Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 
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FLASH NEWS: FOLK ALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL STARTS TOMORROW 

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in May 2022 is: Marjan Vahdat’s Our Garden Is Alone (Kirkelig Kulturverksted).
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for May are the albums: The Coastal Invasion, by Lucho Bermúdez y su Orquesta (Radio Martiko), Nagori, by Les Fils Canouche (Vlad Productions) and Antologia Vol. 1, by África Negra (Les Disques Bongo Joe).

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: ANDO KIVIBERG, FROM VILJANDI FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL

In this edition I take up again two things that I have paused for a while. I have recovered my photo, which I removed at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, and I also recover the interviews with festival directors, although I have added some specific questions for our protagonist today.

He is Ando Kiviberg, director of the Viljandi Folk Music Festival. I am very grateful to him, in general for dedicating this time and in particular because I know he is extremely busy with tasks in support of Ukraine.

This year’s edition of the festival will take place from 28 to 31 of August, and its theme is “Roots and Treetops”, as explained on the website. Let’s let Ando himself explain many more details about this appealing festival.

MM: Your festival is called the Folk Music Festival. Could you define what folk music is? Or, in other words, how’d you define the scope of your program?

AK: We define folk music as traditional music. It means a musical tradition that is individual and specific to a particular nation or tribe. The broader vision of our activities is to support the preservation of the musical traditions of the nations of the world, so that the culture of mankind preserves its richness and the musical cultural nuances of different nations.

Therefore, once again, the aim of our festival is to introduce the musical heritage of the nations of the world in a modern way and to support the vitality of the Estonian traditional musician tradition.

When choosing the performers for our festival, we always consider two goals first. The artist should know their musical tradition. Most certainly, it is very important that the performer is sincere, genuine, and masterful in their creation.

MM: Could you please summarize the reason(s) to go to your festival, in one sentence? 

AK: We offer to the good and kind people the opportunity to fall in love with exciting and beautiful music in the most romantic place in the world, dance to the soul and refresh yourself with great food and drinks. Viljandi was created for creation.

Credits:

• Pictures of Ando Kiviberg, by Kris Süld.
• Poster of the festival, by Liisa Kruusmägi and I took if from the Facebook site of the festival
• This article has been possible also thanks to the support of Liisi Ree.

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OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

• Registration for Womex, open. NEW. It will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, 19 – 23 October 2022. The registration for delegates is open. The smart rate ends on 24th of June.

👉 Check the Spanish artists I offer from Mapamundi Música, here. They are Vigüela, Entavía, Jako el Muzikante, Xabi Aburruzaga and Citra Trío.

MEET ME AT

On behalf of the European Folk Network, I will attend the annual meeting of the European Music Council that will take place in Brussels on 10th of June. The day before it will take place the EMC Lab, that I will attend too.

On day 12th June I will be again in Poland after 3 years. And the occasion will be really thrilling: the Ethnoport Festival in Poznań, Poland, where Hudaki Village Band will play. The rest of the program is very appealing too! Check the program of the concerts, here.

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. 

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Forward it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

How are you? I hope for the best. In Spain today half the people are on Easter holidays. Hotel occupancy is expected to be close to pre-pandemic figures and in some cities close to 100% capacity. The Easter processions are a real spectacle, with people crowding the streets completely. If you get in the middle of one of the most popular processions in Madrid, you will have to stay until the procession is over because you can’t get in or out, there is no room for a single pin. This year there are finally no restrictions, so this custom will take place again, after two years in which it has not been possible. On 20 April the obligation to wear a mask indoors will be lifted. The feeling is almost normal now, although at present you don’t know what is going to come next. The news from Ukraine is still horrifying and I think we still don’t fully know how this is going to affect us in other countries. To make matters worse, our Prime Minister has contributed to further destabilisation by supporting Morocco’s proposal on Western Sahara, in a move that no one expected, not even in his own cabinet.

Where do we go from here? I do not know. But on this road, let’s try to build. I hope you find the contents of this edition interesting and, as always, feel free to send me ideas for future editions.

