Summary ?

· Studies and news from the sector in Europe
· Conversation with Alexis Herrería from Ah! World Music!
· Mini-interview with Justin Rudge from Port Fairy Folk Festival
· Brief news from the media, charts and sister projects
· Open calls and professional events

Hello, how are you? I hope well, healthy and strong. I am having an extremely busy few weeks and the truth is that I am exhausted and right now it is taking place Folk Unlocked, the virtual edition of the meeting by the Folk Alliance.

But this monthly date with the community is sacred and there is a good bunch of things to share. It’s also time to travel to Australia ?! Of course, in our imagination.

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

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

Contact me if you want to share some relevant information. And if you find this interesting, share it with your friends. You can read the previous issues here.

Thanks for your attention and remember that you can check our website to learn about our offers and the artists we work with.

Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82

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RESEARCHS AND NEWS FROM THE SECTOR IN EUROPE

These works are based on Europe but I hope they can be useful also for readers from other continents.

With the collaboration of Newcastle University, the European Folk Network has published the Stage One of the ongoing mapping research. Find the complete report here. The European Folk Network is open to new members and exciting news are coming. After the meeting in Brussels in November 2019, there was planned a new one in 2020, that was postponed, of course… Check the conditions in the website. There you can also learn who is already a member.
Music Moves Europe – A European Music Export Strategy. After the latest edition of the newsletter, Birgit Ellinghaus (thank you!) advised me about several studies that worth to be shared: the mapping from EFN, this one of Music Moves Europe and the next one. The study of Music Moves Europe “defines the background, the scope, and proposes a set of measures for a European music export strategy“. Download it from here.
Rebuilding Europe: The cultural and creative economy before and after the COVID-19 crisis. The full study and the executive summary are available on the website.

FANCY TO PRACTICE YOUR SPANISH? LISTEN TO ALEXIS HERRERÍA INTERVIEWING ME

A few days ago it was published the wonderful interview that the Mexican disseminator of world music Alexis Herrería, also known as Viento Solar, made to me for Ah! World music! It was wonderful because he is a great listener, great at doing questions and the musics we listened to together (Hudaki Village Band, Monsieur Doumani, Vigüela and Janusz Prusinowski Kompania) are just outstanding.

Click the picture to listen to the interview:

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS

Since 1977, over 2000 acts and around 8000 artists have appeared at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. If you are confined and bored, you can check the list of the artists they have had, in this page of their website, and tick the ones you know ?

The Port Fairy Folk Festival is a big event that takes place in the seaside of the small town of 3000 residents of Port Fairy. It lasts four days and it includes concerts, storytelling, circus activities, art and craft, dance and music workshops, and comedy.

The edition of 2021 has been postponed to 2022 but they continue doing more little events. The next week they are having some concerts, at the same long weekend when it takes place the festival.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH JUSTIN RUDGE, PROGRAM DIRECTOR OF THE FROM PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL (PORT FAIRY, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA)

Justin Rudge is the program director. His contact is available on the website. That is something that I love, you know, when you find so easily who is the person in charge of the artistic decisions of a festival or organization. I already mentioned it in the interview of the last edition, with Girisha Fernando.

Justin is currently settled in Madrid, 12 kms far from where I am writting this. We are waiting for the end of this nightmare to meet in person for lunch. He looks friendly, doesn’t he? In this meantime, it is a pleasure to share his insights while we can finally meet face to face.

Mapamundi Música – What do you search for in an artist when you program?

Justin Rudge: There’s some key words I use to decide on programming each artist – unique, engaging, artistic, cultural and challenging are the best 5!

To put it all in one sentence – I program unique artists that engage with our audience, both existing and new, to provide culturally relevant and wholly artistic experiences, hopefully challenging our audience to new and exciting experiences in turn.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
JR: As well as folk, our festival works to program world, roots & acoustic music – so from a genre point of view, it’s actually pretty broad. We have a 4 day program, across over 20 stages, so we aim to have something for everyone, all the time!

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
JR: A few things!The first is probably the sheer scale of the event – over 100 artists, over 20 stage, and a lot of patrons from a variety of backgrounds and demographics. Putting that all together to ensure everything works, and everyone is happy – requires a lot of work from a small dedicated team all year round, as well as a massive amount of volunteers around the actual festival period in March.

