Tag Archives: Vigüela

And now from Spain, some musical joy for Christmas and the best wishes! A carol by Vigüela for you.

In the post with the song Dunaj by Janusz Prusinowski (you can read it again here) I told you that it was my first season’s greeting. Because here you are the second one! ✌️

Yesterday I was in El Carpio de Tajo, the village where most of the vigüelis are settled and where the band was born, to make some videos for a documentary film and, after the serious work, we had time to sing together a little. And now I share this moment with you, from the intimate environment of their rehearsal room. If you need anything else about Vigüela, just let me know.
? This carol you have below is probably the most popular in Spain. The video below has subtitles in English for the lyrics.
.

At the end of the song you see a change of concept, let’s say: it starts talking directly to the woman who is listening, who is told that she does not look stingy. This is because this song, and many others, are sung from house to house, requesting the inhabitants to come out and give something to eat or a coin to those who are singing. This custom of requesting from house to house in exchange for the song is called to “request the aguinaldo“, or “aguilando“, depending on the region.

¡Feliz Navidad!

Araceli Tzigane | Mapamundi Música

Magazine #28 October’20 – Mera Festival, World Music Lab Italy, a success story and +

Summary ? 

  • Mini interviews with festival manager: András Bethlendi from Mera World Music Festival (continuing the series of interviews about challenges for festivals and about MOST Music participants)
  • In deep with World Music Lab Italy, by Eric E. van Monckhoven
  • Transferring the emotion of the contact with the public to an online environment: our experience of Conciertajo, by Vigüela + Mapamundi. – Don’t miss to read this, because I reveal bellow all we did and I am available for any questions – 
  • News from the charts and sister projects
  • What’s next?

How are you? Until not so many weeks ago I was planining to be in Budapest right now. You too? Instead, I am in my confined city, Alcorcón. This is the week of Womex, a special moment in the year, after Fira Mediterrània. Very sad in these circumstances ?

However, life goes on and, before paying attention to other colleagues’ iniatives, in this edition I illustrate this editorial not with a portrait of me, but with a moment of the Conciertajo, the online live interactive event we made last Saturday with Vigüela for International Labour Organization. Click the picture to see the event. It has been a thrilling success that deserves to be explained in more detail ✌️. I reveal it all for you more below.

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

Contact me. 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 during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>

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

Subscription is available here.

CURRENT AND FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR FESTIVALS 

This festival that is our focus today is also included in the project MOST, about which I talked in a previous issue. Other interviews with festivals involved in this project are:
And from before, they were also interviews these directors of festivals also included in MOST:

MINI INTERVIEW WITH ANDRÁS BETHLENDI FROM THE MERA WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL (MERA, ROMANIA) 

You’ll see below an aerial image of the location of Mera World Music Festival, in the Romanian location of Mera, very near to the airport of Cluj-Napoja. I think that picture includes around 1/4 of the village. It is a very little village that you can visit right now in Google Maps street view ?. I am writting this words from a confined city, at least until next Friday. I have never been there in the flesh and I think it is really appealing, a festival that has a global focus and that, at the same time, enhances the value of the local culture, which music is distinctive and captivating.

As the world overcomes this situation, let’s talk to András about their festival, how it has been affected, and let’s wish they will be able to make a full edition in 2021.

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

András Bethlendi –  Méra World Music Festival is an international world music festival with an acknowledged focus on local music. Therefore, on one hand, we are looking for local artists who can play the traditional music from Transylvania or Romania, on the other hand, we are looking for artists from abroad who can play authentic folk music or music inspired from their local musical traditions.

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
AB – We have multiple universal objectives. On the international level, we try to show the rich folk culture of Méra and the region of Kalotaszeg/Țara Călatei to the world. Therefore on this level, we are the global promoters of this region. On a local level, we believe that through our project we can empower the local culture, and we can form the taste of the youngest generation to the benefit of the local community and culture.

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival?
AB – We are a small festival with a tiny budget, so it is challenging to find those international artists, who are so much attracted by the magic of our barn stage, that decide to participate in our festival despite the modest fee what we can offer.

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
AB – COVID-19 has changed the rules by which cultural management works nowadays. The biggest challenge is to recalibrate our project in a way which makes possible to organise the next edition.

MM – In one sentence, summarize the reason/s to go to your festival.
AB – In Méra World Music while you can get engaged to the local culture of Transylvania in its most pure form, you will also have the opportunity to dance to Latin-American or African beats.

MM – What has happened with Mera 2020 in the current situation of the pandemic?
AB – Because of the global pandemic, the Festival couldn’t be organised in August as we wished originally. Though, in September we organised a lite edition of it, called Méra World Music LITE, with 100 participants per day.

Credits:

  • The portrait of András is one of his facebook profiles, credited to Bethlendi Tamás
  • The logo is from their facebook site
  • The other pictures are from the website of the festival

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

ABOUT WORLD MUSIC LAB ITALY, IN DEEP WITH ERIC E. VAN MONCKHOVEN (MUSIC4YOU)

Eric is a Belgian settled in Sicily, founder of the agency Music4you. He is one of the regulars at Womex and other events, so you might have met him.

The last time we met was in Brussels at the meeting of the European Folk Network, last November. He is the kind of profile with whom I can feel more or less identified: an independent agent working from a country of the South of Europe facing many difficulties and surpassing them with courage.

He contacted me in July with the idea of translating some of the content from Mapamundi Música’s monthly newsletter into the Italian in his new initative: World Music Lab Italy. I welcomed the idea with open arms and the first one has been the interview with Olivier Rey from Babel Music XP, that you can read here in English and now also here in Italian.

I am very happy that Eric wanted to share this content to make it easier for the Italian community of world music. And I though his World Music Lab Italy deserves more attention too. So find here below a little interview about it.

Mapamundi Música – What is WorldMusicLab?
Eric Van Monckhoven – World Music Lab is a combination of two concepts: World Music & Business Lab. Many artists, including those involved with world music (world, folk, roots, trad, ethnic, etc.), do not see their activity as a business. They don’t easily understand that accepting to become an entrepreneur or making a living with their music shall not automatically transform them into greedy capitalists. Very few artists make a living being only “creators”.
If you’re not sponsored by someone or some institution, you need to access the market, distribute your products and services and sell them to be able to pay your bill at the end of the months. This is an integral part of today’s musician job. You can always dream that a label or an agent shall make the work for you, but this will not happen easily, unless you already have some reputation. And when it happens, if you don’t know anything about contracts, sales, production, etc. you might go the wrong way.
.
“Many artists, including those involved with world music, do not see their activity as a business.”

The main idea behind World Music Lab is to help artists become their own bosses, get acquainted with the business side of their activity and be able to create a blueprint that works for them. For us this means “education and training”.World Music Lab is still a very small baby. We have to assess the artists’ needs, and also test and validate the idea and concept. It all starts with Italy because I’m based in Sicily.

Mapamundi Música –  Why did it start?
EVM – It started during the covid-19 crisis. In March, I was in lockdown and I saw that I could not go anywhere with my activity as a booking agent. I had to look into a new direction that was not too far from what I’m doing as an agent. By experience, I know that artists do not get proper training in “musician business”. Most of the time, they have good artistic proposals (not always), but they don’t know how to market and sell them. In the end, much of my job has to do with coaching the artists with whom I’m collaborating, give them a blueprint to develop their career, and help them get to the next level.

In Italy, very little is done in such a direction. Of course, I might be wrong because I’m not involved that much with the music sector in Italy. But it looks to me that music schools do not train artists in the music business. There are some master courses at the university level, etc. but the approach is very academic and it’s not for everyone. I’ve always been interested in capacity building and action-learning. Action-learning tackles problems through a process of first asking questions to clarify the exact nature of the problem, reflecting and identifying possible solutions, and only then taking action.

“Much of my job has to do with coaching the artists with whom I’m collaborating, give them a blueprint to develop their career, and help them get to the next level.”

