee, dinner, and at one point it occurred to him to call his friend Asya Arslantaş, who is in more or less the same line of work as me and she lived close to that place. Well, all this seems like a chain of events linked in a very fragile way, which led us to meet each other.

The truth is that everything in life is like that. It has all been so improbable as to be almost impossible. But it happened!

Asya was my protagonist in this edition of March. The truth is that we saw that we had a very similar approach to working with music and after several conversations, we decided to start a common path, of which this concert programme that you have here is the first proposal. Soon we will also have a website 🥳.

You can download a dossier with more information, here.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: LUDOVICO ESPOSITO

Ludovico is the president of Sud Sonico. He was invited to Balkan:MOST to make a keynote during the pitching session. I took the picture above during his speech. He talked there for 4 minutes. But I was priviledged with more than 40 minutes of conversation with him 🥳.

His artistic focus is what he calls as advanced music, with a strong pressence of electronics. That is a very different focus than mine, as I work mainly with acoustic music connected with the tradition. However, many of the things he explains seem to me to be very interesting and useful and applicable to any cultural initiative, especially when we work with material that is far from the mainstream.

But without further ado, I will share the content of the interview.

On the other hand, we invested in another project, in Avant, a different concept but the same soul. It is a boutique festival to create an intimate atmosphere and unite the beauties of our traditions with avantgarde music. We basically welcome 300 guests over a weekend of events. We have daytime and evening activities. During the day, we present wine tasting, food tasting and hiking or trekking on the Adriatic Sea. And in the evening, we present avantgarde music concerts, electronica, experimental electroacoustic and any hybrid sound or performance. But also, DJ sets. So we listen to quality music and we dance and we enjoy a weekend of togetherness in our spectacular panoramas and with our spectacular food and wine. It functions as a slow intimate tourism experiences, through music. It is a “more-adult” and intimate format than Sagra Elettronica. It is basically the same concept, but designed for a different fruition and for different targets.

MM: I have seen that your approach to music or to art is recreational, educational and therapeutic. And you focus the art somehow for equality, it has kind of political or philosophical approach…

LE: Yes, we have a benefit approach, so our association works and, in general, uses music for different purposes. When I mean recreational purposes, I refer to social cohesion and togetherness through live events like the festivals Sagra Electronica and AVANT, or the concert series Xenomorph sounds. These are different projects that serve to enable people to have fun and to stay together.

.

Banner of Musica Etica, from Sud Sonico’s Facebook page

Athens Music Week 2023

UPDATE ABOUT BABEL MUSIC XP FROM ITS DIRECTOR, OLIVIER REY

A few days ago I corresponded with Olivier Rey. I asked him if they already have the jury for the selection of the Babel Music XP showcases. He told me that they are working on it and updated me on a few things. Of course, he mentioned the decease of Bernard Aubert.

I asked him for permission to shape his message and share it with you, as I find it interesting:

“The Fiesta des Suds, Marseille’s biggest and most historic festival, runs from 5 to 8 October. Its director and founder, Bernard Aubert, passed away in mid-August. This news has obviously affected the teams and has forced us to offer additional content to pay tribute to Bernard’s character.

About Babel Music XP, we’re delighted with this relaunch edition in 2023, which has been acclaimed by everyone. We brought together 1,500 professionals from 72 countries.but we’re also aware of the areas we need to develop to make the market more attractive. This means going international, working with world music players, opening up to contemporary music, which often programmes our styles without realising it, and many other things.

The dates for Babel Music XP 2024 are 28 to 30 March. A number of projects have already been launched. The call for applications received 2,300 projects, demonstrating the extraordinary expectations surrounding an event like Babel. The good news is that we’ll be able to use the Dock des Suds for showcases once again this year. Quite apart from the acoustics (especially of the venue), it’s vital for me to have the 3 stages under the same roof, so that all the professionals can come together. The showcases are open to both professionals and the general public (10,000 spectators last year).

As far as the selection committee is concerned, it will meet in mid-November and we hope to announce the selection in mid-December (a month earlier than last year) so that everyone can get organised and plan their visit to Marseille. The jury is currently being finalised. I’d like to renew a third of it each year, both to bring in new blood and to keep a record of our work from one year to the next.”

Thank you, Olivier! 🙏

Update
EUROPEAN FOLK DAY

Finally, the first ever European Folk Day took place on 23rd of September. It gathered 226 events in 32 countries. The call for tracks for the Music Repository got to collect 104 tracks on the from 28 countries. 26 radio stations members of the European Broadcasting Union dedicated part of their program to the Day. You can sign up for the news from the European Folk Network, here, and receive the news directlly from the organization that has coordinated this project. 

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

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in September 2023 is: Stoonia Lood / Stories of Stonia, by Mari Kalkun

• Mundofonías: the three favourites of the month are Lost In Tajikistan [V.A.], Zeyn’el’s Divan & divine and Østerlide’s Kilden

Reminder

TALK AT WOMEX: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE

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

MEET ME AT

So far, nothing new from the previous edition.
If you happen to attend these events, drop me a line. If you are not, they can be interesting for you too in any case. They are special events.

• October, 5-8, I will go to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Ali Doğan Gönültaş will perform there and I will attend also as a delegate as in many previous occasions.

• October, 11th. Very special concert at the Alte Oper Franfkurt with Vigüela and several other Spanish performers for a program designed by alba Kultur. In the picture, Mari Nieto, singer of Vigüela, one of the protagonist of the event.
• October, 18-21, Manchester. English Folk Expo, which this year hosts the annual meeting of the European Folk Network.
• Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.
• 18-19 November. Hamburg, Germany. At the Elbphilarmonie there will be a wonderful program curated by alba Kultur, called Festival “Kurdistan”. Click here to discover the full program.

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. 

Summary 👇 

🔸Editorial

🔸Talk with Imed Alibi, musician, composer and director of the music department at the Atelier des Artistes en Exil en France

🔸Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects + announcement from Mundofonías 🗞️

🔸Reminder: talk at Womex, “Reshaping the narrative” ✍️

🔸Update: European Folk Day 🗓️

🔸Open calls and more news from professional events 💼 

🔸Meet me at ✈️ with spotlight on Festival “Kurdistan” in Elbphilarmonie Hamburg

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Hello, how are you?

I am well. This month is special. I will celebrate my birthday. I have only one wish to ask: to have more wisdom to be able to go further with this whole music thing.I will expend that day returning from Plasencia (Cáceres province, in Extremadura region) after the concert by Seiva, the Portuguese trio with which I began to collaborate this year. The usual line up is two women and a man, but in this occasion the female percussionist had to be substituted.

Apart from that, I am full of anticipation about the MOST festival and the re-entry in general. This summer is being fantastic. Ali Doğan Gönültaş is in France right now and today will be his fourth concert out of 10 that he is doing in Aubernia and Languedoc with his trio. Autumn is going to be fun for them as well. I explain a bit more below.

Tomorrow Vigüela will play in a festival that has been going on for 51 editions, Cita Folk in Jódar, in Andalusia. In the next Autumn they will start a new project to popularise a very unknown style of traditional music: the son. I will give news shortly.

Soon I will also be giving news of a new collaboration that has me full of anticipation, a collaboration that I hope will be a boost of motivation and outreach for both sides. For now I will only say that it is a collaboration with someone from the other side of the Mediterranean 😍.

I hope your summer is going wonderfully and the return to routine is uplifting! And that the content below is of your interest.

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: IMED ALIBI

This video is from a concert from last October, made in Tenerife, the island in Canarias, that is nowadays in the news because of the fire that has burnt 7% of the land. The festival is Naturajazz. The program for 2023 is not announced yet. I wonder if they will have strenght and resources to make it this year 🙁

But back to Imed, it is time to share his insights:

Imed Alibi: It’s always interesting having new profiles, new artists especially emerging ones, we never have enough information… newsletters can also remember us some artists we may forget especially nowadays we have a boom of projects… innovative ones captivate us.

IA: Music markets, one to one meeting, emails… I also navigate and research on internet..

