Tag Archives: Targowisko Instrumentów

Magazine #18 December 2019

Mini-interview with Jarmila Vlčková from WMF Bratislava, in deep with the Luthiers’ fair in Warsaw, charts time & much more

Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s December’s magazine, with contents for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world. You can read the previous issues, here. I am Araceli Tzigane.

It’s almost time for celebrations in my region of the world but it’s also the moment of the year of summarising and planning. Wish us clarity of mind for the challenges ahead. Thank you 🙂

I invite you to read this contents with the soundtrack of our new playlist in Soundcloud. You might discover some awesomely enchanting recordings of artists we have included recently in our catalogue for 2020 and beyond.

Enjoy much and, remember: if you have any suggestion of contents for the next editions, let us know. And if you like it, share it and tell it to your friends! 

Thanks for your attention.

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

Feel free to resend this newsletter to your friends if you like it. Subscription is available here.

Summary: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Jarmila Vlčková from World Music Festival Bratislava (Slovakia)
· In deep with Piotr Piszczatowski about the Targowisko Instrumentów (Warsaw, Poland)
· Open call not to miss
· It’s charts time! The best albums of the year by WMCE and TWMC
· What will come in next issue? In deep with BlogFoolk
· Find me at…

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

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

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

If you haven´t read them, you can find the previous interviews clicking on the names: Michal Schmidt (Folk Holidays, CZ) – Jun-Lin Yeoh (Rainforest WMF, MY) – Luis Lles (Pirineos Sur, ES) – Amitava Bhattacharya (Sur Jahan, IN) – Nicolas Ribalet (Sukiyaki Meets the World, JP) – Sergio Zaera (Poborina Folk, ES) – Per Idar Almås (Førdefestivalen, NO) – Bożena Szota (EthnoPort, PL) – Ken Day (Urkult, SE) – Mads Olesen (5 Continents, CH) – Karolina Waszczuk & Bartek Drozd (Jagiellonian Fair, PL) – Alkis Zopoglou (Mediterranean Music Festival, GR/CH) – Tom Frouge (Globalquerque, US) – Braulio Pérez (Música en el Parque, ES) – Bojan Djordjevic (Todo Mundo, RS) – Park Jechun (Jeonju Int’s Sori Festival)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH JARMILA VLČKOVÁ FROM WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL BRATISLAVA

Jarmila Vlčková is the artistic director of the World Music Festival Bratislava and, without a doubt, one of the persons who is shaping the image of the music from Slovakia abroad during the last years. She also leads the platform World Music from Slovakia (WOMUSK). Both of the initiatives are held by the NGO Amity o.z., founded in 2012.

The World Music Festival Bratislava takes place in Bratislava. The last edition was at the end of September, previous editions were hold in August. The program includes concerts, showcases of Slovak emerging bands, conferences, listening sessions and speed datings, as the activity of the Festival has two addresses, the public and the professionals.

Thank you, Jarmila, for the kind and enriching answers.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 

JV: When we plan the program of our festival, our main intention is to bring diverse and balanced program to our audience. We look for traditional performers from different parts of the world, but also new approaches and original projects. It is always a special moment when artists build up interaction with the crowd or even exceed their expectations. We are lucky enough to have a warm – hearted audience that can appreciate good music; it doesn´t matter if it is a classical Indian raga or electronic music from Argentina.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

JV: The festival strives to reveal the global culture, from traditional to the modern one, with a focus on world music, jazz and folklore. The WMFB has daytime and evening program at different venues in the Old Town of Bratislava and we are glad if the visitors experience both, the music and city during the festival. The events offer notable opportunity to discover Slovak and global music scene at the showcases and concerts. The significant part of the festival is international conference, a place to share ideas and network.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 

JV: We still see our festival as a new one, in 2020 it will be only its 5th edition. However, we had good feedback and we would be happy if it stays that way. In fact, we deal with similar simple issues as other events: what is the social, ecological impact, economic result and cultural footprint of festival in the world? Can we do better?

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?

JV: There are many challenges for small festivals. We live in a fast-changing world, where art plays a vital role. The festival like ours, is a place that is supposed to build respect, educate and inspire through music.

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 

JV: Our festival is taking place in the historic centre of a capital of Slovakia and, for visitors, it is a chance to explore the town, discover different venues from noble concert halls to hidden small clubs that are open to welcome anybody interested in Central European region, but also those who want to enjoy a variety of music from around the world.