Italy is a big country and there is no true effort to support music creators at large. Some music genres are supported, but when it comes to world music, much is left to the artists themselves and the private initiative. Nothing to compare with what happens in France or Scandinavia, to say something.The year 2017 saw the birth of Italian World Beat (IWB), a new brand and platform to promote the Italian world music sector, in particular at regional and international events like Babel Med Music, Womex, Visa for Music, etc. The idea came from two music professionals who put their own money, contacts, and experience in the project to bring under one roof artists, festivals, venues, labels, etc. representative of the sector. The result was amazing and highly welcome by the international world music community.

However, much work still needs to be done in Italy to strengthen the sector, especially at the “grassroots” level with the artists. World Music Lab-Italy can be seen as a startup project of IWB, even if we have not formalized it yet because of the situation of emergency imposed by the novel coronavirus. But we shall meet soon and see what steps can be taken together to put the project forward.

Mapamundi Música –  What are the services that you offer?
EVM – At this pre-startup stage, we are offering a basic information service through our blog/website (beta version) and facebook page. We also have a monthly newsletter and we have published two mini-guides: the first one deals with the use of VirtualWomex and the second one is introducing the artists to the European showcase festivals, which are good places to market themselves, grow their list of contacts, etc. All the information is available in Italian because the use of English is a real barrier for many Italians.

Mapamundi Música –  What are the future plans?
EVM – We hope to become a training provider for world music artists (both online and offline), with a specific focus on business and digital education, and internationalization (music export). This of course does not mean that we’ll need to create all the courses and learning paths ourselves. We’ll have to build working partnerships with various stakeholders. There are already a lot of valid contents available on the internet produced by artists and professionals on how musicians can run their own business and benefit from various income streams. Here again, the main issue is the language. Most of what is available is in English.

“We’ll have to build working partnerships with various stakeholders.”

But without looking so far, our future plan is to run some workshops in various Italian cities to discuss the project with the potential beneficiaries, scout their needs, collect their ideas, and check their interest. We had planned to run such workshops earlier this year but the covid crisis has forced us to slow down our enthusiasm. And while many things can be done online, I believe strongly in face-to-face meetings.

We are also working on a short introductory course that shall explore some important issues: how the music industry is changing in the digital age? What does that mean for independent artists? How to build a personal brand? How to find a niche and grow a fanbase? Based on the participation in the introductory course, artists could choose to enter a kind of startup acceleration program or more conventional blended education programs on specific topic (music marketing & promotion, production, etc.).

.

Mapamundi Música –  Who are you and what else do you do (related to music)?
EVM – I’m originally from Belgium but I feel to be a citizen of the world. For almost 40 years I have helped local communities, social enterprises, non-profit organizations all over the world as an eco-social consultant and grant writer.

Besides that, I have always had a strong passion for music. But I’m not a musician. In every country I visited – in Africa, the Mediterranean, Finland, Canada, Brazil, Indonesia – I’ve been impressed by the diversity and richness of local cultural and musical traditions. I decided to bring my own contribution and started Music4You to promote some artists with whom I have a special feeling and affinity and find them gig opportunities. My motto is “Live Music with Roots”. Of course, this was before Covid-19.

Credits:

  • Portrait of Eric, provided by him
  • World Music Lab Italy logo, from the site at Facebook
  • Banner from the Facebook cover of Musci4you
Forward to a friend right from here Forward to a friend right from here

TRANSFERRING THE EMOTION OF THE CONTACT WITH THE PUBLIC TO AN ONLINE ENVIRONMENT: OUR EXPERIENCE OF CONCIERTAJO, BY VIGÜELA + MAPAMUNDI

In the previous edition I talked about our plan for this online event, Conciertajo.com. It has been part of LaborArte festival, by the Spanish office of the International Labour Organization (ILO). 

It took place the last Saturday and I think it was a success in various aspects. The main one is that we got to transfer the emotion of the direct contact with the public, to an online environment. How did we get that? There are several features that allowed us to get that:

  • For one month we developed the engagement of the public. We provided them several ways for the participation in the creation of the lyrics. We have been publishing special videos done with lyrics that were sent by the followers or that have been created about the topics that are relevant for them (confinement, health workers, masks, the situation of the cultural workers, the shocking news about our crown…). Check the videos here.
  • We made a contest of stories. The one that won is a portrait of Andrés José, a Colombian immigrant in Valencia, who ends up working as a delivery man on a bicycle to support his family (parents and two younger sisters). The first day he works on that, his little sister is very happy because he comes back home very early: his bicycle has been stolen. Juan Antonio Torres made it in shape of a romance with the zambomba. Check it here.
  • Some more videos were made for media friends, like WorldMusicCentral and Mundofonías.
  • During the event I was presenting, explaining the band the requests and comments from the chat and chatting with the public.
  • Of the repertoire for an event of two hours it was prefixed only the 4 first pieces and the very last one. Between that, that band sang about the topics that the public was asking, using the traditional styles (jota, several variants of fandango, seguidilla, son). For this, we prepared more than 100 new couplets organiced in the main topics of our nowadays and of the field of world of ILO. And the band decided the specific style to apply to those lyrics in that very moment.
  • All this was accompained by a campaign of advertisements in Youtube, Facebook, TikTok and Spotify.
  • The technical part was very professional, the responsible of video was Jaime Massieu and the sound engineer was Toni Quintana. The location is so nice that it looks like a ethnography museum but it is not: it was Juan Antonio Torres’ house in El Carpio de Tajo.

NEWS FROM THE CHARTS AND SISTER PROJECTS

Some brief news from some of the world music charts:

  • Transglobal World Music Chart turns 5 years old! Happy birthday to my partners, founders and administrators, Juan Antonio Vázquez and Ángel Romero! And thanks and congratulations to all the panelists! We are 59 people, quite diverse, I think. Nevertheless we have the objective of increasing that diversity, specially from the regions that are still underrepresented.
  • A big change is announced from World Music Charts Europe. After so many years of work, Johannes Theurer passes the baton to Milan Tesař, music director in Radio Proglas, from Brno, in Czech Republic. Congratulations, Milan! 
  • Balkan World Music Chart is now in Facebook. Visit the site here.
About Mundofonías, our monthly favourites are the last albums by Sandeep Das & The Hum Ensemble, Dembo Konte & Kausu Kuyateh and Yukihiro Atsumi. For some weeks now the radio show is been broadcasted in Radio Universidade de Coimbra, in Portugal. It is a big joy to reach more friends in my beloved Portugal. 

WHAT’S NEXT?

Yes, this is the week of Womex so you are more than aware. More dates to write down:

  • On 5th November I will participate in Noam Vazana‘s proyect of interviews in the frame of her Why DIY initiative. I am proud for being considered interesting enough to be in this list of interviewed that includes, between many others, Davide Mancini (check also my interview with him about the festival Musicastrada, here), Minna Huuskonen, Martyna Markowska or Balázs Weyer.
  • Mundial Montreal will host a special edition, online too, on November 23-24. It will be the 10th edition of this meeting / festival.  
  • Before Babel Music XP. The previous online event, wishing that the Babel Music XP in flesh will be possible in March 2021, will take place on November 26-27. Remember that there is an interview with Olivier Rey from Babel Music XP, here.
Forward to a friend right from here Forward to a friend right from 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 49 stations in 18 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. 

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

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

 

Conciertajo.com in WorldMusicCentral.com

“Vigüela to Interact with Audience in Conciertajo, Send your Couplets and Tales”. This is the beginning of the report about Conciertajo.com in World Music Central. Read it all, including some statements by Araceli Tzigane and by Juan Antonio Torres, the musical director of the band, in the web or here below. Thank you very much, Ángel!!!

Magazine #27 September’20 – Brave answers to our common challenge by AMP Concerts, Sori Festival, charts time and +

Brave answers to our common challenge

How are you? I hope well. In this edition we’ll pay attention to some ways of facing the current challenge for our activities of live music as well as to some interesting dates for our community. 