The festival is located in regional Victoria. While being located on a beautiful bay, we have the constant concern and worry of operating in bushfire season, which provides a constant challenge in terms of managing travel and safety of our festival artists and patrons.

Music festivals in Australia are a booming industry (or were prior to the current pandemic), so we need to constantly improve, update and adapt to the changing marketplace and audience expectations.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
JR: Obviously, the pandemic has had a massive impact on our ability to engage with our audience who would normally gather in large numbers each March.

While we are not able to do this in 2021, we have and are continuing to create a number of small events across various virtual and in person platforms to ensure we can continue to provide our audience with the cultural and musical experiences we love to share – until we return to full scale events in 2022.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
JR: To experience the highest quality musical and cultural experiences, in and around the folk genre, from around Australia and the world, in a wonderfully picturesque setting.

MM – What has happened with your festival in the current situation of the pandemic? I see you have to postpone the 2021 edition, which would be in March, to 2022. How are you guys handling it, in terms of the team and the artists you may have already confirmed for the 2021 edition?
JR: It changes daily! While the pandemic has been well contained within Australia compared to many other places around the world, the challenges of operating any physical events safely continue.

We continue to work with promoters, agents and managers in Australia and around the world to advance our program for the 2022 event. In most cases, conversations and arrangements that had been in place for the 2021 edition will continue for the 2022 festival.

I’ve been so proud of the people I work with – in Port Fairy with our wonderful staff and amazing volunteer committee – and within the wider music industry. It’s such a challenging period, and to work daily with amazing people that are considerate, kind, flexible and understanding of each others challenges has been a very positive thing to result from the situation.

MM – In 2022 you will celebrate the 45th anniversary. Has there ever been before a year in the history of the festival when this could not be done?
JR: No! While the time of year the festival is held was changed many years ago to the current period of March, we have never not put on a festival in 45 years. It’s very sad to be missing our event in 2021, but it has provided us with time and space like we have never had to re-evaluate, adapt and prepare to present what I’m sure will be our best event ever in 2022.

Credits:

The logo is from the website
The portrait has been provided by Justin
The landscape is from the festival’s Facebook page

BRIEF NEWS FROM THE MEDIA, CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the albums: Divine reeds, by Tassos Chalkias, the compilation Ṛṛways: Voyage dans l’univers des poètes chanteurs itinérants amazighes and Samā’ī by Azmari.
I have collaborated in Juan Antonio Vázquez’s show A La Fuente, that he makes in the national radio of Spain, with a selection of rebetiko (mainly from the 1930s) and another of Polish recordings, that will be broadcasted in the next weeks. His radio show is available here.

OPEN CALLS AND PROFESSIONAL EVENTS

The virtual conference Folk Unlocked, by the Folk Alliance International, is taking place right now! I have already attended two of the meetings.
It is still open the application period for residential projects (minimum of 7 days) i-Portunus. The deadline for music projects is 28th of February.
Mundofonías is media partner of the Afro Pepites Show. After the selection made by the Committee (of which Juan Antonio has been a member), it is the turn for the public vote. Anyone can vote. The votes will determine which are the 3 projects that will integrate the network in 2021 to promote themselves internationally. Learn about the finalists and vote, here.
Global Toronto: GT21 Call for Speakers and Themes. I will share the paragraph from their newsletter: “At Global Toronto, we know that the best way to create a compelling, relevant, and engaging event is to ask the most compelling, relevant, and engaging people we know: The wider GT community! Please take a couple of minutes and share your thoughts to help contribute to an impactful and exciting GT21.” The form to gather proposals is this one.

WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS

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

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

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

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

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s November newsletter. Here we are, working on the next season bookings and novelties!

At WOMEX I attended the presentation of Creative Europe offices from Spain, Netherlands, Portugal and UK-Wales, where Music Moves Europe, the “overarching framework for the European Commission’s initiatives and actions in support of the European music sector“, was presented. What can we expect from this, as agents of the world music scene? Find below a brief summary to get an idea.