IA: A festival or a venue can’t have so many artists per year, per session, it’s obvious, so no need to insist, sometimes it’s just embarrassing 🙂

🔸MM: You have a really huge experience and success both as an artist and as a cultural manager and you have collaborated with other referential artists. Which do you think is a key characteristic of the artists who succees?

IA: Patience, focus on one project for several years, it takes time to build an identity and to continue a career.

2. About your work as responsible for the music department of the Atelier des artistes en exile in Paris.🔸MM: Over the last few months I have had various conversations about the situation of being a refugee or migrant artist. For example, in the conversation with Alan Ibrahim, from Music for Identity, where we also talked about the process of the Refa group, initially Refugees for Refugees. More recently, I was talking to a friend in Madrid about a Cuban musician who is making his way in the jazz scene and we thought that with his appearance (he is black), as soon as the people see him, a lot of preconceived ideas appear in people’s minds, whatever he does, he is going to be the black Cuban musician (here there is not as much diversity in the music scene as in other places).At the same time, we were talking with Alan about how using these concepts is also useful to sell or to open some doors, but in the end it can trap the person in a limiting concept. What do you think about this and how do you deal with it from your atelier?

IA: In France what we call ethnic music or world music is already putting musicians in boxes, the idea for us is to help artists to be really independent and continue their career in Europe in spite of the prejudices.

🔸MM: I have seen the list of artists on your website. There are a lot of them. I imagine that many of them are refugees for political reasons, is that right? But not all of them, right? Some are for economic reasons or because they have left in search of better development opportunities?

IA: Most of them are refugees for political reasons, others for sexual persecutions… Not economic.

IA: https://aa-e.org/fr/ and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiguqu2MIScLiQTA9gLFHOw

Juan Antonio decided to post some “Essentials” on Facebook during August. The Essentials are those pieces that we have enjoyed the most, from any moment of the history of the recorded music. This Ni Yeye, by the Zanzibari band Culture Musical Club, is worth of that term:

Reminder
TALK AT WOMEX: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE

Update
EUROPEAN FOLK DAY

MEET ME AT

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

---

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

---

• October, 5-8, I will go to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Ali Doğan Gönültaş will perform there and I will attend also as a delegate as in many previous occasions.

---

• October, 11th. Very special concert at the Alte Oper Franfkurt with Vigüela and several other Spanish performers for a program designed by alba Kultur. In the picture, Mari Nieto, singer of Vigüela, one of the protagonist of the event.

---

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

---

• Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.

---

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

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

Here is Saîdê Goyî’s second album:

Summary 👇 

• Editorial and Czech Music Crossroads
• Talk with Nabil Canaan, from Station Beirut and Shuruq Music
• Best New Talent Award 2023, By Upbeat Platform
• Talk At WOMEX: Reshaping The Narrative. Gender, Authority And New Approaches To Music Journalism 
• A Personal Farewell to Mad Sheer Khan
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
• Open calls and more news from professional events 💼
• Meet me at ✈️

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Hello, how are you? I am well and also full of very diverse emotions. Haha, yes, that is the same as the beginning of the previous edition. But the photo is not the same. This flyer was made by the Upbeat team on the occasion of my participation as a judge in the Best New Talent competition. I talk about it below.

This July edition is coming out a little late for a number of reasons.

I’m writing from home, in Alcorcón, between returning from Palma de Mallorca for Yiannis Dionysiou’s concert (wow, what a level, it was an artistic highlight of my life) and travelling again, to Sweden in this case, for Ali Doğan Gönültaş’s participation in the Urkult festival.

With Ali I spent an important part of July in Spain and Germany. I leave you below a short video of his participation in the Polirítmia festival in Valencia, with the collaboration as guest artist of the versatile and skilful Eduard Navarro.

➡️ This photo with Ali was taken by Fırat, his clarinet player, at the Café Barbieri in Madrid, a café that is 121 years old. It’s not all about work! 

Well, in conclusion, this month has been awesome. It started even in Ostrava for the Czech Music Crossroads…

🟨 Czech Music Crossroads 🟨

This professional meeting took place in Ostrava from 28 June to 1 July. As I mentioned earlier, Mapamundi Música sponsored the participation of Spain as the guest country, with performances by Vigüela, Xabi Aburruzaga and Xurxo Fernandes. I chose three artists from three of the cultures that make up my country of birth. Besides them, I especially enjoyed the concerts of two of the bands from Slovenia, which was the other guest country: the very young Gugutke and the more experienced and also extraordinary Teo Collori & Momento Cigano. And also Sutari, the Polish women’s trio, who also won the Crossroads professional award.

Besides the concerts there was also a series of talks. Among them, I myself spoke on behalf of Transglobal World Music Chart, together with Milan Tesař, coordinator of World Music Charts Europe, about both initiatives. Svenja Mahlstede gave a very interesting talk about sync licensing. Piotr Pucyło gave a series of practical tips for artists and managers on issues such as technical rider and photography.

In addition, there were formal and informal moments for the exchange of ideas. I have captured one of them in a very specific way: the conversation with Nabil Canaan during the speed datings. I had not planned to interview him beforehand, but as soon as we started talking I understood that it was of great interest to give him space here. So he is the protagonist of this edition.

In this picture you have all or almost all the international delegates and part of the Crossroads team:

I hope you enjoy the content. I think it is very interesting. And as always, if you have something to share with the global community that is dedicated in one way or another to these musics, let me know.

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: NABIL CANAAN

While you read, listen to the the playlist of Shuruq Sessions, here 🎧

It is quite obvious that I have been thinking for some time about the situation in many parts of the world regarding the access of artists to the so-called world music circuits and how there are various mechanisms of exclusion.

The economic ones are very obvious, of course. The other day I was talking to Ali Doğan Gönültaş in the van after his concert at the SoNna Festival, about the money that has to be advanced for flights and other aspects before receiving payment from the festival. In Spain practically no public entity pays in advance, not even for travel expenses, so the agent or the artist has to advance all that money. If they can’t, they will be excluded from that program because the regulation is very strict in these respects.

There are administrative barriers as well. Last year I helped a colleague from Italy to issue an invoice, fulfilling the bureaucratic requirements of his client, a Spanish municipality. Even within the EU itself it was a pain to get the invoice issued, imagine if you don’t have a European agent.

And of course, there is the issue of visas, an extra source of stress.

All these limitations apply to artists who are somehow in the “industry”. Many others will not even come to deal with them and will never transcend into the international arena. I’m fine with that if that’s what they want and if they can make a living in their local or national market. In many cases this is not the situation.

All this is to say that I found it very interesting to talk to Nabil Canaan about his initiatives. You will understand very soon. I met Nabil Canaan during the last edition of Czech Music Crossroads that took place in Ostrava from 28th of June to 1st of July. In his profile as delegate of the event he is presented as “co-founder of Station Beirut arts platform, director of its cultural centre in Beirut, producer of its international projects. After an earlier career in marketing and technology, Nabil pivoted into the creative industries twenty years ago as a cultural change agent in journalism, film and arts.” The complete profile is available here.

Before reading the interview, it is useful to check out the platform Shuruq Music, that is mentioned below. And the website of Station Beirut. 

Mapamundi Música: You are the founder of the cultural center Station Beirut. You are Lebanese, aren’t you?

Nabil Canaan: I was born in Lebanon. I’ve lived in Nigeria, Switzerland, France, New York, Cyprus… I’ve worked with Japanese companies, Korean companies… and we opened Station in an old wood factory in Beirut in 2013.

MM: 10 years ago. Is it your job currently? 
NC: Yes, I’m the director, booker, I handle artistic direction and other management roles as well.

MM: And when you decided to make this, I suppose you were taking some risks… Because you have been working in places, let’s say, economically developed and without any problems, with a lot of regulations and so. Why did you want to make this?