I am contacting you from El Carpio de Tajo, Vigüela‘s village. Tomorrow, Wednesday 16th, it will be the online opening gala concert of Jeonju Intl’ Sori Festival. For some days we are working in the preparation, making technical checks and rehearsals. 9 bands from different countries and from their locations will play together. Yes, together! Check the details below. This is one of the creative responses to the situation we are facing.

The Spanish office of the International Labour Organization has provided us the chance to make a virtue of necessity. On October 17th we have an online event that will be the culmination of one month of participation of the public in the design of a concert in which the repertoire is created with their direct support. Learn more below too.

Neal Copperman, from AMP Concerts, explains us how they are keeping the activity, with live offline events too. I find their experience very inspiring!

And sadly, WOMEX had to announce the decision of cancelling the on-site event and the change into an online event. I am curious to see what they surprise us with.

Meanwhile, I really miss our old normality. Some drops of hope take place day by day. The new tour Klangkosmos, the first one after the beginning of the pandemic, organized by alba Kultur in North Rhine-Westphalia, is taking place and, so far, it is going well. The band on tour is Haratago, from Iparralde (North Basque Country). You can learn more about Birgit Ellinghaus, director of alba Kultur, on this edition.

Do you want to share any useful experience you have had during this difficult time or another content relevant for our community of the global music? Contact me. 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 during the reading you can listen to some great music by our artists collaborators –>
–
Araceli Tzigane | info@mundimapa.com | +34 676 30 28 82 
Subscription is available here.
Summary: 
· And more difficult still: 9 artists from 9 locations, playing together for Sori Festival’s gala concert
· Rethinking the program, with Neal Copperman from AMP Concerts
· Our value proposal or how to make virtue from the neccesity. The online event for ILO by Vigüela + Mapamundi 
· Interesting dates
· News from our sister projects

AND MORE DIFFICULT STILL!!! 

9 artists from 9 locations will play together online for the Sori Festival’s Opening Gala. Tomorrow, Wednesday, at 19:40 UTC+9 

This issue of the monthly magazine has as the main topic the bravity of our community when facing the situation that is making our lifes and works so complicated.

This morning I found this picture in Facebook. The team of Sori Festival, in South Korea, are preparing for the online gala concert that will take place on Wednesday. I have been directly involved so I know for how long all this has been organiced to make it possible. 9 artists, from their locations, will play together, listening to each others. It will be not just a succession of performances. The show can be watched from the festival’s Youtube channel.


The artists will be: Khoomei Beat (Tuva Republic, Russia), ESSE-Quintet (St. Petersburg,  Russia), Sebastian Gramss (Germany), Cube Band (Taiwan), Constantinople (Canada, Iran), Vigüela (Spain), Toine Thys’ Overseas (Belgium, Egypt,  Luxembourg, Brazil), Boi Akih Duo (Netherlands), Imran Khan & Naim Khan (India), 2020 Sori Festival Sinawi (South Korea).

RETHINKING THE PROGRAM FOR THE NEW CHALLENGE WITH NEAL COPPERMAN FROM AMP CONCERTS

You might already know Neal Copperman. He is one of the usual attendants of Womex as well as co-director of Globalquerque! for years, as well as director of AMP Concerts, the non-profit organization that has keep going on many activities despite the pandemics, in their state of New Mexico. In this meaningful interview he explaines more about their usual activities and the current ones they are developing in the context of the pandemic. Really thrilling! 

Mapamundi Música: Thanks for taking the time to chat with me Neal. Can you quickly introduce yourself? 

Neal Copperman: It’s always nice to chat with you Araceli. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing you at WOMEX this year!

I’m the founder and executive director of AMP Concerts. We are a non-profit that presents events across the state of New Mexico, in the United States. In a usual year, we put on over 200 events, ranging from free monthly events in the local libraries to large outdoor concerts for 8,000 people. And everything in between. We do not have our own venue and rent spaces of all sizes across the state, whatever makes sense for the event. A third of our programs are free, and we have a nice mix of school programs, workshops and residencies too.

MM: I think in your region the pandemic didn’t affect that much as in other places of the USA, did it?

NC: New Mexico is pretty isolated. With small populations and spread out population centers. And our Governor was once the Secretary of Health for New Mexico. As soon as things started to go South, she took it very seriously and has never let go. Sometimes that is frustrating, but mostly we support her efforts to keep our community safe. We are surrounded by some states with really terrible statistics, like Arizona and Texas. The other good thing about New Mexico is that we can go outside. We have mountains that rise out of my city that I can get to the top of within an hour. I can go on great bike rides.

MM: Despite the situation you have been able to do some nice things, haven’t you? Please, tell us what you’ve been doing during the pandemic.

NC: Obviously none of the things we usually do have been possible since March. We’ve been constantly reinventing ourselves, coming up with new programs and activities to bring music and arts to people virtually, keep local musicians employed and just stay connected with our community.

We started streaming as soon as the pandemic shut down our shows and have presented 20 streaming events. We film them in closed theaters, outdoor spaces and my favorite – the socially distanced neighborhood block party, where audiences watch from their porch, front yard or driveway. The musicians usually live on the same block, so it’s a real gift from the musicians to their neighbors.

We have also produced a community art contest (Art As Antibodies), a series of single song videos in iconic locations around Santa Fe (Postcards from Santa Fe) and we are in the midst of a run of drive-in shows on an equestrian center’s polo field.

HIPICO Santa Fe drive-in concert venue ?

MM: How are you managing to keep the finances alive within the company? Are you managing to make these initiatives profitable or at least, not losing money with them?

NC: That is an excellent question. Sadly, what we are doing is not a viable business model. We think it’s important and we are working super hard to stay active and engaged, but without putting on viable concerts, we don’t have any regular business income.

We successfully grabbed a number of bailout and emergency funding opportunities. The government issued a loan that you don’t have to pay back if you use it all for payroll, so we got that and it was 2.5 months of payroll.

We got emergency grants from a City arts fund and from the National Endowment for the Arts.

We also reached out to some historical funders the first week of the pandemic and said – Look, things are falling apart and no one knows what is going to happen. But we are primed and ready to make interesting things happen in the community regardless of the limitations, and we will pay local artists and keep people employed. Anything you can give us will help us make that happen. And one funder (who had actually cut our funding) gave us $5K, which is what we started with. And the City gave us $12K to do virtual programs.

Some projects cost very little. Like the art competition. We gave out $2,000 in cash prizes, but I think it would have been just as successful had we just given out donated prizes. Beside the $2K in prizes, it probably only cost a few hundred dollars.

We cut staff salaries at the higher levels by 40% and at the lower levels by 10%.

Most of the live streams do not pay for themselves. But we use the money that we raise, alongside audience donations, to help cover the costs.

The Drive-Ins are the most expensive projects. They cost upwards of $15K night. They are not paying for themselves either. However, we would usually do a free concert and movie series all summer. We raise enough money in sponsorships to pay for that project. Since it didn’t happen this year, we asked our main sponsors if we could roll their money into other projects and they have been cool with that.

One of the Postcards from Santa Fe ?

So half of one sponsorship covered the single-song video series Postcards from Santa Fe.

The remaining sponsorships we are using towards the Drive-Ins. We are hopeful that some of the Drive-Ins will pay for themselves. But we are able to make up the difference right now too.

We take donations on top of everything we do, and people have been pretty generous with that.

We have probably paid over $30K to local artists and $10K to local tech people since the pandemic started. I’m pretty happy about that!

I did leave Globalquerque! – the world music festival that I helped found and run for the last 15 years. It wasn’t going to happen this year anyway and I decided to focus my energy full time in making my company be as vibrant as possible during the pandemic and poised to come out the other side once it was done. But that was a bittersweet decision. I might not feel it so much this fall, but I’ll probably feel it a lot more next year!

Reminder of voting time for proyect Art as Antibodies ?
MM: I interviewed Tom Frouge in a previous edition of this magazine about Globalquerque!. Will he continue working on it?

NC: Tom will continue to work on ¡Globalquerque!. He’s now the main person in charge. Before it was just the two of us.

MM: I think our community are people used to facing complications and we are also quite stubborn because we have a strong vision that allows us to pursue our dreams despite the obstacles.