Pictures’ credits:

  • Logo of the festival at their Facebook
  • Jarmila’s former Facebook profile picture
  • Collage of the edition 2019, courtesy of WMFB
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IN DEEP WITH… 

Piotr Piszczatowski and the Targowisko Instrumentów, the instruments market in Warsaw.

I’ve been lucky to attend this market three times. It takes place in April in the closing day of the Spring edition of the Festiwal Wszystkie Mazurki Świata (all the mazurkas of the world) in Warsaw and it is an outstanding experience of colours, shapes, sounds, voices and joy. Furthermore, from 19h it starts the night of dance, in which around 30 bands, mainly performers of traditional Polish music, both rural and urban, both old masters and young enthusiasts play for the audience that will dance all night long.

Check their website to discover the instruments makers and check their Facebook page to get an idea of the ambient there. And read the interview below (translated from Polish into English by the kind Ewa Gomółka) to understand the steps that, for 10 years, Piotr and his partners took to reach their current achievements.

··· The application to participate in the market will be open at mid of January ···
MM – I think you were a kind of pioneer in Poland of this idea of a fair of instruments makers, why did you start this, instead of any other thing?

PP – I was not the first one who tried to organize such an event. But the unpredictable luck made that I was the first person who succeeded to organize this kind of event on a large scale in Poland. The event where real market rules are applied – the makers really sell their instruments-, and, most importantly, it wasn’t a one-time event, but it led to the multiannual process of recreating the community of the instrument makers in Poland and neighboring countries. 
“They are all dead”, I was told in one of the musical instruments museums. That was the common view back then. It was 2010 when we came back from Brittany with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania. We saw there many phenomena that were revolutionary for us. First, the Dance Night (Fest Noz) with thousands of people dancing marvelously. There were so many of them, that the organizers could spend the money from the tickets to hire more than a dozen bands to play all night. Nearby, there was a tent with instrument fair in it. That was another shock – excellent instruments were purchased at fair prices, everything based on the market rules, with almost no state support. That was in sharp contrast to the situation in Poland at the time, where we were constantly told that there was no future for traditional music. In Brittany we saw that traditional musicians, their music and instruments should not be put in the museum. This gave us hope that we could change the situation in Poland. We devoted the next 10 years to this mission, to develop the Mazurkas of the World festival, the Instrument Fair, Słuchaj Uchem children theatre and our band.

 

All these phenomena became, as one of our friends said, the “icebreaker” to the existing prejudice. However, we must highlight that all of them are complementary, like parts of one engine. The Instrument Fair wouldn’t exist without the Festival and its growing, enthusiastic public.Why do I do this? Because there is no greater pleasure than seeing something reborn. That’s why I call the Instrument Fair my fourth child.
MM – Which are been the biggest achievements that you have got in the fair along the years?

 

PP – It’s the carnival! For me, the Fair’s formula is the key issue. These aren’t strictly business meetings. You know, those with renting separate stands and without contact between the participants. It’s the opposite. I think that the formula of carnival taking place in the central square of a city, the formula we know from historical times, f. ex. medieval or renaissance is perfect. So this is very special festive time of role reversal, atmosphere of excitement, many events, overflowing crowd, hustle and bustle, many languages from around the world, contrasts, unusual and unknown musical instruments. We intentionally add a lot of simultaneous events to our Instrument Fair: concerts, ritual and children theatre, paratheatrical and dance events. All these ingredients raise the temperature in this interpersonal meeting where the barriers between people are being broken. There may appear something new between the people – a new quality.

It was great success, from the very beginning, that the instrument makers liberated themselves from the isolation, or even specific hibernation. We must realize that at that time, many of them never succeeded to sell an instrument and also weren’t really seen as artists by their own communities. This means not only that they were living in a certain state of frustration but also that they weren’t performing their culture-creating and integration function. It’s changing now. They are great personalities able to bring together the artistic and spiritual life of the community. The traditional role of the art is something that sticks together the parts of a broken jug and makes that we can drink water from it again.

Secondly, this very specific Polish tendency to work in narrow fields of expertise was broken. It came out that if we invite people of different luthier specialties whether it is traditional, futuristic or classical, we get wonderful effect of unfettered and miscellaneous space of liberty. There are amateur instrument makers and professional luthiers standing side by side. Each of them is different, dissimilar and I enjoy the fact that they are unlike each other. Each of them is a potential master to the future generations of students.

So the instrument makers met and the following years the community has grown up to almost 300 people, who are invited to the event. Each year about 120 instrument makers meet at the instrument fair and then they collaborate creatively, interchange their knowledge and ideas, make some projects together all year round. Before this first gathering, it was unimaginable.