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

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

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FLASH NEWS: EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK’S APRIL NEWSLETTER INCLUDES A BIO OF ŠABAN BAJRAMOVIĆ FROM ME 

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in April 2022 is: Bonga’s album Kintal da Banda (Lusafrica).
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for April are the albums: Isabelle Courroy’s Confluence#2: Le chant des sources, Black Flower’s Magma and Gonora Sounds’ Hard times never kill

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR:
SONJA HEIMANN, FROM WORLD MUSIC FORUM NETHERLANDS

👉 The next World Blend Café is announced for June 24th, in Rotterdam. More information, here.

MM: What are you working on now and in the medium term?

SH: Currently we are looking for ways to get our scene back on its feet while trying to recover from the pandemic. Especially in difficult times it is essential to meet colleagues, exchange insights and possibilities for collaborations. At medium term both media attention and audience reach are very high on our agenda.
Other urgent issues: musical education, talent development, music archives, involving younger generations, internationalisation, sustainability, signalling current trends and developments like hybridisation.
Autumn 2022 we celebrate our 15th anniversary with a conference and several showcases. Some of the above-mentioned issues will be addressed as well.
Vital future point of attention is the search for extra financing to ensure the continuity of our World Music Forum NL. Largely depending on goodwill and limited contributions we shall need a more solid ground.

This is the crowdy stand of the WMFNL in a pre-pandemic WOMEX:

In this picture below, Sonja Heimann is with Stan Rijven, who is also a key member of the WMFNL:

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

• Visa for Music, call for proposals open. This festival and professional market will take place in Rabat from 16th to 19th of November. Application form, here. “The festival’s stage features emerging artists from the African and Middle Eastern music scene and renowned artists for the enjoyment of our passionate audiences.” “This call is addressed to artists/groups, of all musical styles, valuing the music of Morocco, Africa, the Middle East and the World.” Application open until April 30th.

👉 Check the Spanish artists I offer from Mapamundi Música, here. They are Vigüela, Entavía, Jako el Muzikante, Xabi Aburruzaga and Citra Trío.

MEET ME AT

My travel plans are still fairly quiet but I will have the pleasure of returning to Zurich for the Mediterranean Music Festival, run by the fabulous Alkis Zopoglou, on 15 May, where I will be with Vigüela and also dancing jota, fandango and seguidilla with folk dance teacher Miguel Ángel Montesinos, director of the Caldo de Pésoles school. If you are interested in the traditional dances of Spain, he has an impressive online school, but for now, only in Spanish.

I will be visiting Brussels in June, but I will announce it later.

And if nothing prevents it, of course, WOMEX, which goes without saying. If you haven’t seen it, I invite you to watch the video of the Ukrainian Hudaki Village Band’s showcase there last year and read the band’s message in the video description.

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FLASH NEWS: THE EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK BEGINS A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in February 2022 is: Vigüela’s album “A la Manera Artesana” (ARC Music).
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for March are the albums: Alrededor de la húmisha: La música de los conjuntos típicos amazónicos de Perú [V.A.], Dobranotch’s Zay freyleikh! and Divanhana’s Zavrzlama.

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: ERIC E. VAN MONCKHOVEN

Mapamundi Música: Which is your background, what made you become an agent for world music artists? I also want to know what made you move from Belgium to Italy. 

Eric Van Monckhoven: I am not someone who used to be in the music industry. I worked for 25 years as a capacity builder, eco-social project designer, startupper, and grant writer/fundraiser for grassroots organizations, local communities, and NGOs in various parts of the world, including Europe, the Mediterranean, Africa, and eventually Indonesia and Brazil. I also had a passion for cultural diversity. This is what brought me to music.
At the beginning of the 1980s, while studying social economy and social communication in Paris, I started with some friends a live music club for ethnic minorities living in the city. They needed a place to rehearse and express their musical, artistic, and cultural heritage and creativity. We had exciting concert series presenting music from Central and South America, Africa, Asia, the Balkans, but also local folk music from Brittany, Occitania, Ireland, and Quebec. Then I helped a musician friend from Quebec to create and develop a project on Native American music. Soon I realized that I could help other music artists walk their own paths.
In 2005, while living in Finland, I started to work as a cultural producer, and in 2007, I set up Music4You to offer PR and booking services to various artists and bands of world, folk, and roots music.
Then, I met my wife, and I moved back to Italy where I had worked some years as a consultant in social project management. She is from Modica, in Sicily.