NC: That is totally true! We are dedicated and passionate! And most of our job is problem solving and figuring how to make impossible things happen 🙂

Check also these links related to the conversation:

Credits:
  • The portraits of Neal are provided by himself.
  • Hipico venue, Carlos Medina’s Postcards from Santa Fe flyer, Art as Antibodies flyer, from the Facebook page of AMP Concerts.
**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****

 The series of Challenges for the festivals will continue soon

VIRTUE FROM NECESSITY. OUR ONLINE EVENT WITH A TWIST

Technology can be not only a way to reach our audience from a screen but also to engage them in the artistic creation itself. Let me explain you our value proposal for the festival Laborarte.  

For some years, the office for Spain of the International Labour Organization has been doing the festival Laborarte (you can guess it is a game of words with labor -work- and arte -art-) in Madrid. It used to include conferences, concerts and exhibitions.

The director of the office has had in mind for some time to book Vigüela for 2020 its edition. In 2019 the festival didn’t take place. In the picture you see a frame of the 2018 promo video.

Considering the current situation, already in May he asked us a proposal for an online event for Laborarte. But he didn’t want just a concert in streaming. He wanted something else. What? That was his challenge: something online different than a streaming.

We started to reflect on how can we use the technology to strengthen our value proposal, taking into account the artistic possibilities of the music we work with. Popular music that has given the voice to the people by channelling their claims, needs and complaints of their daily life. So let’s give the voice to the people! With this idea in mind we decided to develope three ways of collaboration by the public, two previous and one during the event:

  • Survey to check the most relevant topics nowadays for our public, in the field of labour. We are now dealing with the tele-work, working from home with kids, temporary layoff, physical conditions of isolation at work, 8 hours at work with the mask, reaching the work place by subway during a pandemic… Which are the topics that produce more headaches to our public? The results will feed the band to create new lyrics about the most relevant ones. The lyrics in the music styles of jota, fandango and seguidilla are couplets. In just four verses you transmit a strong idea. 
  • Contest of life stories related to work. In a short text (300 words), any person can submit a life story, real or invented. A professional jury of journalists will chose the best one, that will become a song in shape of romance, the term used for story telling songs in Spanish tradition.
  • During the event, there will be time for performing the results of the previous tools as well as some free time in which the band will improvise about the topics that the public requested in the chat. Musicians has been always at the service of the clients, as in any other profession. Do you want us to dedicate a song to you mom? Do you want us to sing about flirting in mask times? About the Sunday blues? Tell us! 

We have set up the website www.conciertajo.com (Tajo is the river that passes by the village and tajo is an informal way of saying work in Spain) to collect all the infos and participation tools.

Of course, all this is not possible without a band that is open to do any crazy and demanding idea and of an organization like ILO Spain that has trusted us. We’ll find out soon how does all it result ?.

INTERESTING DATES

Hundreds of online events are taking place this season and many are really appealing. For instance: 

  • Arts Midwest + Western Arts Alliance 2020 Conference. October 6-9. Described as “a four-day virtual convening to hear from thought leaders, gather new ideas, connect with colleagues, and map a way forward.” The registration for professionals is open, here.
  • Fira Mediterrània de Manresa. October 13-18. This year it will combine on site and online activities. The registration for professionals is open, here.
  • And, ehem, a moment for self-promotion. On 5th November I will participate in Noam Vazana‘s proyect of interviews in the frame of her Why DIY initiative. I am proud for being considered interesting enough to be in this list of interviewed that includes, between many others, Davide Mancini (check also my interview with him about the festival Musicastrada, here), Minna Huuskonen, Martyna Markowska or Balázs Weyer. 
  • Global Music Month 2020. The team of BU Global Music Festival will host the program of day 1st October, as a part of Global Music Month 2020, “with 19 festivals and presenters from the US and Canada joining together for a month of online celebration of music from around the world, from August 29 to October 1.” So, we are in that month. Check the complete program here. You can read the interview with Marié Abe from the BU Global Music Festival made at the beginning of the pandemic in Europe, here.

NEWS FROM SISTER PROJECTS + CHART TIME

Two brief news from Transglobal World Music Chart of enough interest to share with all the colleagues and friends:

  • A step to break the language barrier by TWMC: “For around three weeks now, if you access the website, it now includes a plugin to translate the website automatically to all the languages included in Google translator. It is very intuitive to use and shows clearly our intention to be open to other languages. The Album Submissions page has also been edited to reflect this approach. Nowadays, technology allows us to resolve this situation, not perfectly but reasonably. We expect that the most internationally-oriented producers will continue communicating in English but now we can also welcome others that don’t have those skills and might be producing musical jewels that wouldn’t reach us if they had to communicate in English.”
  • The Best TWMC albums of 2019-2020 Season are here! Congratulations for the great work, artists, producers, panelists! Check the link to read about the change of period for the annual chart.

About Mundofonías, we have re-started the activity after a break in August and our monthly favourites are the last albums by Khusugtun, Trio Tekke and L’Attirail.

Juan Antonio Vázquez re-starts A La Fuente, for Radio Clásica-RNE, in October. In the meantime, during July-September, his work for that station has been La Ruta de las Especias.

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 49 stations in 18 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. 

Would you like to travel to South Korea? Vigüela would have gone… In the meantime, let me tell you a Korean tale

Would you like to travel to South Korea?
Vigüela would have gone to perform there for their first time…  For now, it will have to be through the wire.

In the meantime, let me tell you a Korean tale ?

Hello, how are you? I hope well!

This year Vigüela, like most of us, has lost the chance to do many wonderful things, like playing for the first time in Greece and to debut in South Korea. But, they will share a very special moment with the oustanding Jeonju International Sori Festival. Enter our Facebook that day September 16th at about 12 noon (CET) to see us! There will be 9 artists from different countries.

And the promised tale? Yes, yes, under the video ? and, before, a little bit of context:

The name of the festival comes from the tradition of Pansori. What is Pansori? You might know already. Very brieftly, it is a collection of epic stories that are sung by one singer and accompanied only by subtle percussion. The percussionist pulls and responds in a very punctual manner. As you will see in the video below, the person singing also performs the song as an actor or actress. He or she carries a fan in the right hand and a handkerchief in the left, used to represent the objects that are been talked about.

A small set of Pansori has been preserved, and there are five of them that are almost always sung. But keep in mind that each Pansori can last up to 5 hours! 5️⃣ It is a very difficult art and there are artists who specialize in only one of the Pansori.

Click on the image to see the video!

A part of Pansori Chunhyangga, by Kim Myeongsin & Jeong Sanghee  

The promised Korean tale:

And what does this Pansori in the video talk about? Ohhh, it’s a love story ? between the daughter of a retired courtesan, Ch’unhyang, and Yi, the son of an aristocrat with a position as a magistrate in the city. But, oh, their love is impossible because they are from different classes. So they marry in secret ?.

But soon the boy’s father is sent to the capital to work and the boy has to accompany him. The new magistrate who comes to replace Yi’s father, has a craving with the girl. And, as she rejects him, he imprisons her. The magistrate says that if she does not agree to his desires, he will kill her ?.

What do you think that will happen? Will there be a happy ending or will it be a tragedy? Arg, what a lot of anxiety! Let’s go on!
.

But, in the meantime, Yi has been hired as ? a secret inspector to investigate the complaints about the evil magistrate. He arrives in town in disguise and no one recognizes him. He goes to the jail and she doesn’t recognize him. So Yi lets the girl know who is he. She is already desperate and says that he will not be able to save her: tomorrow is the day of the execution. But that night there is a party and Yi comes. There at the party he is requested to compose and recite a poem, and he does. The poem tells the crimes of the magistrate to the attendants of the party. He is then arrested and Ch’unhyang is released. Yi and Ch’unhyang will get married, this time publicly. ? Long live life and long live love!

Remember: on September 16th, visit the Facebook page of the festival or of Vigüela at around 12 noon (Central European Time) to attend the online gala concert with 9 artists from different countries! Before that, feel free to watch also this recent video by Vigüela in an intimate moment:

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I loved writing it for you.