NC: I’ve been working for about 30 years. First ten years I worked in corporate environments in marketing and technology and then after that, I was looking for something more meaningful in life. So I moved into journalism (with The New York Times in New York), film, and development, working with UN agencies on projects in West Africa, Levant region and North Africa. Combining all that with my partner at the time we said “okay, what can we do within the Middle East/North Africa region through arts and culture to try and advance some social aspects?”. We decided to set up Station with a mission of “arts and culture for social transformation”. We deliver this through our programming in visual arts, live arts, and via more mainstream events like urban markets and stand-up comedy. All of it is geared towards programming artists with a social practice, meaning people who have socially engaged arts projects that address human rights, women’s rights, gay rights, the environment… Projects that invite critical thinking towards social and political change.

We worked a lot with photography, film, video art, visual arts in general… And on the live side our core focus is Music, but we also program theatre, stand up and storytelling, looking to identify and present the next generation of artists from the region who are collectively trying to make some change. We work in a region where, in general, there’s a lot of censorship, where there are still some conservative views. There are, you know, infrastructural issues as well. There’s a lack of, let’s say, professional structures and market linkages for exports. So there’s a lot of potential for development, to say it positively.

Given my development background working on sector strengthening projects, in 2019 we created the concept for a platform called “SHURUQ”, which in Arabic means sunrise, a metaphor for emerging talents, new beginnings, moving towards the light. The idea for the Shuruq platform is to identify, elevate and transmit music productions from the SWANA* region to the world.

* Swana: South West Asia/North Africa.

MM: For my newsletter I am trying to talk about these issues that affect the music… You have talked about censorships. For instance, I work with an artist with whom I’m facing this situation because of his background and the place where he lives, he faces discrimination for several reasons. When I started with him, I didn’t really know about him, but we must face the visa issue, we have the Schengen visa for one year, so it’s going quite well with him. He sings in minority languages. About the censorship, he has suffered cancellations of concerts… But let’s continue about Station Beirut and Shuruq.

NC: Keep in mind that during the past three weird years living through corona, in Lebanon you have to add revolution, economic meltdown, explosion of the Beirut port, the dramatic 90% devaluation of the currency, exodus of talent… It’s really a lot of challenges for a small country. We’ve also had the Syria war next door since 2011, with over 2 million refugees in Lebanon. There are a lot of issues still going on.So, in the midst of all these challenges, we created Shuruq Music Platform as a way to elevate and transmit artists and music productions from the region to the rest of the world. Shuruq is built on four pillars: there’s a Capacity Building/Training side, there’s a Content Production side, Music Marketing and International Bookings. We’ve already delivered a set of trainings, produced live performance music videos and we launched a Shuruq Music YouTube channel that you can follow. Shuruq is also of course on Instagram, Spotify, Anghami and the other main DSPs.In November 2022 I reopened our Station venue in Beirut to restart presenting live music. We’ve booked about 16 bands since, about two concerts a month. It’s what the country can handle right now. People don’t mind going clubbing but live concerts…that’s more challenging. We have to re-engage audiences. I think this week we found out that everyone’s having challenges with audiences.

What we’re looking to develop now are bookings. We started already last year at The Great Escape in the UK by booking Rasha Nahas, a Palestinian artist based in Berlin. Last week we booked Lebanese hip-hop artist El Rass in Canada, two dates in Toronto and Montreal. In September we’re booking a band at the Arabesques Festival in Montpellier, France, and in October, three bands at Les Docks in Lausanne, Switzerland… We want to help promote not just from Lebanon, but from across the southern Mediterranean region and Levant. We’re looking to build partnerships for export development, first within the region, then across the Mediterranean, Balkans, onto Western Europe and beyond.

We’re very confident that there’s a lot of very good talent in this region. What they need is to understand better how to export, how to develop export strategies, how to package that, how to start building circuits and networks of venues, festivals, helpful people around us. I think today for the music industry there’s probably two areas of growth: technology and emerging markets. Latin America is doing a good job. In Africa generally they are also working well, key markets being obviously Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Uganda. But I think the third region that’s the next growth area is what we call SWANA: Southwest Asia – North Africa. This covers the North African countries from the Maghreb all the way across to the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq), the Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Emirates and beyond into Turkey and the Caucasus countries like Armenia, Georgia and the like… By calling it Swana, and not Middle East, North Africa, it allows us to also go beyond Arabic-speaking music alone, to include Kurdish, Berber, Turkic languages, Farsi, Armenian, etc, where there is a shared history, shared culture, food, instruments and somehow the microtonal modal sounds, which we can find even here actually in the Czech Republic. Two bands ago that we were listening to I was sitting next to the Tunisian percussionist, Imed Alibi who was saying to me “Man, this sounds like it comes from our region”, talking about the rhythms by the East European band.

“It has been 20 years of “Arab equals terrorist”, which is wrong obviously. We have always worked to change perceptions internationally through the arts and culture.”

So obviously if you go into Spain, 700 years of Arab presence, there’s a lot of references that you can also find in Flamenco. We think this mixture of culture is way overdue. We need to know that the time for getting people from this region to the West is now. And thankfully the stigmatization of Arabs seems like it’s diminishing somewhat. It has been 20 years of “Arab equals terrorist”, which is wrong obviously. We have always worked to change perceptions internationally through the arts and culture. So we now look forward to partnering with people who share the same values.

I am very grateful to Nabil for the conversation. Before I say goodbye, I want to share something about one of the artists he mentioned, Rasha Nahas, in a collaboration with Dina Elwedidi:

BEST NEW TALENT AWARD 2023, BY UPBEAT PLATFORM

As mentioned above, I had the honour to be part of the jury for the Best New Talent Award in the framework of Upbeat Platform, together with Balázs Weyer from Hangvető and Chris Eckman from Glitterbeat. 

Between the three of us we came up with a list of 10 artists who met the criteria to be considered “emerging” and who had performed at one of the events that make up the platform. Click the picture to watch a video with the nominees ➡️.

What are these events? You have them here. And what were those criteria? Literally:

“The performer has to fit at least 5 of the following conditions:
● max 3 albums released
● max 5 years passed since the release of their first album
● no more than 20.000 followers on either of their social media channels
● the average age of band members does not exceed 35 years
● had at least one concert in a professional setting
● the band did not go on an international tour of 10 gigs
● the band does not have a contract with a non-national record label
● the band has an up-to-date web presence (website, social media)
The nominated artists also have to be legal residents in any country participating in the
Creative Europe programme.”

And now the voting is open to everyone, here, until 12 September. The vote gives you the chance to win a double pass for the Tallinn Music Week. The chosen band will get the chance to perform at the PIN MUSIC Conference & Showcase & to record a clip with the mighty La Blogothèque in Paris.

TALK AT WOMEX: RESHAPING THE NARRATIVE. GENDER, AUTHORITY AND NEW APPROACHES TO MUSIC JOURNALISM

This week WOMEX has announced the conference program. It is going to be the first time that I actually participate in this WOMEX activity and I am very happy to do it with two tremendous colleagues: Martyna van Nieuwland and Andrea Voets. Click on their names to read a bio. 

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

And another conference I’d like to highlight

I would like to mention another conference in which I am not going to participate but with which I have a certain relationship because it was born within the European Folk Network, of which I am a member of the board. The conference is “Archives: Living Heritage or History? Using archives and assessing their value to a contemporary scene” and it will be chaired by Nod Knowles, the coordinator of the European Folk Network, with Miklós Both (Hungary) from the Hungarian Heritage House, Mariet Calsius (Belgium) from CEMPER – Center for Music and Performing Arts Heritage and Prof. Simon McKerrell (Scotland). 

A PERSONAL FAREWELL TO MAD SHEER KHAN

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 forTransglobal World Music Chart in July 2023 is: London Ko by Fatoumata Diawara (Fatoumata Diawara)

• Mundofonías: our three favourites of the month are Sourdurent’s L’herbe de détourne, the compilation Afghan music in exile: Mashhad 2022 [V.A.] and Saîdê Goyî’s Jinê.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know.

• Festival Au Fil des Voix. Paris. Deadline: 31 of August. “The shows are selected from artistic proposals related to recent discographic news (physical release of the album in France between February 2023 and January 2024).” Check the terms and conditions, here. In the previous edition I shared more information and reflections about this event.