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

EVM: To me, a booking agent is a facilitator who helps build bridges between the artist (or the management) and the venues/festivals (or/and the audience) to provide the artist with gig opportunities and live music income streams. In this context, networking and project management are important, as they deal with processes, plans, and operations. Then, there is a lot of work understanding the value of the artistic proposals and communicating it to the right people, at the right moment, through the right channel at the right time. One needs to know how branding and marketing are working – as well as sales of course.

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

EVM: Listening to all parties and knowing their needs is important too, And trying to be smart, patient, passionate, flexible, honest, transparent, plus a good sense of humor never hurts.

Mapamundi Música: Any particular advice for a fellow newcomer or someone who wants to get started in this field? 

EVM: If you are looking for an easy job, pass your way and look for other opportunities. However, if you really think that this is your dream job, I would suggest starting by working in other positions within the music, cultural or creative industry – to learn how things are really working (or not working), and build connections and relationships. Never promise anything to the artists unless you are 100 % sure.

Because you will invest time, knowledge, competencies, relationships, and money, and take multiple risks – in a market that is in constant evolution, often unstable, saturated, and full of uncertainties, you do not want to work with any artist. If there is no real alchemy between the artist (or management) and the booker, it will be hard to put good work on. Things are already enough challenging in “normal” conditions. Start lean and smooth, try to understand the proposal you have and if it is “market-ready” and fits your network of venues/festivals. What I mean is the artist should have a minimum of history: followers, recordings, live gigs, and useful content you can use for promotion & marketing (video clips, live videos, etc.). It is always better if the artist has some management structure – being this internal or external.

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

EVM: I am personally of the idea that artists should be the CEOs of their own businesses. I am interested to build working partnerships with such artists. In the past, artists were products of music companies. They did not control anything. Today, thanks to the Internet, artists can handle their careers themselves. And that is where they can make a difference. At a lower cost than music companies, they can record their albums, distribute them, promote them, build a lasting relationship with their audience, grow their fan base, etc. Why should they give up their assets to people who will rarely put a priority on them?

I see the artist as a personal brand in search of a supportive audience. The core business is not the music but the brand – a mix of tangible and intangible values that comes with the music but also many other features. This is the new frontier of the artist or musician business. Run your projects like a startup company that puts the customer at the center of the business, and build alliances with other small business owners (like me for instance) for specific tasks. Build a “circle of trust” (including super fans, professionals, and media people) around your music and brand. Capture multiple revenue streams. This is where building a strategy for the long term starts.

Most of the artists who are contacting me are still living in the 20th century. They have no idea how the music industry works today, and what means to be an artist in the digital age. They are thousands of music talents out there in the world. This kind of talent is not enough to succeed. Artists who succeed are those who become entrepreneurs of their own careers. They start cultivating other talents to make their career sustainable and resilient. They take responsibility and act. They look for guidance and training to move their operations to the next level. They do not wait to find someone with the magic stick who will make them successful. I would love to have a magic stick. But unfortunately, I have not found it yet.

I of course listen to the artists who are contacting me and try to be clear where I stand and where they should/could stand. I need to have the big picture of who they are and where they want to go. Most of them are not market-ready – I mean for the market I am working with. So I offer them some guidance, and if I see them do something with it, I am ready to walk a step forward. But they should understand that I am already very busy with the artists I am collaborating with. I am a sole entrepreneur and cannot take them all. I am only a piece of the ecosystem.

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

EVM: I think it makes sense to look for people with whom to collaborate – as an artist and manager of your own career. To succeed you need many skills and competencies. If you are not that good at something, you can look for people to hire for that specific job. On the basis of the results, you will decide if to go on with it or not.
When it comes to labels, booking agents, managers, etc., I would say to the artist: do not look for them but build your career to the point where they are pounding down your door begging to work with you. At that point, you will be able to decide to go on your own, or sign. But ask for the advice of a professional or experienced colleague to read the contract. In this position, you will get a better deal. Contract terms can always be discussed and negotiated.