The last important thing is the international character of this event. Over the years it became not only local and rural but just international. Each year we host artists and instrument makers from at least ten European countries and we happened to host artist from Mongolia or India too. I consider this aspect as crucial today in these very difficult times when so many spaces are closed and hostile. Creating spaces that are friendly to people who create new artistic and social realities is a really great venture for us. The art has this really big potential to cross the boundaries that are constantly being rebuilt.

MM – How do you organise the work, to be able to attend all your other responsibilities, as a musician, as a father of a family and also as coordinator of folk music department for the Instytut Muzyki i Tańca?

The answer is really easy – I work hard and I have my family and friends without whom I wouldn’t have succeed. I admit that it’s not easy. Together with Janusz Prusinowski, from the very beginning of this adventure, we had to build a network of artistic institutions designed to create the space for traditional Polish music revival. We built this house from basement to roof.

For that reason we are really busy. I work as a civil servant in the Institute of Music and Dance [Instytut Muzyki i Tańca] in the Traditional Music and Dance Studio [Pracownia Muzyki Tradycyjnej], in addition, I’m an actor in a children’s theatre Słuchaj Uchem that we run with Kaja and Janusz. Apart from that, we play a lot of concerts all over the world with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and all the time new challenges appear, like hosting concerts for children of Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra [Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia], the shows in the TV station TVP Kultura, or organizing other instrument fairs which, as a formula of the fresh look at artistic and people-to-people meeting, widely succeeded and became highly demanded all around the country.

There was even the idea to introduce the special carnival formula of the instrument fair in other countries. We’ll see, it requires financial aid of a serious institutional partner.
MM – If you could ask anything to Santa Claus, related to the fair, what would you ask?

I would be really glad if the international aspect of our Instrument Fair developed to become a Mecca or, if you like, the place of pilgrimage for musicians and instrument makers from all over Europe. I’d like it to be obvious that they should come and meet us at least once in their lives.

MM – In one phrase, invited our readers to attend the fair with a teasing statement

The instrument fair is like a dream come true, like from Hieronymus Bosch paintings. A dream about a place at the edge of the world where the initiates meet once a year. If you really love music and dance, you must not miss this event.

MM – And in one phrase, invite the instruments makers to the fair.

Come to the instrument fair! There are rumors that the instrument makers who didn’t come to our instrument fair and get a stamp for this are not allowed into heaven. Anyway, in purgatory and hell they also ask you for this stamp 😉
Thank you, Piotr! Let’s go for the next 10.
Credits:
  • Translation from Polish to English, by Ewa Gomółka.
  • Pictures:
    • Portrait of Piotr by Araceli
    • Picture with bagpiper, by Artur Kowalski
    • Picture of folk theatre and bloc of 4 pictures and bloc of two pictures at the bottom, by Mariusz Cieszewski
    • Other 3 pictures (two fiddlers and portrait of female fiddler and bearded man), by Jan Piszczatowski
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details

OPEN CALL

Note that this year the application period for Fira Mediterrània de Manresa has been moved forward. It is open now and until 29th of January at 15h (central Europe time). Check the conditions and requirements at their website.

 

TA-DAH! THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

By World Music Charts Europe and Transglobal World Music Chart

The end of the year is close so it’s time for annual charts! As cofounder of TWMC, first of all is to congratulate the panelists and the administrators of both of the charts for the constant work during the year. And, secondly, these are the top of the year for both:

TWMC top 15
1. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
2. Kronos Quartet, Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat: Placeless
3. Refugees for Refugees: Amina
4. Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
5. Mara Aranda: Sefarad en el Corazón de Turquía
6. Le Trio Joubran: The Long March
7. Urna Chahar-Tugchi featuring Kroke: Ser
8. AKA Trio: Joy
9. Vardan Hovanissian & Emre Gültekin: Karin
10. Dhafer Youssef: Sounds of Mirrors
11. Angélique Kidjo: Celia
12. Cimarrón: Orinoco
13. Oratnitza: Alter Ethno
14. The Gloaming: 3
15. Janusz Prusinowski Kompania: Po śladach / In the footsteps

 