Vigüela at the Jeonju International Sori Festival, South Korea

The pandemic didn’t allow us to travel to Jeonju, but anyway, Vigüela will have the joy of participating in the Gala of the Jeonju International Sori Festival.

I was there the last year with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabate and it was an amazing experience.

In this occasion we will count on Toni Quintana, from Jennyrecords, who has been Vigüela’s sound engineer for the last albums, and Jaime Massieu, in charge of the video, with whom we have also collaborated before.

This video below is just a little advance to greet our future public from Jeonju, recorded and subtitled by me (Araceli Tzigane):

The subtle eroticism of traditional Central Iberian music in this son, by Vigüela

Wage claims, feminism and sublimated eroticism in the Central Iberian musical tradition

Translating lyrics from the traditional village music is a challenge. Nevertheless I think it is worth the effort when it is to share lyrics like these. In the video below you have the piece with the subtitles. And the truth is that the message is quite clear and, at the same time, it is said very elegantly.

In the center of Spain there is a music style that is even more unknown than jota, rarely performed nowadays, because few people know the languaje: it is the son.

About jota, we have something ready with the basics, specifically for non Spanish people, here. Like the jota, son is improvised combining melodies from a body of guiding melodies from the people, that are in the personal baggage of the singer. The singer redress the melody in real time. The same happens with the lyrics. The shape of the son allows the group to sing together, as it includes repetitions, so anybody can join to sing in that part.

And it is a huge body of lyrics, most of them short, than can be combined to produce the messages you want. There is also a massive amount of enchanting melodies with an ancient bewitching sound.

Son is performed mainly with percussion and voices. A light accompaniment with string on drone, with the rabel (rebec), can be included. In the picture above you see some instruments used for the son: frying pan, saucepan, mortar, cañera, zambomba, frame drum, bladder rebec.

If there are plunged strings, they are used like percussion, because son is modal, not tonal. The drone can be provided also by the zambomba, that is tuned. In this piece below, the singers sing in several different tones, all of them are allowed by the armonics of the zambomba. Despite being a percussion instrument, zambomba can be tuned to produce the armonics you want.

Vigüela are preparing their new album, which will include some sones. In the meantime, you can listen to this piece that we recorded last Tuesday. 

Araceli Tzigane, Mapamundi Música, Spain. +34 676302882 

Magazine #20 February 2020

Mini-interview with Georgia Dötzer from Rialto WM Festival, Birgit Ellinghaus, open calls and +

 

What to do now better than listening great music while reading this magazine, made by us and for us, the community of world / folk / traditional music all over the world? I am Araceli Tzigane. Accompany your reading with our playlist! You know: just click the logo –>.

So, welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s magazine, issue #20! I will not enlarge any further this intro, as the content below is gold.

Just remember: any suggestion of contents for the next editions? Let us know. And if you like this, 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: 

· Job announcement from Global Fest
· Open calls not to miss
· Mini interview with festival manager: Georgia Dötzer from Rialto World Music Festival (Cyprus)
· In deep with Birgit Ellinghaus from alba KULTUR
· Don’t miss our Spanish acts recommended by AECID
· One of our latests achievements, I have to share this ?
· Find me at…
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

GLOBAL FEST SEARCHES FOR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Global Fest is a music platform with many activities. One of them is the festival they hold in New York in January.

There want to fill a job vacancy that is a new position for their organization. A full-time position to start in April 2020. Its responsibilities include fundraising, development and expansion of the board of directors, developing and renewing relationships with prospective funders and sponsors, etc. To learn more and to apply, click here.

OPEN CALLS

Transglobal World Music Chart Festival Awards. This is open all the year but note that some time in advance of your festival is needed to find the evaluator. This award’s proceduce needs the attendance of a person in your event: one of the panelists or an independent journalist or person of culture. Check the link and send any questions, also in answer to this email as I am the coordinator of this award.

 

Mundial Montreal (Canada). Open until 1st April. Its 10th edition will take place from 17th to 20th of November. The official selection includes around 30 artists to play in showcases of 25 minutes. Delegates from all the continents use to attend. 

 

Mercat de Música Viva de Vic. Open until 31st March. Its edition 32 will take place from 16th to 19th of September in the Catalan city of Vic. It includes around 60 showcases and a bunch of concerts are selected for the “festival” format (the rest are fair showcases for professionals).

 

WOMEX (this year, in Budapest). Open until 13th March. This is the referential fair for world music, with around 3 thousand delegates every year. I think Womex is really known by the 99,99 %.

 

**** 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 GEORGIA DÖTZER FROM RIALTO WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL

Limassol, at the South of the island of Cyprus, and July… The idea that comes to the mind is hot Sun, beach, roasted halloumi cheese with frozen white wine… and, for the past 14 years, also world music! Yes, because Rialto World Music Festival in been held in Limassol since 2006.

It started as a series of events dedicated to diversity and tolerance and now, in 2020, it will become 15! I want to congratulate Ms. Georgia Dötzer, the “mastermind behind the success of Rialto World Music Festival” in words of her compatriot Antonis Antoniou, from Monsieur Doumani, and the team. Many more to come, Ms. Dötzer! In the meantime, let me share some of your insights.

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? 
GD: The quality, the different sound, the uniqueness and the attractive stage performance.

 

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?
GD: To highlight the diverse and rich universe of the world music. To promote the common elements and the differences in music, as a universal language connecting people. In this framework also to promote Cyprus and our festival as a bridge between them.

 

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
GD: The promotion and the right communication of the ensembles and their music, especially when they are not quite known.

 

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?
GD: Of course the high flight cost of the groups from abroad. Also to attract young audiences and to broaden the existing one. To make the festival more attractive for the tourists and visitors of Cyprus.

 

MM – In one sentence, summarise the reason/s to go to your festival. 
GD:  To listen, meet and get to know groups and musicians who share a rich cultural past and also develop a contemporary musical present, with common origins and influences, organizing a series of events, mostly music, which draw their inspiration from the tradition of each country around the Mediterranean.
Pictures’ credits:
  • One of Georgia’s Facebook profile pictures
  • Cover of the festival’s Facebook page
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) –  Jarmila Vlčková (World Music Festival Bratislava – SK) – Leo Ličof (Okarina – SI)

IN DEEP WITH… 

Birgit Ellinghaus from alba KULTUR

I like this picture of Birgit. I like it because I feel it shows how I perceive her: talking with a combination of pedagogy, strenght and conviction, attentively to the other’s understanding and reaction.

Since 1989 she directs the arts management agency alba Kultur, settled in Cologne, Germany, with which she has developed hundreds of projects, building bridges between cultures. She is also advisor of many international organizations focused on culture and diversity and an inspiration for me and probably for many others.

MM – In these 30 years, alba Kultur has took traditional music to high culture frames, has participated in strategic projects with many international organizations, has developed a network of partners in your region that allows to organice long tours of bands from many places and backgrounds, most of them far away from the mainstream styles… just to name a few of the dreams achieved. What is the next challenge? 

Birgit Ellinghaus – For all projects I followed the understanding, that there is a dual nature of culture: musical works, concerts and artistic programms standing for cultural identities and are expressions of traditions and life plans, which are not possible to be mesured in terms of money or market values. Nevertheless there are elements in our field of work, which touch the economical aspects, e.g. tickets, CDs or digital music is sold and artists earn their life with music and need reasonable fees. But my priorities of work were always to support and promote strongly of the non economical aspects and expressions in the music field.

  • The advanced globalization and the actual priority of European culture policy for creative industries with the economic streamlining of the music sector has effects in all european countries. For my personal work see a challenge to work on the opening of the uge public financed music sector for more diversity of local-global musics expressing identity on all levels: commissioning of new works, programming of contemporary and trad music from all arround the world, strengthening of intangible cultural heritage, support of democratic organisation and participartion of migrant musicians in the cultural-political cultural dialogue in Germany and Europe.
  • Another challenge is the cultural exchange through music with artists from developping countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America: how could we give access to Europe, if the boarders are more and more closed (all questions of artist mobility and visa). How could we organize carbon neutral tours and concerts not only within Europe, but as well with artists from other continents?
  • And another challenge is about the role of the artist/musician as a critical soul of society in times of racism, anti semitism and islamophobia. How to protect the freedom of artistic expression and how to use the knowledge and potential of artists for reconciliation and peace building?