My point is that if you want to have a career in music and pay your bill at the end of the month, as with any other business in the world, you have to work for it. Agents mostly want acts that are proven, have a fan base and are making things happen on their own. There are exceptions of course. But exceptions are not the rule.
How could we explain briefly which is the value we, the agents, provide to the value chain?
I believe there are many different kinds of agents. One should be clear about what he can offer to both the artists and the venues. I think that as agents we are in a position where we can do a lot to educate both sides. Especially because we are working in a niche market and our products are specific.

Mapamundi Música:  Is there any difference in the work of an agent like you, when working in the market of Belgium than of Italy? If so, which one/s and how to deal with it/them? 

EVM: I am from Belgium and I am based in Italy. I am not that familiar with the Italian market, however, which I find very hard to read, understand and navigate. The audience is fantastic, but the live music ecosystem is very complicated. Belgium is interesting and very diverse. There is a real interest in folk/world music, especially in Flanders, and there are many venues and festivals for such a small country. To be honest I am not specialized in any territory. My network of contacts is international. Because I am most of the time working with musical acts that are little known, my focus is on equipping them with a CV and the tools or strategy that will help them be more attractive to other agents -who are more specialized in specific territories. It is a lot of work. But I am not complaining. I like it, and I am also developing other activities or other ways to look at my profession. In that way I think it is clearer for people if I tell them I am not working that much as a booking agent but more as a free-lance music export manager. I know how the music ecosystem for the world/folk music artists is working in various countries, like Italy, France, Benelux, Scandinavia, and Canada for instance, and who the players are. Those ecosystems are quite diverse, and it is a plus to know how they work.

Check Eric’s training package, here.

Mapamundi Música:  Explain in one or two sentences, to the wider culture community, the reasons to book musicians from around the world that give a relevant presence to their roots.

EVM: For me, music is an instrument of peace and healing. World and folk music are living expressions of human diversity and richness. Music that is rooted in a culture, a territory, a community has the power to connect and reconnect us with nature, the people around us, the deep, and the ancient.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

• Visa for Music, call for proposals open. NEW. This festival and professional market will take place in Rabat from 16th to 19th of November. Application form, here. “The festival’s stage features emerging artists from the African and Middle Eastern music scene and renowned artists for the enjoyment of our passionate audiences.” “This call is addressed to artists/groups, of all musical styles, valuing the music of Morocco, Africa, the Middle East and the World.”

• Mundial Montréal. Deadline for the call for artists extended until April 1st. The 12th edition will take place in Montréal, Canada, from 15th to 18th of November. The submission form is here.

👉 Check the Spanish artists I offer from Mapamundi Música, here. They are Vigüela, Entavía, Jako el Muzikante, Xabi Aburruzaga and Citra Trío.

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

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS 

• #1 for Transglobal World Music Chart in February 2022 is: Small Island Big Song’s album Our Island. 
• Mundofonías: our monthly favourites for February are the albums: Choduraa Tumat’s Byzaanchy, Kreiz Breizh Akademi #8’s Ba’n dañs and Vigüela’s A la manera artesana.

FLASH NEWS: NEW BATCH OF FESTIVALS & CLUBS IN MOST MUSIC

I hope it will ease their path towards achieving their goals.

FLASH NEWS: MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA 

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: SABINA SCHEBRAK

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

Sabina Schebrak: Probably I am a typical Austrian, more specifically Tyrolean: Grown up with a lot of classical music and a family background outside the current borders of the country (grandparents from what today is Northern Italy and Slovenia). I have always felt I belonged to this wider cultural space on the crossroads between the alpine, romanic and slavic world, and I have always had a strong interest for languages, travelling, music and the stories behind it.