Check the top 100 in our website
WMCE top 15
1. Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat, Kronos Quartet: Placeless
2. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
3. Dona Onete: Rebujo
4. Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
5. Salif Keita: Un autre blanc
6. Habib Koite: Kharifa
7. Boban Markovic Orkestar: Mrak
8. Lajko Felix & Vołosi: Lajko Felix & Vołosi
9. V.A.: Jambú e os Míticos Sons da Amazônia
10. Black Flower: Future Flora
11. Urna & Kroke: Ser
12. Luedji Luna: Um Corpo No Mundo
13. Aka Trio: Joy
14. Leyla McCalla: The Capitalist Blues
15. Angélique Kidjo: Celia

 

Check their top 200 in their website 
In TWMC we make some cathegories:
· Best album: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
· Best of Subsaharian Africa: Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba: Miri
· Best transregional album: Kronos Quartet, Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat: Placeless
· Best of Asia (Central & East) & Pacific: Minyo Crusaders: Echoes of Japan
· Best of Europe: Mara Aranda: Sefarad en el Corazón de Turquía
· Best of North Africa & Middle East: Le Trio Joubran: The Long March
· Best of South America: Cimarrón: Orinoco
· Best of North & Central America: Leyla McCalla: The Capitalist Blues
· Best compilation: V.A.: Nostalgique Porto Rico: Plenas, guarachas, boléros et chansons jíbaras, 1940-1960

Congratulations for the achievement! 

IN THE NEXT ISSUE…

I’ve known Ciro de Rosa for many years. We have met in delighting events like Globaltica festival in Poland or Sharq Taronalari in Uzbekistan, as well as in his own country, Italy, specifically in Sardinia, where I had the pleasure to meet also Salvatore Esposito, the founder of the initiative about which they two will explain us broadly in the next issue.Blogfoolk is an editorial project focused on world and traditional music. They release one issue each week, that includes reviews of albums, interviews chronicles of concerts and festivals… all of them available at the web. The latest issue is the #435… so you can imagine the thousands of hours of work they have behind.

I take my hat off to the team of Blogfoolk and with honour will share with the community their insight about many questions, in the first issue of the year.

Thank you, Ciro and Salvatore, receive the best wishes for 2020.

 

FIND ME AT…

Some interesting dates for the community (and where you can find me if you happened to be there, just let me know):

Mediterranean Music Festival (Zurich, Switzerland). 18th January. My first international trip of the year will be to the festival lead by Alkis Zopoglou, who is mentioned below. I will travel there with Josep Aparicio “Apa”, the Valencian superb singer of cant d’estil, and with his musicians Eduard Navarro and Toni Porcar.

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

Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! To sign up, click 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 46 stations in 17 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com. And we lead also the Asociación para la Difusión de los Estilos.

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. 

Newsletter #8 February 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música’s February monthly newsletter.

In the last edition we announced the leaving of David Ibañez from the artistic direction of the Fira Mediterrània and still today the new director is not published. We will share the news at our Facebook and our Instagram as soon as we know, so you can follow us there. The Fira is nowadays the most important fair of world music in the South of Europe, specially since Babel Med stopped after 2017’s edition. It is also a superb festival. Did you know they got the 4th position at TWMC Festival Awards? Yes, you know: we announced it in February newsletter. Application for the procedure of the Festival Awards is open.

Below, we continue the series of little interviews with festival directors and with many more useful infos for the community.

And, before, this last month many things have happened here:
· We have had the announcement of early general elections in Spain in April that, added to the local elections in May, have the country in a very volatile situation, with all the impact this has in the not-mass culture…
· We also have had back in Spain the Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, with a thrilling concert last Friday and they return next Sunday. Their 4th album, Po śladach, is haunting.
· I travelled to Switzerland for the premiere of the Mediterranean Odyssey concert, of which we’ll share videos soon. I had the luck of listening by my side one of the best singers of the world, Drosos Koutsokostas, from Rodopi Ensemble (better videos, soon).
· We’ve been also working with Spain is Music, of which you have more info below. 

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: AC/E´s application for support opens in March. New (and still) open calls. Mapamundi introduces… On tour. Mini interview with festival director: Per Idar Almås, from Førdefestivalen (Norway)

Do you like our newsletter? To sign up, click HERE.

DO YOU WANT A SPANISH ARTISTS IN YOUR PROGRAM? AC/E’S CALL FOR SUPPORT WILL BE OPEN DURING MARCH

Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) is a public entity dedicated to promoting the culture and heritage of Spain. In March they open the call to request support for the logistic expenses related to Spanish artists and experts in cultural issues, for events abroad taking place in the second half of the year.

