WELCOME AND SUMMARY
Welcome to the new edition of this communication and outreach initiative of the EFN. Feel free to forward it to your friends and colleagues. Receiving this newsletter is open to anyone for free, here. Read to the end to find out how to submit content for future editions.
This is what you'll find below:
🔸The 2023 EFN Conference in Manchester, England - 19-20 October 🔸More about the European Folk Day 23 September 2023 and how to sign up. 🔸EFN welcomes new members: the UK Musicians' Union and Zone Franche. 🔸News from our members: Mapamundi Música in charge of the participation of Spain as partnering country at the Czech Music Crossroad; WOMEX opens the registration and stand bookings for WOMEX 23 in A Coruña, Galicia, Spain 🔸Our next featured member is alba KULTUR. 🔸Our next featured artist is the Macedonian singer Aleksandar Sarievski 🔸Special contents: Trad Machine, #AuxSons open for contents
✍️ Do you want to participate? At the end of the newsletter you will find how you can contribute to future editions, whether you are an EFN member or not. And of course EFN is always looking for new members and at the end of this newsletter there is a note about how and why to join, with links to the membership pages of the website and the application form. Thanks for your attention, have a fruitful reading.
News from EFN
🔸EFN's 4th annual Conference in Manchester
EFN'S 2023 CONFERENCE will be held in Manchester, England on 19 - 21 October, generously hosted by our partner (and member) English Folk Expo (EFEx).
The full Conference programme will be announced by summer 2023.
The registration fee of €60 covers daytime conference catering and some basic costs.
Registration for the 4th annual EFN Conference also gives EFN Members who joined before this announcement FREE registration to EFEx events (including Manchester Folk Festival) fromThursday 19 to Sunday 22 October 2023.
EFN Individual Members who register for the Conference can access ONE free registration to all EFEx events. EFN Organisation Members who register for the Conference can access a maximum of TWO free registrations to EFEx. The EFEx registration must be done immediately after registration for the Conference (a confirmation message and an email will give the link) - there is a deadline of 1 July for this registration to EFEx. MEMBERS CAN REGISTER HERE NOW!
New Members of EFN and additional people from an EFN Member Organisation who also register for the Conference will be able to register for EFEx at a special discount rate - these people should register NEW & ADDITIONAL EFN MEMBERS CAN REGISTER HERE.
Non-Members of EFN can of course also register just for the EFN Conference. NON-MEMBERS CAN REGISTER HERE.
🔸European Folk Day*
By the editors
In the last few weeks we have been announcing that the first European Folk Day will take place on September 23rd this year. It is an initiative of the European Folk Network (EFN) open to everyone - EFN members and non-members alike. We are almost ready to send an official call. It is imminent. We will continue to send information on a regular basis, but if you want to be informed of more specific details, sign up for the mailing list, here.
* Co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union and therefore the European Union cannot be held responsible for them.
🔸EFN WELCOMES TWO NEW MEMBERS
By EFN editors
Let's welcome two new members:
🔸From United Kingdom, the UK Musicians' Union
About themselves, they explain that the Union "was established in 1893 and represents over 32,500 musicians working in all sectors and genres of music. As well as negotiating on behalf of its members with all the major employers in the industry, the MU offers a range of services tailored for the self-employed by providing assistance for professional and student musicians of all ages."
About what their organisation can give to the European Folk Network as a member and what they think will be the benefits of membership, they answered: "To develop relationships across the network for the betterment of our members and to support the sector. To build connections that can assist in UK musicians being able to work across Europe."
For more info, check their website.
🔸From France, the network Zone Franche
About themselves, they explain that Zone Franche "is the leading network for world music, bringing together the entire sector (bookers, labels and editors, festivals, venues, managers, media, fairs, etc.). Its 180 members are collectively involved in professional and political issues in favour of World Music. Zone Franche has created the AuxSons.com webmedia and pilots the Artists Visas Comitee."
About what their organisation can give to the European Folk Network as a member and what they think will be the benefits of membership, they answered: "Following our meeting at Womex 2022, we agreed that we could increase our exchanges to support world music at European level. A mutual membership to our 2 networks is a first step towards supporting our musical aesthetics."
For more info, check their website.