We include in this newsletter another little interview with a festival director. If you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. Thanks for your attention.

Araceli Tzigane – info@mundimapa.com +34 676 30 28 82

Summary: Music Moves Europe. Mini interview with festival director: Amitava Bhattacharya

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CREATIVE EUROPE AND MUSIC MOVES EUROPE

This article is specially interesting for Europeans and I think it is also informative for the other continents. But if you were not interested, please, don´t miss the interview with the enlighting Amitava, below.

And this is very serious so it doesn´t include any picture. I promise much warmer content below. But now…

Music Moves Europe (MME from now on) is currently on a step of “preparatory action”, with the motto of “Boosting European music diversity and talent”. Undoubtedly, we the agents of world music know much about diversity and talent. How can it be useful for us? At the moment, the four calls related to this preparatory actions are closed and the results not published yet. But, what have been done so far and how is the world music scene involved, if so? Find all the official details, here. And I continue with my insights: one of the key events has been an “in-depth conversation with the music sector in Europe”, which results are published here. In pages 49 and 50 you can find the participant’s list. I don´t know each and everyone but it seems there is a lack of agents of world music scene. Just to name the one that instantly springs to mind: Womex. Not even the world leader trade fair that has been gathering data for 24 years and that has exported their expertise to other continents was present there.

MME actions include also a talent award for popular and contemporary music, whose winners will be announced next January. This prize is successor of the former one, with that boombastic name of European Border Breakers Awards, which 2018 winner are here. Ah, I got it: to break European borders, it is a must to sing in English, no matter where you are from*. Congratulations.

Can we keep any hope about Creative Europe for world music scene? Well, apart of considering that our world music scene may need a deep self-analysis too, while checking the results of the latests calls for cooperation, I found a project that got support and whose creators are focused on world music. That is the project 2020 Troubadours, lead by Via Lactea, the Belgian agency, in cooperation with FlonsFlons from France, EtnoFest from Serbia and Mediawave from Hungary. Via Lactea are kindly sharing the complete application form in their website. Congratulations and much success and joy for all the team of Troubadaurs 2020!

* Salvador Sobral sings 3 songs in Portuguese and one in Spanish in his last album Excuse me. The rest are in English. His song for EBBA was in Portuguese. A happy exception.

** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us.

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS.

After the mini interviews with the director of Folk Holidays, Michal Schmidt, of Rainforest World Music Festival, Jun-Lin Yeoh, and of Pirineos Sur, Luis Lles, in this occasion we travel to Bengal to visit Banglanatak Dot Com, the company lead by our guest.

MINI INTERVIEW WITH AMITAVA BHATTACHARYA FROM SUR JAHAN FESTIVAL

Sur Jahan, formerly named Sufi Sutra, takes place in Kolkata (1-3 February) and Goa (6-8 February). Banglanatak Dot Com is a company dedicated to culture for development and they carry out many other initiatives related to traditional music, art and handicraft for the improvement of living conditions, as well as for enabling the access to others’ cultures.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you program?
AB – We want to present diversity of culture. And thus each year we try to present variations with excellence. We also try to keep women participation. We don’t much entertain electric instrument or electronic music. Vocal is a must for our festival. Usual size of the band is 4 to 7.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
AB – Strengthening Cultural Exchange and celebrating cultural diversity is the basis of our festival Sur Jahan, which has a theme MUSIC FOR ALL, MUSIC FOR PEACE.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
AB – Getting the right music band within budget (he smiles). Ours is a non commercial festival and we don’t much approach corporate sponsor. We do the festival from our own budget and thus limited too.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
AB – Its 8 years old festival, more or less the process is streamlined, Internationally people know about the festival. Audience is eager to attend it. So not much of challenge really.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
AB – There may not be a festival like this, that’s what all participating bands and audience says each year. All bands stay together for 3 days in Kolkata, travel together to Goa and then stay together again. So, friendship get developed, new music happens then and later. We also present a traditional music based opening and create a festival band with members from all bands to present at Grand Finale. Our traditional folk stage is also very popular.

Picture: Amitava Bhattacharya’s former Facebook profile picture.

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WHO WE ARE AND SISTER PROJECTS