MM – I have the idea that you were a pioneer when you started with alba Kultur, so you might have had to face a big lack of knowledge about the music you work with, in the people who made decisions of programming. In my experience, Germany is now much open, both the public and the culture workers, to this contents than, for instance, in my country, Spain, where we have little knowledge and also many prejudices about what is world music. Could you give any advice on how to make the decision makers interested in this? 

BE – I don’t want to give any advise, because each country, each activists and professional and artists has to developpe his/her own suitable views and strategies. We are all specialists and knowledge keepers of our own culture!

What I could, is to share my experience: when I started to work many years ago, it was very helpful to know about other models of work, other’s cultural expressions, to learn from others and to consider myself as a permanent student. In my personal work, I found a lot of inspiration, e.g. from the music scene in France and from the Oriental philosophies, but as well through my travels and the rich exchange with collegues and artists all around the world.

And over the years I understand, that cultural change never goes straight ahead. It’s a ongoing process. Sometimes I felt hopeless and thought the things wouldn’t turn ever for the better and/ or I had to face a lot of ignorance or resistance from stakeholder in venues and festivals, funding bodies, by politicians, media and artists. And than suddenly I saw new doors opening… I always tried to keep my curiosity and my flexibility within my agenda and my convictions. Change and development are questions of generations and need patience. These questions go much further as the individual contribution and capacity and life.

MM – I know that you work with the same strength and passion than when we met, around 11 or 12 years ago. And I think you feel that your kind of vision and what alba Kultur provides to the society is still as essential as it was at that moment and, probably, as it was when alba Kultur started. I think that 30 years ago, the world music was quite unknown for the public and for the cultural agents. Some years after, it became a boom about it. And in the last times it seems we are lossing spots for the visibility in the media and that some relevant agents, like big festivals, have been abandoning this kind of music and moving to more commercial programs. I have some questions about this:
Are your objectives now the same as they were when you started? I believe that your objectives are totally related to the service that you consider the society needs.
BE – Yes !

MM – Is the situation now, better or worse than when you started?
BE – It’s different. E.g. just reminding about communication and means of media production: I started before there was the FAX technology existing. Communication in general and specially with artists from other continents was very slow and often related to personal traveling – by myself or by friends, who served as couriers to spred the news and brought material about an artist or a festival, etc. The recording of music was very complicated, because the digital CDs and video technology just started. Communication and travel was very expensive and a privilege for only few people too.Now we have access to all and everything world wide (or nearly). Today with internet, messengers and global mobility we receive so much and so speed information, that we are lost to make the use of it. And sometimes we forget, that still there are parts and cultures of the world which are not connected to this digitalized and globalized streams, because of censorship and missing respect to human rights, because of technology, economy or education gaps or nature disasters.

 

MM – How much do you think that the political situation affects our community of the world music?
BE – The world music community globally is facing the general conditions of life today. But for me the question is rather: does the world music community stands maybe (at least partly) for ethics and elements of identity, who might give some interesting answers for the future ? E.g. see some texts by Doc Kasimir Bisou (Jean-Michel Lucas).If the answer to the previous question is that it affects us strongly, what can we, the people like us, working on this from different roles, do to, somehow, protect us? We have not to protect us as community. I believe this community should stand actively for human rights, for the role of culture in the Sustainable Development Goals, for cultural diversity world wide, for freedom of expression, for the rights of indiginous people and other minorities, for the protection of identity, etc. This could guide us in the cultural exchange and a real dialogue eye level through music.

 

MM – You have had to deal with complications about visas and probably also with misunderstandings and even “not understandings” on purpose. Do you have any advice for our colleagues to deal with these not so funny cultural shocks? 
BE – The questions of visa I do not see in the context of cultural misunderstandings. Visa are part of international politics and an intended diplomatic tool to keep certain people out of a territory, e.g. certain nationalities from the US and other countries. The formal and soft restrictions and obstacles are intended.In my eyes, the best way to avoid cultural shocks on a personal level, is to learn more about the culture of the other on as many ways as possible (reading, internet, personal encounters, learning the language and the music etc.), to expand the respectfull understanding through cultural exchange from early childhood.

 

MM – What are the plans for 2020? The ones that you can share with us, of course. BE – Hopefully we could realized the actual projects sucessfully:
  • 20. Jubilee Saison of Klangkosmos NRW (January – June 2020). Website, here. PDF download, here.
  • Silk Road Easter Festival – A Musical Journey from Venice to China at Elbphilharmonie (April 2020). Website, here.
  • Music Summit “Migrants Music Manifesto” with residency, laboratory, concerts and international conference in September 2020 in Cologne. Website, here. (Programm is coming soon).
Credits:

OUR SPANISH ACTS RECOMMENDED BY AECID

Recently we have received the first request to book Entavía through the catalogue by AECID of the recommended artists for the Spanish embassies all over the world. We have two artists in that catalogue. The Spanish embassies have to chose artists from that catalogue when they want to book or support Spanish artists for any event.
The AECID Music Catalog is the main tool for promotion, dissemination and cultural programming outside Spain, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation. The Catalog is prepared by a committee of experts and includes a selection of proposals of quality from all musical genres.

OUR LATEST ACHIEVEMENT

Silk Road series of concerts in Museum of Orient, Lisbon. The true is that this was born as a attempt to extend alba Kultur’s program at the Iberian peninsule. It was not possible to do it like that because of the format (intensive program in some days vs. extended in some months) but that put the seed for another series with similar topic, to be hold in Lisbon with one concert in April, another in May and another in June.

This nice man of the picture is Sahib Pashazade and he is an amazing soloist of tar from Azerbaijan. I had the joy of attending his concert with Kamram Karimov at the contest Sharq Taronalari in 2017, where they won the Grand Prix. They will play in this series at the beginning of April. It is such a joy to collaborate with these outstanding artists! Further details will follow in the next issue of this newsletter.

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

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):
  • Iberian Festival Awards. At this event I will go accompanying Juan Antonio Vázquez, who is jury. 14th March. Lisbon.
  • Mid of April. Hamburg. Silk Road Easter Festival
  • From 3-6 June, in Poland with Gulaza in Wroclaw and with Monsieur Doumani in Katowice.

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

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

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 #16 October 2019

I am Araceli Tzigane. Welcome to Mapamundi Música‘s October’s newsletter.

I write you from the office now, after returning from Jeonju Int’l Sori Festival where I was with Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabaté and the Fira Mediterrània de Manresa, where we premiered the collaboration between Vigüela and the Valencian Josep Aparicio “Apa” and Eduard Navarro. Here below I am with my right hand, Sherezade, at our stand at Fira.

But I am already packing the woolen caps and the scarfs to head to Tampere. It’s WOMEX time! I will be pleased to meet again so many old and new friends from the world music community. Find me at Sounds from Spain.

For the meantime, enjoy these appealing contents: a mini-interview, with Bojan Djordjevic, from festival Todo Mundo (Belgrade), a deeper plunge in the European Folk Network with Nod Knowles and the usual sections of the newsletter.

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 

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

Summary: 

· Mini interview with festival manager: Bojan Djordjevic from Todo Mundo (Belgrade, Serbia).
· Nod Knowles, administrator of the European Folk Network, explains some details in depth.
· Find me at…
**** Do you have a world music festival and you want to be included in our mini interviews? Contact us. ****
This newsletter 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)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH BOJAN DJORDJEVIC FROM
FESTIVAL TODO MUNDO

Bojan Djordjevic, together with Oliver Djordjevic, Marija Vitas and Svetlana Spajic are the board of the World Music Association Serbia, whose work of dissemination is huge and of high quality. Check their website.
Bojan is also journalist of Radio Belgrade 3, panelist of the World Music Charts Europe and the artistic director of the Festival Todo Mundo, that takes place in Belgrade at the end of September and beginning of October.