MEET ME AT

• Next week, from 3 to 6 of August, Urkult Festival, for the participation by Ali Doğan Gönültaş with a concert and a workshop.
• September, 7-9, Veszprém, Hungary, for the festival of BALKAN:MOST.
• October, 5-8, I will go to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Again, Ali will perform there and I will attend also as a delegate as in many previous occasions.
• October, 11th. Very special concert at the Alte Oper Franfkurt with Vigüela and several other Spanish performers for a program designed by alba Kultur.
• October, 18-21, Manchester. English Folk Expo, which this year hosts the annual meeting of the European Folk Network.
• And Womex. 25-29 October, La Coruña.

Just for the pleasure, I leave you here a little video of the performance of Ali Doğan Gönültaş at the Festival Polirítmia, with the participation as guest artist of Eduard Navarro playing the dolçaina:

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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I feel very blessed. Last week, the day before the concert, we met for dinner. In the photo, from left to right, we have Kiko Helguera, journalist from Radio 3-RNE, and his partner Tina, the Czech-Canadian singer and songwriter Lenka Lichtenberg, Juan Antonio Vázquez, myself, and Daniel Rosenberg. Such moments are precious.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:  DANIEL ROSENBERG

While you read, listen to the album Silent Tears, produced by Dan, here 🎧

I usually include the person’s name followed by the entity they represent or work for. In Dan’s case, his name alone is sufficient. It’s challenging to define him with just one concept or brand attached to his name.

On his website there is a phrase that is specially enlightening:

“One thing that often frustrated me though, was that I was heading to the far corners of the earth, and reporting about music that very few readers and listeners had access to. After each radio show, I’d get lots of calls and emails asking, “How do I get a recording of that song you played on the show?” I would have to explain that ordering a copy through the mail from the artist who lived in a village 8000 miles away wasn’t very realistic. So, I approached a number of record labels about releasing CDs from artists I met on my travels.”

I think this will give us a good understanding of the following. According to his own website, he is a “Producer / Arts Journalist / Publicist-Media Relations”.

He has been the compiler of many “Rough Guides,” the compilation series published by World Music Network. He has been involved in radio for decades, and currently hosts the program “Cafe International“. He has developed concepts and brought together the resources and the people for projects like Yiddish Glory, the Lost Songs of World War II and Silent Tears, the Last Yiddish Tango.

Dan has his own website, that you can visit to learn more.

MM: And is this your purpose both with your own productions and also with the work you make in dissemination, like the radio show and everything you have been doing these years?

DR: Well, at the radio show we want to shine a light on the beautiful music that’s all around the world and especially music that, hopefully, at least on a program mine is like yours, we want to share music from all around the world, that maybe people wouldn’t get to hear otherwise because sadly there aren’t a lot of programs like these. Despite that I think there’s a much more of a demand for it than programs that are out there because, you know, people listen, they call and ask where can I get more of this, where can I hear more and you know, hopefully… Well, hopefully we’re making a difference in sharing this because we have this in common, you know. You know, there’s like… “we know Cuba has great music and Brazil has great music…”. Everywhere has great music. There’s not a single place on Earth that doesn’t have amazing music. So I think it’s just our job to get to share that with people.

Last week Daniel Rosenberg came to Madrid during the European tour of Silent Tears: the Last Yiddish Tango, a project based on poems of survivors of the Holocaust of group lead by the Dra. Paula David (University of Toronto) at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care. He came with Payadora Tango Ensemble and Lenka Lichtenberg. 

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in June 2023 is: The Sky Is the Same Colour Everywhere, by Kayhan Kalhor and Toumani Diabaté (Real World)

• Mundofonías: our three favourites of the month are Castor et Pollux’s Contrebandes, Oghlan Bakhshi’s Journey across the steppes and Aditya Prakash’s Karnatic roots.

UPDATE ON THE EUROPEAN FOLK DAY

• in dialogue with decision makers
• to raise profile of the traditional arts within the media
• to show the capacity of our community to unite all this energy in a coordinated way”

A key component of the European Folk Day project is the website that brings together all the events that any interested party will organize in relation to the concept. The map and the database with filters and search functionality are already available and ready, here. Visit the website to learn more.

The European Folk Day (on & around 23 September 2023) is by you for you, by us, for us, for everyone…

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know.

• Babel Music XP. Marseille. DEADLINE, 17TH JULY. The dates for the second Babel Music XP are 28-30 March 2024. Check the terms and conditions, here. And apply here. Note that unless you are from near Marseille, you are going to have to make an investment if you have a showcase there. This year, in March, the first edition of this event took place, which in a way takes up the legacy of Babel Med. It took place at a particularly complicated time for an event with logistical needs related to travel, because it coincided with several days of strikes and demonstrations. In fact, we saw several containers burning in the city. Some professionals were unable to arrive or directly ruled out going because they foresaw that it would be very complicated to get to Marseille by public transport and there were also road closures. Even so, there were quite a few professionals, with a high proportion of French people. The second edition will take place in 2024. I hope that it will not coincide again with circumstances like those and also that international participation will increase. 

For me it was a good opportunity to talk to some French professionals. One of them confirmed that there are French programmers who do not want to do business with foreign agents, so I am excluded from those programs if I do not find a French agent for my artists. I think it is a widespread feeling among Spanish colleagues and from other countries, that France is a particularly complicated market to enter. I have experienced this in conversations, but I only have anecdotal knowledge. That is one of the reasons why I am especially grateful for such an opportunity in France. On the other hand, I know that Spain is not easy either. The bureaucracy is very complicated, so much so that it is almost always worthwhile to have a local agent who can take care of the paperwork. I know that there are artists who play in Portugal and the rest of Europe and never in Spain. The truth is that all this, the barriers to entry and the difficulties of each country, is a topic worthy of further compared analysis, but right now that is beyond the scope of this newsletter.

• Festival Au Fil des Voix. Paris. Deadline: 31 of August. “The shows are selected from artistic proposals related to recent discographic news (physical release of the album in France between February 2023 and January 2024).” Check the terms and conditions, here. Once a colleague told me that Au Fil des Voix was a cheaper way to organise a concert in Paris for your artist, compared to doing it yourself by renting a venue and handling promotion and production. I believe it. In fact, that’s how they explain it on the festival’s website. “‘Pool and share’ principle. When selected, a contribution of 1000 euros (excl. tax) will be asked to the label and the tour manager. They will also be asked to work in a synergistic way with the festival. This ‘pool and share’ principle allows the different members (labels, producers, and tour managers) to offer a Parisian event at a reduced cost under professional conditions (organization and promotion).” Well, it’s worth considering that nowadays many of the artists who might be interested in doing this don’t have a label as such, as they are self-produced or released by a small label that sometimes even provides editing as a service, paid for by the artist. So they won’t be making any kind of investment. And many times the agent and the manager are the same or the band itself makes their own booking and don’t have any manager.

I have already made a proposal. But this is an example of what I was talking about earlier with Dan Rosenberg. Participation in Au Fil des Voix requires the manager or agent or a combination of whoever to pay 1000 euros + taxes to the festival. The festival pays 250 euros to each participating musician (up to a maximum of 4 artists). International travel expenses are not covered. Travel expenses are covered for artists who are in France. One night of accommodation is provided. The festival offers promotion (6000 posters and 15000 flyers distributed throughout the city) and attendance by professionals (“8 tickets per evening to organizers and 7 tickets to journalists appointed by Simon Veyssière, our press officer, to bring extra exposure to the artists”).It is not my intention to criticize this model. In fact, as I mentioned, I have submitted a proposal this year and have done so in previous years as well. Each entity should develop its own model as it sees fit, and it is valid as long as what it offers and asks for is clear. And in this case, it is. I just don’t want to forget that there is a separate reality that is completely excluded from something like this.

• Your Roots Are Showing. Ireland’s Folk Conference. 17-21 January 2024. Dundalk, Ireland. DEADLINE, 7 JULY. Open to not Irish artists too. “All non-Irish artists must be legally able to enter Ireland and are responsible for acquiring all necessary travel permits including visas when necessary.”