When I was young I hated the local alpine Tyrolean folk music as perverted through the Nazis first and then through mass tourism, so my first musical heroes were Italian cantautori such as Fabrizio de Andre and Francesco Guccini, Pino Daniele and Gianna Nannini. I loved Juliette Greco, Georges Brassens, Renaud, Victor Jara, Luis Llach, Maria Farantouri, Mikis Theodorakis and Astor Piazzolla, then I discovered Al di Meola, Chick Corea, Barbara Thompson and Keith Jarrett.

As a young language student in Innsbruck I literally fell in love with a group of street musicians from Sicily – this was my first real encounter with what later on would be called world music or “nouveau trad”, and I became their friend and first agent for Austria (still at a time without internet!).

For 15 years I worked as director of communication and international relations at WUK, a big multidisciplinary cultural center and venue in Vienna, and during that time I became a passionate international networker and curator/organizer of international exchange projects.

When I finally met Brazilian accordionist Renato Borghetti at my last festival in 2000, I was so blown away that I decided to quit the job, follow my real passion and set up my own agency for exquisite sounds from the borderlands between contemporary folk, jazz and chamber music.

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

• WOMEX, call for proposals open. NEW. 

The expo will take place in Lisbon, Portugal, from 19 and 23 of October. The call is open until Friday 18th March, for conferences, showcase, club summit and films. The submission site is here.

• Mundial Montréal. NEW. 

The 12th edition will take place in Montréal, Canada, from 15th to 18th of November. Call for artists for the 2022 edition of Mundial Montréal is open until March 15th. The submission form is here.

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• MOST Open Call for Urban Projects. NEW. – FOR SOUTH EAST EUROPE –

The call is open until March 15th. “As part of the large-scale MOST project, the Urban Project Hub is looking for creative and unique projects to add colour to local cultural scenes, and connect the music sector and cities. In a bit more detail, ideas that are city-level or regional, provide exchange or networking opportunities for local musicians, provide activities that can strengthen the local music scene will be considered for funding. Selected applicants will have to pair up with a local policymaker.” The submission site is here.

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• EXIB Música. NEW. – FOR IBEROAMERICAN ARTISTS –

The call is open until February 21st. This is the site for the submissions. The 8th edition of this meeting will take place in Setubal, Portugal, from 13th to 15th of October.

👉 Check the Spanish artists I offer from Mapamundi Música, here. They are Vigüela, Entavía, Jako el Muzikante, Xabi Aburruzaga and Citra Trío.

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. 

How are you? I hope well!

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

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

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

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

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

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

FLASH NEWS

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

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

AND NOW THE FLOOR IS FOR: PETER VAN ROMPAEY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is the album Peter is talking about:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are the Mythique Rumba Congolese International band:

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

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

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

• MOST Music Balkan Explained above.

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

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

MEET ME AT…

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

According to the website, “PIN is the first and only international music conference and showcase festival in Macedonia. […] Our goal is to enrich the local music sector by bringing the diversity of best practices, up-to-date knowledge and people who will be part of this development in Macedonia and the Balkan region.”

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

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

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS 

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

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 50 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook. 

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

Subscription is available here.

POST – WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL TODO MUNDO

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

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

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

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Credits:

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

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OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

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

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

Check all the information already available here.

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

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

Proposals of participants for the think tanks of MusicAIRE 

MEET ME AT…

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

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BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

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

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

MEET ME AT…

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

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

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

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

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS 

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

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 50 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook. 

MIGRANTS MUSIC MANIFESTO, COLOGNE, SEPTEMBER 13-19

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

IMX, in this online edition, includes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– ABOUT EMPRENDE MÚSICA LATAM –

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

.

– ABOUT Encuentro LATMUS –

– ABOUT Red Iberfest –

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

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

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

• WOMEX Summer rate, until August 27th

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

• International Music Expo (IMX) (NEW)

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

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

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

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

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

MEET ME AT…

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

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

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

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS 

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

We also offer you our Mundofonías radio show, probably the leader about world music in Spanish language (on 50 stations in 18 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com.

Feel free to request info if you wish. For further information about us, get in touch by email, telephone (+34 676 30 28 82), our website or at our Facebook.