 

I must confess that I match greatly with Bojan’s taste. This year he booked the apple of my eyes, Vigüela, and the last year, Monsieur Doumani. But, apart of this, in the last edition they have had the great Hungarian band Babra, the Armenian-Turkish duo of Vardan Hovanissian and Emre Gultekin, the band of Sephardic music Shira U’Tfila and others. Check the website of the festival.I am pleased and thanksful for the opportunity of spreading the insights of this man that is a benchmark of the world music community.

 

MM – What do you search in an artist when you create the programme? BD: The easiest answer would be: high quality, but this is what we all (hopefully) are searching for.
Most of the festival program is our personal “taste”, but we cannot bring todo mundo to Belgrade at once. What I like is that artists are standing strong with the music they play, that one feels dedication. Mostly we do not go for highly commercial groups, as we find that already on many spots.
Even in the new world with all the media, there are things that has to be discovered and are worthwhile to be discovered.
On the other hand it is nice to know that the artists are with their feet on the ground and understanding the reality in this part of Europe.

 

MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

BD: I think that there is great music played in every corner of the world, we just have to be curious and discover it.
The festival name shows that as well – therefore music from many countries should be presented.
Of course we always wish to have focus on some region, country, instrument or style, and also to present few local artists, but apart from that we want to have not more than one group from each country. And, not to forget, sometimes is important to bring artists, who, beside the high quality have also social impact – like Vardan Hovanissian & Emre Gultekin this year, or to bring here artists from the countries that have not been presented here before, – I am sure less than 1% of people knows anything about music from Cyprus, so presenting high quality act like Monsieur Doumani was very important.

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

BD: Living in Serbia means you always have to fight with financial issues. Culture and music has been supported, but in the way, that every year one have to fight from the start and the results of supporting decisions are known late April and that is why we had to move the festival for the second half of the year.
The other issue is how to deliver our message to more people when the media are mostly going for commercial music. Few years ago media situation was different. There were more options to present this music on radio and TV programs and in the magazines, now most of them are much more into the politics, reality and sports. So, we have to find new ways to reach the people, as social media networks are not enough.
Combination of new and old approach seems like the solution at this moment.

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

BD: Doing festival like this is great pleasure. On the other hand, as I said, there are so many great bands that deserve to be presented here. But, we cannot have 20 concerts at the festival. Even 10 is bit too much. So, we have to keep our desires under the control 🙂
And, when we do not have as many concerts as we would love to, we have to be careful about presentation of the local world music scene.
There is lots of great music coming from Serbia nowadays, some new and young artists coming, but also we have to present some of the great and well known names.

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

BD: Festival is done with great love and enthusiasm and musicians felt that and are willin’ to stay here longer. The other reason is contact with the audience – usually after the show the contact is so friendly that audience and artists are going together for a glass of wine or beer and stay into the discussion almost till the morning.
That means the atmosphere is great and you feel it from the start. Beside that we have two concerts per evening, so anyone has time to search around Belgrade and discover some secret or well known places in the friendly city.
On top of all that you can hear many great concerts at the festival where all artists are treated equally – we do not have support group nor headliners.

Pictures’ credits:
  • Bojan at the last edition of Festival Todo Mundo, courtesy of Marija Vitas.
  • Cover picture of Todo Mundo at Facebook.
Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.

EUROPEAN FOLK NETWORK IS BORN

In the previous issue of this newsletter we announced the birth of the EFN, linked its website and noted the first meeting, planned for 28 & 29 November in Brussels. Mapamundi Música is founder member and I want to encourage the community to join too.

In this occasion we have had the chance to ask Nod Knowles, the administrator of the network, some questions to get in more detail into some points. If you haven´t checked the website, I recommend you to do it before reading the interview. It is here.

Nod Knowles, former President of Europe Jazz Network, has had an international career including as Head of Music at Scottish Arts Council, CEO of Bath Festivals, one of the founding organisers of the European Folk Network (EFN) – and also of the UK/Ireland Jazz Promotion Network (JPN) and, currently, initiator and manager of an artistic exchange programme with the Netherlands.
He has held a number of advisory roles (e.g. with British Council, Arts Council Northern Ireland and Arts Council Wales) and as an independent consultant for over 40 years he has worked with a wide range of artists and organisations in research, review, policy, funding, education, project management and artistic direction. 

 

Mapamundi Música: The EFN has been made public few weeks ago but the initial idea is much older, isn´t it? What is the background of this initiative? 
Nod Knowles: The genesis of the network originated after a research project – commissioned by the Burnsong organisation in Scotland – reported on the potential for establishing a Scottish-European base for the American folk music organisation Folk Alliance. Whilst the research found that proposition was not viable, it found one of several underlying reasons for this –  the surprising fact that there was no structure linking folk organisations in Europe (whereas most other aspects of music – e.g. jazz, opera – and the arts in general – had well-established, often EU-funded network structures).

That report and subsequent discussion papers and meetings on the idea of a European folk network were shared with delegates to various showcases and many European organisers were invited to informal consultations and meetings, as were officers from other UK and European agencies including British Council and Kunstenpunt (now Poppunt) from Flanders. The results of planning meetings from 2015 onwards had to be put on hold for at least two years due to purely temporary personal circumstances but in 2018 a small group took the initiative again and in early 2019 the network was formally structured and legally registered.

MM: A basic website that explains the aims and ambitions is already available but I’d like to ask you about one of the areas of activity, that I think is one of the biggest needs of our community: policy and advocacy. In previous issues of our newsletter it was mentioned the lack of representation in relevant contexts of policies. Is there already any concrete planned initiative related to this topic?
NK: The EFN will need to build up its contacts with policy makers in European countries and in pan-European agencies such as the EU. This will not happen overnight but will be the work of the next couple of years. Contact is already being made with various national and international authorities and EFN will place advocacy at the heart of future planning – its influence will strengthen as the network develops.

MM: Regarding the previous question, the EFN is registered in Brussels, I think that it is for obvious reasons of proximity with the European centers of decisions. Have you had any contact with any authority? If so, which feedback did you get?
NK: We are not yet in direct touch with EU authorities but that will be one of the key plans for the future (see the answer above).

MM: The EFN has already scheduled a meeting in Brussels for days 28 and 29 of November. Can you share with us any of the topics that will be discussed?
NK: The agenda for the conference will be shaped by the members – we are asking for suggestions and subjects but there will be plenty of opportunity to introduce subjects during the conference. Because it is a first meeting of the members, the agenda will focus on discussion of members’ priorities and realistic plans for future work

MM: Is there any profile of persons or organizations that the EFN is specially in need of?
NK: Just more members from every country in Europe – and not just EU countries but all of the continent, from Iceland to Russia to Portugal.

MM: And, finally, tell the readers why should they join the EFN.
NK: Members should look at the vision and aims of the network. By joining they contribute to the collective impact and voice of the network and can contribute to the work of the network.

The main benefits of membership are opportunities to meet, share and collaborate with others, increasing members’ own contacts, the collective influence of a strong sector, and the mobility of artists and organisers in Europe.

Thank you, Nod!

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):
  • WOMEX. Tampere (Finland). 23rd – 27th October. We’ll have a table for Mapamundi Música at the booth of Sounds from Spain and a showcase by Monsieur Doumani on Thursday at 24h.
  • Torres Vedras (Portugal). 8th November. Festival Accordeões do Mundo, for the concert by Janusz Prusinowski Trio focused on harmonia polska.
  • Oslo (Norway). 14th-17th November, for Folkelarm.
  • Israel Showcase for Jazz and Worldwide Music. 20th-23th November. I will be in Tel Aviv and available for meetings on days 18-20, before the festival.
  • Brussels (Belgium). 28th-29th November, for the first meeting of the European Folk Network.
Do you like our newsletter? Tell us! Resend it to your friends! To sign up, click HERE.
This newsletter is open to sponsorship. Feel free to ask for details.