They don’t cover anything. The selected artists for showcase have to pay for their registration to the conference. The early bird price was 80 euros. It expired and right now the price is 95 (until 31st August). The last price will be 110 euros.

NEXT WEEK IN OSTRAVA… AND WHERE TO FIND ME AFTER
MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA, IN CHARGE OF THE SPANISH PARTICIPATION AS PARTNERING COUNTRY IN THE CZECH MUSIC CROSSROADS

Next week I will be traveling to Ostrava for the Czech Music Crossroads. It will be the third time I attend this event, and the first time I have my own artists participating. This year, Mapamundi Música is bringing Spain as the guest country, with three of our artists.

I have talked about Vigüela many times before. They will bring their uncompromising traditional music from the heart of Spain. Xabi Aburruzaga, on the other hand, will bring the trikitixa, the iconic diatonic accordion of Basque music, along with the Basque language, or as it is called in the language itself, Euskera. And Xurxo Fernandes from Galicia will bring the magic of the traditional voices and tambourine from his land, with a heterodox vision connected to North Africa and the Mediterranean in general.

It will be a busy season for me… I will share some of my plans, that may be interesting for you to discover festivals that don’t know yet or even to set a date if we happen to be at the same place.

AND AFTER OSTRAVA:

MEET ME AT

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Hello, how are you? I am well. I am waiting with great interest for the results of the second round of the elections in Turkey. On the same day we have municipal and regional elections in Spain. There is a lot of uncertainty. But I think we have less at stake than the Turkish citizens.

In Spain, a very important part of the budgets dedicated to the music I work with depends on the local governments (that’s the example of Etnosur, for instance, for which the city council of Alcalá La Real provides a relevant part of the budget). Another significant part depends on the diputaciones provinciales, an intermediate entity between the town councils and the autonomous communities, something like a grouping of town councils to support with services the small town councils. For example, bringing concerts to small towns. Whatever happens, we do not expect drastic changes in Spain. And in Turkey? We shall see. To be honest, I’m on tenterhooks about this.

Our protagonist today is Alan Ibrahim, a Syrian Kurdish guitarist who has been living in Germany since 2013. I talk to him as the driving force behind the organisation Music For Identity. In the conversation with him there are profound themes. The very name of his organisation already announces some of the issues we talk about. Political issues, such as what is at stake in Turkey next Sunday, have an obvious relationship to Music For Identity’s work and increasingly to mine as well.

The interview with Alan is really very interesting, as well as very long, but the deep things that are explained cannot be told in 3 words. I have put this edition of the newsletter in pdf format so you can even download it and read it on Kindle or wherever you like.

I bring another very interesting content, about one of the best known world music festivals in Spain: Etnosur. A few weeks ago I coincided in the presentation of Jaén en Julio (a series of festivals of various types of music that take place in the month of July in the Andalusian province of Jaén) with two of the people of the team that is running it and it was very interesting. Some colleagues from other countries have asked me before about the situation of the festival. So here I tell you about it.

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: JUANRA CANOVACA, FROM ETNOSUR

While you read, listen to the playlist for Etnosur 2023 curated by Juanra Canovaca, here 🎧

After the pandemic, the Etnosur festival, one of the best known in Spain on the world musics circuit, returned reformulated. The city council launched a call for proposals for the artistic direction and production of the festival. It was adjudicated to Juan Ramón Canovaca (in the picture) and Rafael López, together in a temporary joint venture. They carried out the 2022 edition and are repeating this 2023 edition.

Pedro Melguizo had until then been the visible face of the festival, the one who used to attend, for example, Womex. Although Etnosur always had several directors. Canovaca had been on the team that started the festival in 1997 along with Melguizo. And López has also been connected with the festival before in charge of the communication, so they both knew it very well.

At the presentation of Jaén en Julio on 26th of April, that took place in Madrid at the headquarters of the SGAE (authors society of Spain) they told me that they wanted to bring Etnosur back to the people, that the people of Alcalá la Real themselves would attend the festival. And so, without losing the cosmopolitan spirit of the festival, they have also opted to programme artists who have a strong appeal to the local public.

Juanra Canovaca (the one who answered the questions) is also the director of the Imagina Funk festival, which takes place in the Parque Natural de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas on the last weekend of July. In addition to this, here are some more statements by Juanra Canovaca.

Mapamundi Música: How is the festival going in this new stage?
Juanra Canovaca: Really very well. Last year we had little time but the results were optimal. It was the edition with more public than any other so far.

MM: What do you look for in an artist when you programme?
JC: I’m looking for artists who are in line with Etnosur and specifically I’m talking about styles related to world music. On the one hand, we have to look for an artist who can be an attraction for us, like Estrella Morente this year, but what I really look for are bands that are not very well known in Spain and that are capable of surprising the audience, the surprise factor is the most important thing for us. And of course, that it is danceable, fun music, the kind that makes the soul happy.

MM: What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival (specifically in yours)?
JC: Perhaps the most complex part is the pre-production of the festival, there are dozens of activities and coordinating them is a major effort but, well, we already have a lot of experience and we try to solve it in the best possible way.

MM: What are currently the main challenges for this type of cultural proposal like yours?
JC: Etnosur is a free festival and we want to keep it that way. Funding is perhaps the most complex issue, but thanks to the City Council of Alcalá la Real and the other sponsors we can continue to maintain a quality proposal open to all audiences.

MM: In one sentence, sum up the reason(s) to go to your festival. 
JC: For me Etnosur is a unique, international, multidisciplinary, solidarity and free festival.

MM: Do you want to share any ideas? 
JC: The idea I propose is that respect for others should be the main reason to go to the festival.

Credits:

• Portrait of Juanra Canovaca, from his Facebook profile
• Poster of Etnosur, from the website of the festival
• Landscape with public, from the website of the festival, by Amada Santos

UPBEAT PLATFORM: BEST NEW TALENT AWARD + UPBEAT UNIVERSE

In the previous editions, in the conversation about Folkest with Andrea del Favero and in the March edition, in the conversation with Peter Dimitrov of A to Jazz festival, the Upbeat Platform, the European Showcase Platform for World Music, was mentioned. This time it appears again, with two news items. 

🔹Best New Talent Award

Together with Chris Eckman from Glitterbeat Records and Balázs Weyer from Hangvető we are the jury of the Best New Talent Award. The nominee list consists of all the emerging artists who performed at one of the partner festivals of Upbeat Platform (check them here) between the time period of 31 July 2022 and 1 May 2023, and the partner organization accounted for them as emerging artists. How is “emerging artist” defined? In a practical and concrete manner, the definition has been artists that meet at least 5 of the following conditions:

• max 3 albums released
• max 5 years passed since the release of their first album
• no more than 20.000 followers on either of their social media channel
• the average age of band members does not exceed 35 years
• had at least one concert in a professional setting
• the band did not go on an international tour of 10 gigs
• the band does not have a contract with a non-national record label
• the band has an up-to-date web presence (website, social media)

The nominated artists also have to be legal residents in any country participating in the Creative Europe programme.

THE WOMEXICANS MEET…:
I’M INTERVIEWED BY JULIA OLSEN AND STEPHEN KEARNEY ON WATERWAVES RADIO

IN DEPTH WITH: ALAN IBRAHIM, FROM MUSIC FOR IDENTITY

THE CONVERSATION WITH ALAN IBRAHIM

Alan and I were talking for more than one hour and we have revised the result to make it all clear. We talked deeply about several topics. To facilitate the understanding, I will put some titles at the beginning of each topic. Nevertheless, I recommend that you read it all in order. 