The application must be done by the foreign institution/programmer and Mapamundi Música has supported some clients in previous editions to fullfill the procedure, that in fact is not difficult. The results are usually published quite soon (around the 3rd week of April).
We can offer you our band Vigüela (in the picture) and we can help you also if you need any other artist profile.
CALLS FOR APPLICATIONS
These professional fairs have applications open right now:
· IX Targowisko Instrumentów, Warsaw. FOR INSTRUMENTS MAKERS. The call for proposals is open until 22th of February, next Friday. Apply here.
· WOMEX. The call for proposals is open until 22th of March. Apply here.
· Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. We are still anxiously waiting for knowing who is the new artistic director. The application is open now, until 4th of March at 15h local time. Apply here.
· Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Open call for the 31st edition, until 29th of March. Apply here.
· Mundial Montreal. Open call for the 9th edition, until 1st of April. Apply here.
MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA INTRODUCES… 

Spain is Music. A new thrilling collaboration between us and this travel agency and consultancy firm is just starting. Their approach to travel design is boutique-like, totally personalized and result of a deep investigation of the most authentic experiences.

We proudly colaborate next month with them, providing a workshop of music and cooking by Vigüela for a group of Canadian travellers. In the meantime we are designing new initiatives and now I want to invite you to subscribe to their mailing list, here. You’ll get interesting tips about Spain’s music, gastronomy, rituals, festivities…

Picture: Pablo Camino, director of Spain is Music.

ON TOUR. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OUR ARTISTS TOURING IN YOUR AREA NEXT SUMMER
· Vigüela will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and in UK at the end of August and we are working on more dates and countries. Remember you can request support from AC/E for the logistic needs. In any case, if you are interested in them, just ask and we’ll make our best to reach an agreement. Remember we can offer the band alone and also the Polish-Spanish collaboration with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Maria Siwiec.
· Monsieur Doumani will be in Germany in the 3rd week of July and they have confirmed many other dates in Europe for next Summer and Autumn. Ask us. And we get them in Spain again, very soon: 2nd of April. Yeah!
· Rodopi Ensemble‘s first concert in Spain is confirmed: 18th July, in Palma de Mallorca. They are settled in Thessaloniki and available all year.
· Gulaza are constantly touring. Ask us for the date of your interest. Their showcase at WOMEX was “the most extraordinary and talked about concert in WOMEX 2018” according to BBC Sounds.
We work with more artists and special concerts and collaborations. Check them at our website.
**** 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 

 

MINI INTERVIEW WITH PER IDAR ALMÅS FROM FØRDEFESTIVALEN

Førde Traditional and World Music Festival takes place in Norway at the beginning of July in many different and beautiful locations that combine nature with traditional and modern architecture. The program is a chant for understanding and always includes a huge variety of proposals. The festival has had Hilde Bjørkum as artistic director until the edition of 2019, that happens to be the 30th anniversary of the festival. Congratulations, team! The artistic director now is Per Idar Almås, who has been working at the Bergen International Festival and as artistic director in a chamber music festival near Førde. We wish him a super nice experience and joys in this important position. Hilde continues supporting the festival in special projects. Both of them are in the picture, taken from her facebook profile. The answers to the questions are by Per.

Thank you, Per, for your answers, thank you, Hilde, for your vision along these years.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you program? 
PIA –  We are searching for quality and uniqueness for all artists coming to our festival. Also, each year we are having a festival theme, and it’s a goal to have artists connected to that as well.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
PIA – Førdefestivalen wants to have artists from all over the world represented at our festival. It’s a very important thing for us to present international traditional music to our audience as well as our own traditonal music. It is getting more and more important with cultural understanding and exchange in this world, to break down boundaries and walls (our theme this year is “30 years without borders”).

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
PIA – For the programming it is always a challenge to find the right mix of artists on the program, as there is so many good artists out there that we would love to present. We have so many artists who would like to come that we can`t even answer them all, unfortunately.MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours? 
PIA – One thing that we have done in Førde in the past and that has become a bit more difficult in Norway now, is to get funding for youth exchange programs for Norwegian and international young musicians, which is sad because I really believe in the value of this concept. We are working on finding ways to do it, and I hope we soon can do this again.MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival. 
PIA – For one week in July the small city of Førde invites the world to town, with the best artists, the best music, the most beutiful nature and we’ll do our best to be the best hosts possible. Welcome!

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 46 stations in 17 countries). We produce the Transglobal World Music Chart with our partner Ángel Romero from WorldMusicCentral.com. And we lead also the Asociación para la Difusión de los Estilos.

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.