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 #14 August 2019

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

This week is specially thrilling for me… Why? 

Our Mari Nieto, the female singer of Vigüela (in the picture), settled in a village of less than 2000 inhabitants, mother of 4 and grandmother of 4, told me once that she had two dreams: to visit Norway, and we got it, attending Førdefestivalen, and to visit Samarkand! She will have to renew her list of dreams… 

Next Saturday I travel with Vigüela to Sharq Taronalari, in Samarkand. We both cry of joy thinking about it… By the way, I will celebrate my birthday there, that is on 26th of August. Compliments will be welcome! 🙂

In Mapamundi Música we are not fullfulling dreams of our collaborators everyday but I believe we are provinding some beauty, brightness and understanding to our community and to the world. I can’t hide my gratitude to the ones that trusted us and joined us in their goals and visions.

Find below some useful infos, including the new period to apply for grants from Acción Cultural Española, the main insights after our first edition of Transiberia Mundi and, for the first time, an interview with a festival director for the USA: Tom Frouge, from Globalquerque. And much much more.

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

· Mini interview with festival manager: Tom Frouge from Globalquerque (USA) 
· Post insights of Transiberia Mundi
· Open call: Acción Cultural Española, mobility grants application open in September
· Find me at…
· And Mapamundi’s concert calendar for September includes the premiere of an awesome Turkish artist in Portugal. Check below!

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

This newsletter 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)

MINI INTERVIEW WITH TOM FROUGE FROM GLOBALQUERQUE

Globalquerque! is New Mexico’s Annual Celebration of World Music and Culture. It is held each September in Albuquerque (New Mexico), at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. This year 2019 it will celebrate its 15th edition. Check the details at the website.

 

It is very heartening to know that also at the USA there is people like Tom and his partner Neal Copperman that work with the vision of building bridges, crossing borders and tearing down walls. Thank you, guys, an much success for the 15th edition!

 

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

TF: That is a question we get a lot!  We program music from the very traditional to the very NOT traditional (check out our first announced confirmed acts!), so what is our criteria? The best answer I can give is that the artists that we select to perform on our stages, aside from being fabulous musicians and ready to perform on the festival circuit, must have at least a couple of toes artistically and creatively in the culture from which they come, regardless of how contemporary or cutting edge they may be. For example, you can be a hip hop artist from Palestine or an electronica artist from Argentina, but when your set is finished, we want our audience to say that was a killer ARGENTINE electronica artist or a fantastic PALESTINIAN hip hop artist and not simply, oh, that was a really good electronica artist that sings in Spanish or, I liked the hip hop group that sang in Arabic.  It is about being a great artist AND representing your culture.


MM – Which are the global objectives of your festival?

TF: This ties in somewhat to the answer to the first question. ¡Globalquerque! is all about cross-culture understanding through the arts. All our programming, from the music, to the outreach, to the films, to our international dance lessons, to our school program, right down to the food served in our Global Village Of Craft, Culture & Cuisine – todo – is about recognizing our similarities while exploring and celebrating our differences. It may sound cliche, but we believe the more you understand other cultures, the harder it is to bomb them!At ¡Globalquerque! we believe in the power of community and the power of the arts to build bridges. We strive to create a space where no person is “the other”. It’s a trip around a peace-filled, inclusive world. On top of all that, it is an adventure full of discovery and a monster 3-stage, 2-day, music party!

 

MM – What are the most complicated or difficult issues to deal with in your festival? 
TF:  The new tax regulations in the US for visiting artists have been challenging. Some groups have postponed US tours in order to get a handle on the new realities, so we lost some we were in discussions with this year. Visas are always a potential issue, particularly in the unfortunate political climate we find ourselves in. Another challenge we sometimes run into that may be a bit unique to us is routing issues. New Mexico is a bit off the beaten track and sometimes it results in groups skipping us due to travel costs or logistics. The possible silver lining there is it has pushed us to look at creative solutions and alternate routing scenarios, such as acts coming up through México from the south, and that has yearly made our line up somewhat different than other festivals in our time period.

 

 

MM – Which are currently the main challenges for this kind of cultural proposals like yours?TF: First and foremost: funding. ¡Globalquerque! is a festival put on by a couple of guys. It is not put on by a city or university or big institution that has a yearly budget, set funding and a staff that are getting weekly paychecks. We rise or fall on our own. Each year we need to go out and procure funding from different sources to make the festival happen. It is truly a labor of love!Secondly, it is attracting new audience. The thing we hear over and over again from first time ¡Globalquerque! attendees is “I had no idea this festival was THIS!” It is a challenge to explain the scope of the festival on paper as it is such an experiential event. Once people experience it though, they are hooked. It’s moving the fence-sitters off the fence that we work hard at trying to accomplish.

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

TF: It’s our Quinceañera! And ¡Globalquerque! is all about culture, identity, inclusion, diversity, discovery, building bridges, crossing borders, tearing down walls – and kicking up dust and howling at the harvest moon to some of the best music on the planet as the smell of lavender and roasting green chiles float on the New Mexico desert air.

Pictures’ credits:

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

INSIGHTS POST TRANSIBERIA MUNDI

The picture of me at the top of this issue was took during my speech for musicians and newbie managers during Transiberia Mundi and here you have me and Carlos Gomes after the last act of this first edition. Picture by Elzbieta Kwinta.

As I have already sent specific info about this event, I will just direct you to the previous communication, that you can find here. And at the event at Facebook we were sharing picture and videos in real time.

PICE, THE PROGRAM FOR MOBILITY BY ACCIÓN CULTURAL ESPAÑOLA (AC/E), OPEN CALL IN SEPTEMBER

During September, Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) will have opened the application period to request support for the logistic expenses for booking a Spanish artist or expert, for events abroad taking place from January to June, both included. The official info is at their website.

From Mapamundi Música we have supported clients in previous editions, to fullfill the procedure, that is not complicated. The chances to get it are not 100% but note that the results are published around the 3rd week of October, so it allows you to opt for a plan B in case of need.

We offer you our Spanish band Vigüela, of course, and also myself as a lecturer.

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):
  • Spain, my homeland, where I am now for a few days: premiere of Wowakin Trio in Spain 🙂 23rd August at Festival Folk Plasencia.
  • Samarkand (Uzbekistan). 24th – 31st August. As mentioned above, with Vigüela at Sharq Taronalari.
  • Tavira (Portugal). 5th – 8th September. At the Mediterranean Diet Fair, with concerts byMonsieur Doumani and the premiere in the country by Cüneyt Sepetçi & Orchestra Dolapdere!
  • Perth (Scotland). 16th – 20th September. The Visit (event produced for Showcase Scothland Expo by Active Events).
  • Jeonju (South Korea). 29th September – 7th October. At Sori Festival, with the collaboration concert by Janusz Prusinowski Kompania and Manu Sabaté. My first time in South Korea and it is to attend this superb festival!
  • Fira Mediterránia de Manresa (Cataluña). 10th – 13th October. Mapamundi Música will have a stand and a showcase: Vigüela with the Valencia artists Apa and Eduard Navarro. Check here theresult of the first rehearsal.
Reward for work: baked rice,
Valencian style ?

 

  • WOMEX, yes. Tampere (Finland). 23rd – 27th October. We’ll have a table for Mapamundi Música at the booth of Sounds from Spain and a showcase by Monsieur Doumani on Thursday at 24h.
More dates, in the next issue.

MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA CONCERT CALENDAR

Remember: Mapamundi Música’s concerts calendar is here at our website and also at ourFacebook events. In September we bring to Portugal an artist that I met in EthnoPort Poznan: the amazing Turkish Gypsy clarinetist Cüneyt Sepetçi & Orchestra Dolapdere! They will play at the Mediterranean Diet Fair in Tavira, at Algarve region, in Portugal, on 7th of September.

We are having much joy from Portuguese institutions lately. Apart of this and of Transiberia Mundi, in November we will have our first concert in Portugal with our beloved Janusz Prusinowski and his partners. More news soon!

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.