About the background of Music For Identity

MM: This you have said brings a lot of ideas to my mind. For instance, maybe you know this band from Belgium, Refugees for Refugees, who changed their name to Refa, because they wanted to stop being considered like refugees. They wanted just to be a band of music and they wanted not to be separated from the rest of the cultural world.
And I was also thinking about… You are working with music and sometimes in the history, when there has been huge emigrations and exile, the immigrants have forgotten or totally abandoned their cultural background. For instance, the Jews after the Holocaust, they went to United States and they abandoned totally the Klezmer music, they stopped talking Yiddish. Something that is still happening: when Israel was created many people rejected totally the klezmer music because that was the music from the ancestors in Europe, because they wanted to leave behind all that a horrible story. And only the second or third generations are taking back this legacy for them. So I see, at least in Europe, there are options for keeping this. The people who are like you, you are maintaining your roots, you are not rejecting your roots in trying to be assimilated and, in a fast way, forgetting your roots. Also I was thinking that sometimes, in the field of world musics, let’s say, this concepts of the refugees or different cultures or cultures that are persecuted are used to sell specifically. So they are they are a sales tool. Sometimes I see bands that are quite not very good as artists, I think, but they are successful because of the political background of these people. So this is very exploded. Sometimes it is more important than the artistic talent.So yeah, I understand what you mean. You are a musician you have a high profile of talent. I’m sure you have studied and worked a lot to be a guitarist as you are, and you feel like that all that is left behind because the definition of you is that you are a refugee or you are an immigrant. You say that you are presented like that. I think it is on purpose sometimes, because it is like a more sellable, it is easier to sell to the public. Because it is also a way to differentiate you, maybe, you specifically, Alan, comparing to other musicians who play classical guitar. Your differentiation from them, the easiest is that you are a Syrian and all these things…

Well, it’s really terrible to confuse all these ethnicities, backgrounds and languages… Really I understand because I have been working with this kind of issues for more than 20 years, so I have a strong sensitivity on how to define the people, but I see it’s difficult because here in our countries… In Spain, well, we have also this situation because we have a national languages, also. The situation in Spain is quite good for understanding this, because we have other languages inside our country and they are official languages. So we recognize and we know they are a minority and we know they are endangered and they are losing speakers, but they are respected. It’s not like other countries that are much more centralized. I think Germany doesn’t have this diversity that we have here. So they’re not so close to this cultural diversity as we are here. For us it is natural in Spain, I think.

About the legal shape of Music For Identity

MM: Well, I will make you some questions specifically about the organization. As I’m focus on professional people on the field of music, I also want to know how the things are done, so, which is the legal shape of your organization?

AI: We are a non-profit company. I chose this legal shape. Actually it was super complicated. In Germany the bureaucracy is like in the highest level you could imagine, just to register an organization. I wanted it to be a non-profit company. It’s a non-profit organization, actually, but the “company”, because it means that we can apply for funds for projects but also we can offer services and we can be paid for. This is the difference between just to be a non-profit organisation, which is you are only counting on funds: if you have a fund then you can work, if you don’t have, then you just stay where you are. I thought about it on the long run that to have a good financial, economic situation, we should have to think differently. That’s why we chose this legal form.

MM: It’s very reasonable also because, perhaps in this shape you have decided you also trust in giving services for which people is going to pay. You are not only trusting in the support from public money. I think it changes the idea and the approach to market, let’s say. I have a private company. I think I could not have done all I do if I was not a private company for profit. I’m for profit and it changes your mind because you have to think differently, you have to put yourself in the mind and in the needs of the market and your clients. And we are talking about culture. So this is something also that is not a basic need for the people. I mean we are not selling oranges or bread, we are selling something that is quite different. So… I deal with many organisations that are not for profit and sometimes the lack of market vision is quite obvious and that’s the problem: if you don’t get funds, no matter whatever you have done… And you are exposed to the politics. The politics can change and all your activity can end from one year to the other year. So I think it is a wise decision that you can keep the both sides.  

About the workshops

MM: I wanted to ask you also about what you specifically do, because you speak about the workshop method “will be in the form of impulse, discussions, group work and Community Music training”. So I understand you make workshops that last for several days or months or are regular for communities, or do you have different shapes of workshops that you offer? How is the concrete shape of your proposal for workshops? 

AI: What we do in Music for Identity is a couple of main categories. One is workshops and with workshops we always use the community music as main tool. We are working on our Music for Identity Ensemble to be playing music of minorities. And our mid-term project, that needs a lot of time, investment, is to create a platform for world music sheets but, more specifically, for minorities music. Not just an archive to collect the music but in a more practical way, where we can have, let’s say, music from different minorities but in a form for different instruments. It could be for a quartet, it could be for ensembles… and so on. Things that they can be really useful and can be spread internationally. So the idea is just to have more means to spread this music.

Picture: Music For Identity Ensemble

In workshops now we have generally two main subjects: raising awareness and empowerment. Raising awareness it’s about understanding these dynamics, how you can work in music education field with minorities. And minorities, when we were working on the in the workshop, it was, again, not only ethnical minorities. It meant minorities in different ways and, of course, more specifically, marginalized minorities. Because there can be a minority in a country, that is a minority, but whose rights are preserved, and they have their tools that they could express themselves and so on. But there are marginalized minorities: there is where’s our work is more focused on.

Empowerment is more directed to the targeted groups themselves to give them more tools to express themselves, to get over their own barriers of expressing in the verbal and a physical ways, and using the music as a tool to connect in a collective way.

The Music For Identity method is that we want to talk about these issues, we want to have a conversation, we want to have a dialogue between us. We have the group work and we have different methods of how we implement all this together depending on the group need, and it’s always combined with music, Community Music exercises!

About Community Music

MM: I don’t know what you mean exactly with Community Music. 

AI: Community Music is a kind of a new approach in music. It started in between the 60s and the 80s in the UK and then it started slowly in Europe and it’s being practiced now around the world. It’s an approach about connecting people. It’s not about learning an instrument in itself. Because when we think about music, we think either about learning an instrument or having a music production at the end of the day, you know.

Community Music is about music making in a collective level and both the social and the musical aspects of it are in the same importance. So it can be done anywhere, anytime, by any group, as long there is safety involved for everyone. This method can be done with musicians and non-musicians. Regardless of what experience you have in music, we can make music together. In relevance to whatever topic we have, whatever topic we want to address. So the exercises or trainings that we design are always related to the topic of the workshop. This is a method that is widely used in conflict zones. So, for example, if you want to do a music project with people in a conflict zone or you are doing it on their way of immigration or once they arrived, let’s say, it’s not the time to expect with music that they will be learning the instrument and they will make a high musical performances. It’s more that they have a path, a way, that they could could use, music as one of the aspects that they are doing through the time of the workshop, where they could express themselves with music, without words, without the need of doing words.

On a personal level, Community Music helped me to go through what’s left from the experience of war, of facing the issues of my identity growing up in a marginalised minority community. It helped me to break the barriers of the fear that we grow up in to express myself. So you have the moment, your moment in, not only by yourself, but in a collective way. So it’s the joy to connect with others with music making. We use body percussion, percussion instruments, dancing, movement and much more.

It’s the right method to come over the barriers of your own body, of movement, or raising your voice. In certain communities there is a lot of judgment that affect your ability to to express yourself and for example just your ability to raise your voice and sing for yourself, specially, for women, about how they should walk, how they should behave, how they should do this and that, and all of this adds up to how they could just express themselves. Or actually also for men, which they have their own criteria to act and be seen as men. This is not only for gender but also in many other contexts. For example in the time of war, the way you are moving, the way your body is reacting, your own connection to your body and the connection of your body to the surrounding is affected by this high level of stress, where you need always to be in extreme survival mode in order to survive, and this adds up also to how you express yourself in the future.

As a professional musician, my personal favourite point about Community Music is to deconstruct the hierarchy of perfectionism that is leading the connection between professional musicians. We usually give our attention and respect on the basis of who has the highest level of performance. Here we learn how to see each other at eye level and to believe that I can learn from every musician something new regardless of how ‘’non-perfect’’ musicians they are. We are humans, and for sure humans aren’t perfect creatures.

