I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s May’s monthly newsletter. I am a bit exhausted after arranging flights for many musicians and destinations… and remembering the last flight’s quarrel at the check-in desk. And at the Canadian Music Week I verified once more that I am not alone… Check below to discover why.
Apart of this, this issue includes one more mini interview about the challenges for festivals, in this case with Mads Olesen, from 5 Continents festival, and some more topics. If you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. Thanks for your attention.
Summary: Mini interview with festival director: Mads Olesen from 5 Continents (Switzerland) – Mapamundi Música shares: tips for flying with instruments, by Folk Alliance – Find me in… – New (and still) open calls.
CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS
MINI INTERVIEW WITH MADS OLESEN FROM 5 CONTINENTS
Its complete name is Festival des 5 Continents and takes place in Martigny, Switzerland. This year’s edition will happen from 13th to 16th of June and I will attend for the first time. I am eager!
The concerts program is splitted in Concerts World and Concerts Local Global. The names are quite meaningful: international artists and artists settled locally, doing world music, respectively, and two different and complementary objetives. Check more at the website.
Mads Olesen is the Délégué aux Affaires culturelles at Martigny and his words are very enlightening about the spirit of a festival like this, a spirit that probably most of us, involved in the world music in any role or position, share. Thank you for your answers, Mads!
MM – What do you search in an artist when you program?
MO – Artistic quality within « Worldmusic », passion, authencity and the capacity to transmit his/her music to the public.
MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
MO – The Festival of the 5 Continents exist since 1994 and we can put out two main ideas: The first one is to permit our public to discover world music and cultures from all over the planet. The next one is to engage ourself through the festival for a better « together-living ». (Martigny is a small city in the Alps but 35% of the population comes from abroad and we are 110 nationalities living together). The festival is a symbol of peaceful together-living.
MO – The Festival is completely free, all concerts are free. To offer this, we have to do a big job to find money and to raise funds. We did it for 26 years. But every year this is a hard business. But the result is that everybody can come and listen for free to more then 30 concerts, events, art exhitions…All the communities in the town are working with the Festival. We serve thousands of meals and this is done in favour of the Festival. It is a quite a hard organisation, BUT the result is solidarity and local engagement. This year we start up an ecological process to make the Festival a real sustainable event with recycling on all levels,…
MO – To offer a high level artistic quality program together with the fact that the Festival is free. To keep a high level of local engagement in an international event (about 100 artists from 20 countries, 15 communities in 2019).
MO – A Festival with a high degree of friendliness, free world class music in the middle of the Alps.
MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA SHARES…
Being us, the people involved on live music, one of the most regular clients of the flight companies, it is depressing how badly we are treated many times when flying with instruments. No matter if they are hold baggage or hand baggage: the problems will probably show up.At the Canadian Music Week I had the pleasure to talk with Aengus Finnan, executive director of the Folk Alliance International (at the picture) and to discover this guide with deep and useful information for flying with instruments not to miss by musicians and managers.
Aengus told me also about the Nordic Folk Alliance Conference 2019 that is a milestone in the organization’s internationalization, and about which you’ll learn more in their newsletter of May, to which you can also subscribe. In parallel, the conference of Folk Alliance International will take place in New Orleans in January 2020.
FIND ME IN…
- Murcia (Spain). On 23rd of May. Leat Sabbah (cello player of Gulaza) and Yaron Pe’er (player of Afghani rabab). First concert of this project out of their country! At Festival Murcia Tres Culturas.
- Madrid (Spain), 6th to 8th June. Sol Madrid. With showcase by Entavía. Check more at the Mapamundi introduces… in March’s newsletter.
- Martigny (Switzerland). 13th to 16th June. Festival 5 Continents. I will attend the festival for the TWMC Festival Awards. As evaluator for Transglobal World Music Chart Festival Awards.
- Ostrava (Czech Republic). Czech Music Crossroads + Colors of Ostrava. 15th to 18th July. As speaker.
- Koblenz (Germany). Horizonte Festival. 19th July. What a pleasure to attend this festival for which I will travel with Vigüela! Also other of our collaborators, Monsieur Doumani and Don Kipper, are programmed in this festival. Yeah!
CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS
These professional fairs and festivals have applications open right now:
- Visa por Music, Rabat, Morocco. Apply here. Extended deadline until 30th of May.
- Premio Andrea Parodi: the contest application is open until 31st May. The contest will take place in Cagliary from 8th to 10th November. More info and application, here.
- And registration for WOMEX is open, to attend as delegate and/or exhibitor.
In the faraway village of Näsåker, with barely more than 500 inhabitants, for 3 days, this “welcoming and loving festival where thousands of people can get together and experience something unique” takes place since 1995. Great music, wonderful landscape, peace atmosphere, a market that is an experience by itself, many food options with reasonable prices… well worth the plan of visiting the center of Sweden at the beginning of August. I know well, as I was there with Vigüela in 2016 and it is one of our best memories. For instance, 
Songlines celebrates its 11th edition of Music Awards and the nominees are public now. Their team of international contributors selected the nominees in the geographical categories and the Best Artist and Best Group nominees were voted by the Songlines readers.