MM: This you are explaining about the Community Music reminds me the use of the music in the tradition in which music was not the objective. Music was the context, let’s say. In Spain and probably in your land also, everybody participated in the music. It doesn’t matter if you are a great singer it or not. Indeed it is still being done here in Spain. There are meetings where the people meet and they play and we have a music that is not songs, it is a style. You know probably a bit of Flamenco. And Flamenco is also style, it’s not songs. I mean, for instance, bulería is a style. If you know bulería and you play bulería with the guitar, if I know bulería I can sing with you at any moment without any rehearsal. So this is still being done. And of course, some people sing more beautifully, others less beautifully, more are more agile in the dance, others do what they can… but it has been like that in the tradition. But at some moment the music and the dance stopped being part of the people and it started to be only something from the artists and people stopped singing and stopped dancing. Here we keep it a bit in some specific contexts, but it reminds me a lot what you are explaining of Community Music. This it is not something for making a wonderful art, it is about participation and being part of the community.

AI: The main focus is not about this high elite music performance, but it’s also without compromising the quality of music. Because you can always do something more complex depending on the participants knowledge of music. If in your group, who are participating are musicians, and you want to do community music with them, there is no music sheets, there is, of course, Community Music and you want to do and improve free improvisation of them, but also connecting them in a more social level. It’s also, as much as possible, without compromising the quality, but that’s not the main focus.

MM: Of course, in, let’s say, the natural context of this music, you can hear wonderful things. Indeed, we have recordings from 80 years ago, people in the villages, and it’s really wonderful, they were great performers but they were normal people and we have kept that because it is a beautiful art, also not only a picture of the moment. It is also something that is a pleasure to hear nowadays, yeah. I think it is quite related to this.

And one of the things that I have really liked to do and I am still in the path of doing is to provide to the people again the participation themselves in the music and, as I work with traditional musics, for me it’s like an objective. It is very difficult because people are very shy sometimes. I think through dance it is a bit easier than through singing. People, to sing… they are so so shy in the Western World. I think they don’t want to sing.

AI: But this is the thing, you know, why are we shy, why we feel that? It’s because of this sense of judgment. Growing up with these stress patterns will make anyone to have struggles to sing freely. This is where Community Music comes! It’s a safe space where we can experiment together and in many exercise there is no right or wrong with what you perform. It’s a space where you could express yourself and nobody will judge you.

About the music in Spain I could totally relate to that because the Mediterranean countries they share very similar culture of music and it is a very good example that, before or like this kind of regions that they use the music, of course, way much differently than, let’s say in Central Europe, where now really music is, you know, for musicians and so on.

And Community Music goes even further, where, yes, you could do together where somebody’s playing let’s say bulería and there is someone who’s dancing, there’s someone who’s singing, there is someone who’s making that percussion or by clapping and so on… And In Community Music we could also have specific exercises, to address an issue. Let’s say, if it’s about the power dynamic of communication and the power of language (for example it’s a common issue that we have male dominance in musical spaces). What does it mean if you talk in this way? Let’s say there is a dialogue between two people, three people, and you want to enter. In which way you want to enter? Do you want to dominate the dialog? Do you want to be in the background? Do you want to help? Do you want to be…? All of these dialogs can be done non-verbally with community music. The experience with gives you a space to reflect to your own style of communication and to connect it with other things.

About plans for the near future

MM: When can we participate in one of those workshops? Do you have any a plan for the next months? 

AI: You are always welcome! Yes actually we are going to make a new workshop In July in Berlin and everyone interested regardless of their experience can join us but of course we can have limited number of participants. So I would suggest to keep checking our social media because we will announce about in the beginning of June and it’s free of cost! There’s also coordination with Landesmusikakadmie Berlin to offer community music workshop in Berlin, that’s why we have been selected to participate at the end of May in an international community music workshop in Italy to exchange experiences and bring new ideas with us. Another opportunity that’s currently on the table is to make workshops in the university of Arts Udk Berlin.

Our very good news for the next months is that we have a new cooperation partner ‘’Impact, Civil Society Research and Development’’ that will help us to develop our programs and to reach our future plans to bring our experience, our services to the Middle East also. After that, we want to go more internationally. But we want to start off where we know the area, the language, the place, and the needs. The idea here is to train the local musicians, so they spread this knowledge to the community.

This is a previous project in which Music For Identity was involved, in charge of the concert streaming in Amude (northern Syria) and Shiraz (in Iran), and organised by MitMachMusik, Sing Berlin Choir and Nikolaisaal Potsdam. Click the picture for a video. The is a footage from a smartphone. Better version will be available soon, so follow the social media of Music For Identity for not to miss it.

About how to be updated about their news

MM: And how can the people follow your activities and be updated?

AI: The short answer is for now people can follow our social media pages and soon check our website to get the latest updates.

The thing is we have announced about our organisation as an emergency need for the recent earthquake aid. We had this big fundraising concert that we organised in Berlin to support the Kurdish community in north of Syria, where the earthquake happened, and these families were being discriminated to not get the earthquake aid. We made this fundraising concert where we invited many Kurdish musicians. Nizamettin Ariç, a very known Kurdish singer, came to perform, along many other musicians and singers.

So now we are working to make our website, to make all the structure, of course, to have a newsletter and to announce all of these things but it it’s still in process. If it was not for that concert and the earthquake aid, I think we would have waited a bit more, although we have been doing these projects and workshops already since one year. My idea was to learn from the experience before we go to the public! To shape the structure, goals and offers through the experience and to understand our needs and struggles, all through the actual experience of the work on ground, and indeed we have learned a lot from what we done last year.

I’m careful about the level of professionality in which we want to present ourselves. And of course, all of these services are very complicated and they needed a lot of time to be analysed to the depth.

Flyer of the concert for the earthquake aid, which included the performance by Nizamettin Ariç:

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• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in March 2023 is: Ali Farka Touré’s Voyageur (World Circuit)

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• Mundofonías: our three favourites of the month are Maçka radif by Christos Kaliontzidis, Bucolica by Hiram Salsano and Voyageur by Ali Farka Touré.

UPDATE ON THE EUROPEAN FOLK DAY

– REPEATING FROM THE PREVIOUS EDITION – 

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA, IN CHARGE OF THE SPANISH PARTICIPATION AS PARTNERING COUNTRY IN THE CZECH MUSIC CROSSROADS

It is an honour. In response, I have proposed three of our artists, three gems, representing three cultures, three languages of the kaleidoscope that is this land from which I am writing to you:
🔸Vigüela, from the centre, Toledo, the land of Don Quixote, Castilian untamed culture. They will perform with their new line up of quintet.
🔸Xabi Aburruzaga, from the Basque Country, with one of his most representative instruments, the trikitixa. He will play with two musicians and two dancers.
🔸And Xurxo Fernandes, from Galicia, with the tradition of the strong voices and the tambourine, in his project Levaino!, which connects the Atlantic with the Mediterranean. They will be a septet.

MEET ME AT

Will we meet? Drop me a line!

• 8-9 June – Mediterranean Music Festival in Zurich, for the concerts by Ali Doğan Gönültaş and Di Gasn Trio.
• 28 June – 2 July 2023, Czech Music Crossroads, Ostrava.
• And later I will travel a lot with Ali Doğan Gönültaş and his musicians, who will play in July in Spain and in Germany. We will be in Valencia, Rudolstadt and Huesca and they will also play in Koblenz for Horizonte Festival on 22nd of July. But on that occasion I will be in Palma de Mallorca for my first concert with Yiannis Dionysiou.

Summary 👇 

• Editorial
• Talk with Andrea del Favero from the Italian festival Folkest and their new showcase
• The new Rete Italiana della World Music: presentation by Erasmo Treglia, Maddalena Scagnelli and Gigi Di Luca
• Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
• Update on the European Folk Day
• Open calls and more news from professional events 
• Mapamundi Música, in charge of the Spanish participation as partnering country in the Czech Music Crossroads
• Meet me at…

Sign up and receive this email in your email, here 📧

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música | +34 676 30 28 82 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
ANDREA DEL FAVERO, FROM FOLKEST

THANK YOU, ANDREA AND TEAM! 

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A NEW NETWORK IS BORN:
RETE ITALIANA DELLA WORLD MUSIC

Well, the truth is that the Rette has been around for a while now. Its first public event was on July 5, 2022.

According to their website, “the Italian World Music Network is a non-profit association based in Rome promoted by some of the most important Italian world music, folk and popular music festivals. The associative project intends to network and promote the activities of associations and cultural operators who, through the organization of events and music festivals with a high social and environmental impact, carry out an important work of protection, dissemination and enhancement of the cultural heritage of our country.”

I learnt about the Rete Italiana de World Music in Babel Music XP. There was a presentation there and I will make a summary. In the picture, Maddalena Scagnelli, Erasmo Treglia and Gigi Di Luca.

Erasmo Treglia explained that the network includes around 25 world music festivals. Mostly of them are historical festivals and others started 4 or 5 years ago. Mostly of them are in the provinces and some in big cities. And according to Erasmo, the main objective is to let the institutions, like the Ministry of Culture, know that these festivals exist, all over Italy and are essential for cultural activities in peripheral areas. There are festivals 35 years old that invite big names of the world music, where a lot of public attends, there is a big interest all over the area, and nobody else knows. Not only because of a problem of communication but also because the festivals are separated between them. Each one makes something in their region and nothing happens on a national level. So the first objective of the activity of the network is to let the institutions know, specially in Italy, and of course abroad too, that they exist, that it is a reality and that they have a big experience.

“One of the network’s objectives is to raise the awareness of the Italian government, both from the State and from the regions.”

There were some other artistic directors in Babel Music XP who talked in the presentation conference. Maddalena Scagnelli from Appennino Festival, in Emilia-Romagna, was one of them. She introduced her festival and talked about some of the musical traditions of their region. She also explained a meaningful anecdote: while watching the Italian TV, she saw a program that explained that wine and food are already considered cultural products of Italy. And she considers it is time also to return this consideration into the music too, as a cultural international product. She explained that the financial support for these festivals is crucial and it is very different according to the area. And one of the network’s objectives is to raise the awareness of the Italian government, both from the State and from the regions. She also explained that Italy is a world itself, related to the diversity of the musics you can find in each part of the country. But this field of music is quite underestimated in Italy. She explained that other music styles like classical, jazz and contemporary have dedicated funds from the government. With the network they want to highlight the richness of Italian world music too.  

“To organize a festival in these little villages is a special form of resistance but the institutions don’t understand it like that.”

After Maddalena’s talk, Erasmo explained how the little villages in the mountain, especially in the last years, are getting empty. And how to organize a festival in these little villages is a special form of resistance but the institutions don’t understand it like that, they consider they make the festivals because they love music. He wants the institutions to recognize the work of the festivals, that takes all year long to make an event of 4 or 5 days. Nowadays they don’t have this recognition.

And also Gigi di Luca, from Ethnos, talked. His festival is in the region of Naples. I made a summary of the presentation he made in Napoli World in December, that you can find in this previous edition.
As in the talk in Napoli, Gigi explained the work that the festival makes related to the community and the extra complications that means to be in a region that is characterized by criminality. He explained that as he works with world music, he can explain many things related to the history of the different communities all over the world. He could not do it if he worked, for instance, with classical music. 

“One of the problems in Italy is the bureaucracy: if you have to pay 100 euros you may have to produce 100 pages.”

After Gigi’s talk, Erasmo explained that another of the problems they face in Italy is the bureaucracy. He explained that, for instance, if you have to pay 100 euros you may have to produce 100 pages. The network wants to be able to talk with the institutions to make this more simple. This kind of problem can be more important than budget.

At the end, we had the chance to ask questions and I asked them which are going to be the next steps. Maddalena explained that they are planning to make something on 23rd of September, associated with the European Folk Day.

“There are musicians that play all over the world and represent Italy, of different genres. So one of the next steps is to tell to the institutions that there is this reality.”

Erasmo explained that at the moment they are 20 and in the future they may be 40 or 50 and it is not a problem because Italy is full of very interesting experiences like these 20. These are not the best, they are just some of the festivals in Italy, but if you go to any region, for instance, Sicily, there are interesting festivals, also in Sardinia. They want to fix some points now and after that, they will try to work in numbers. At the same time they will start communication with the institutions. And they are sure that staying together can give them the chance to do something that alone they can’t do. That is the aim of a network: to be a lobby. He explained that this year, the Minister of Culture said that they support the most representative musical genres from Italy: contemporary music and jazz. But the country is full of musicians, organisers and festivals that do other things. There are musicians that play all over the world and represent Italy, of different genres. So one of the next steps is to tell to the institutions that there is this reality. Erasmo highlighted that they need not only funds, but also attention. Maddalena explained that in the year they will organice together an event, probably in Rome, to show the greatness of Italian folk music.

 

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in March 2023 is: Kimi Djabaté’s Dindin 

• Mundofonías: our three favourites of the month are Sokou!, by Clément Janinet & Adama Sidibé, the compilation A beginner’s guide to sublime frequencies, volumes 1 & 2 and Martin György Kalotaszegen, by Erdőfű. 

UPDATE ON THE EUROPEAN FOLK DAY

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

If you have anything to share in this section in a future edition, let me know.

• globalFEST, call for submissions is open for January Festival. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER. “globalFEST’s festival takes place each January, alongside APAP and JanArtsNYC, and is one of North America’s most important global music events, attracting extensive music industry professionals, members of the press, and music fans. You can explore globalFEST’s list of previous artists HERE.” Check the conditions and apply here.

• Premio Andrea Parodi. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER. The application period for the 16th edition of the Andrea Parodi Prize is open until May 31, 2023. Its finals will be held in Cagliari, Italy, Oct. 12-14, 2023. Important prizes and bonuses are planned for the winner and some of the finalists, starting with a series of concerts and appearances at some of Italy’s leading quality music festivals. The application is free and must be made via the format at http://www.fondazioneandreaparodi.it. The overall winner will be entitled to a scholarship of €2,500, as well as the opportunity to perform at some of Parodi’s partner festivals in 2024, such as the European Jazz Expo (Sardinia) and Folkest (Friuli), as well as in the Andrea Parodi Prize itself. Check the website for further details.

• SoAlive Music Conference. It will take place in Sofia, Bulgaria, on October 19-21. It is a Balkan focused music conference & showcase festival. On their website they give many interesting reasons to apply. For instance: “Touring on the Balkans is actually much easier and more reliable than people would expect. Starting in Sofia, which has a major international airport in the centre of the Balkans and is a 3 to 6 hour drive to most major cities in the region, you are looking at a perfect routing for a 2 weeks tour.” The showcase application period is open until April 30th, 23:59 CEST. This is the website of the application.

• WOMEX 2023: registration open. NEW IN THE NEWSLETTER. WOMEX will take place in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain, from 25 to 29 October 2023. Registrations for WOMEX are available as a five-day package and provide access to the full WOMEX 23 programme: Expo, Conference Programme (Panels, Networking & Mentoring Sessions, Associated Presentations), Showcase concerts and Club Summit, Film screenings, One-year access to virtualWOMEX. The deadline for Smart Rate is Friday 02 June 2023. This is the website for the registration.

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA, IN CHARGE OF THE SPANISH PARTICIPATION AS PARTNERING COUNTRY IN THE CZECH MUSIC CROSSROADS

It is an honour. In response, I have proposed three of our artists, three gems, representing three cultures, three languages of the kaleidoscope that is this land from which I am writing to you:
🔸Vigüela, from the centre, Toledo, the land of Don Quixote, Castilian untamed culture.
🔸Xabi Aburruzaga, from the Basque Country, with one of his most representative instruments, the trikitixa.
🔸And Xurxo Fernandes, from Galicia, with the tradition of the strong voices and the tambourine, in his project Levaino!, which connects the Atlantic with the Mediterranean.

MEET ME AT

Will we meet? Drop me a line!

• 8-9 June – Mediterranean Music Festival in Zurich, for the concerts by Ali Doğan Gönültaş and Di Gasn Trio.
• 28 June – 2 July 2023, Czech Music Crossroads, Ostrava.

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