News from EFN members
🔸MAPAMUNDI MÚSICA, INVITED TO TAKE CHARGE OF THE PARTICIPATION OF SPAIN AS A PARTNERING COUNTRY AT THE CZECH MUSIC CROSSROADS
By Araceli Tzigane, from Mapamundi Música
The Czech Music Crossroads will take place in Ostrava from 29th of June to 1st of July. This year, the partnering countries are Slovenia and Spain. They have invited Mapamundi Música to take charge of the participation of Spain. In response, we have proposed three of our artists, representing three cultures and three languages: Vigüela, from the centre, Toledo, the land of Don Quixote, Xabi Aburruzaga, from the Basque Country, with one of his most representative instruments, the trikitixa, and Xurxo Fernandes, from Galicia, with the tradition of the strong voices and the tambourine, in his project Levaino!, which connects the Atlantic with the Mediterranean.
🔸WOMEX OPENS THE REGISTRATION AND STAND BOOKINGS FOR WOMEX 23 IN A CORUÑA, GALICIA, SPAIN
By WOMEX
Registrations for WOMEX are available as a five-day package and provide access to the full WOMEX 23 programme: Expo, Conference Programme (Panels, Networking & Mentoring Sessions, Associated Presentations), Showcase concerts and Club Summit, Film screenings, One-year access to virtualWOMEX.
Save money, take advantage of the lowest rate. The deadline for Smart Rate is Friday 02 June 2023. This is the website for the registration.
Featured Member: alba KULTUR
When they became a member, this is how they presented the organization:
"For more than 30 years alba KULTUR has been working as an independent office, specialized in global music cultures ranging from classical non-Western music and orally transmitted traditional music and folk to contemporary hybrid and creolised fusion and crossover projects, that all express the concept of cultural diversity in a globalised world. Our fields of action are:
artist management consulting
curatorial work
concept development and consulting
cultural education
music and sustainable development
cultural political commitment"
And about what they can give to the European Folk Network as a member and what they thought that would be the benefits of membership, they explained that: "We could share our experience to give voice to artists and other professionals to join important cultural political debates in Germany and in Europe in the field of music."
Birgit Ellinghaus has sent us some a few infos about concrete projects they carry on, that can be of interest for the rest of the members:
"Head of Network of Klangkosmos NRW. Here is the link on the preview of the programm of the 24th season September 2023 - June 2024. And here, some steps of the history of the network.
Here you find the concerts & project we are curating.
And here is the spot on some special projects in 2021 / 2022:
Consultancy in Artist Mobility with OTM (see e.g. the OTM Music Mobility Guide)"
Learn more on their website.
Remember: the Featured Artist section is open to the contributions of the members of the EFN. If you want to talk about someone contact efneditors@gmail.com.
Featured Artist: Aleksandar Sarievski
By Araceli Tzigane
Some time ago, maybe two decades ago, after the appearance and the disappearance of Napster as a peer to peer application, some others emerged that also allowed the exchange of audio files. Some allowed you to join groups according to themes, send recordings to all members and receive the recordings sent by others. It was piracy, obviously, but I think that, if it was a crime, the statute of limitations has certainly expired. Possibly thanks to that application is how one day there was on my hard drive a song called Ori Mome, Sedmo Janche by a singer named Aleksandar Sarievski.
I can't find that recording on any of the current platforms, but I'm sharing it here.
Sarievski is one of the most respected folk musicians in his country. He disseminated the traditional music for 6 decades and co-founded the group Tanec. He was also an advocate of the country's designation as Macedonia. He recorded more than 400 songs for the Macedonian Radio Television (according to Nezavisen) and he worked with a bunch of private record companies. You can find a discography of Sarievski in Discogs.
This is the song "Storil nijet zajko, zajko kokorajko". It is the story of a rabbit who wants to marry with a widow fox. I find it absolutely charming. Here you have the lyrics in their original alphabet, transliterated to latin alphabet and translated to English, Turkish, German and Dutch. You can find several recordings of this piece sung by Sarievski. This other one, with a wonderful bagpipe, is very nice too.
According to KMT Records in their Soundcloud, Sarievski was "born in Galichnik, he finished high school in Skopje, when he started playing the accordion. In 1946, he recorded the song "A bre nevesto oko kalesho" on the Macedonian Radio, which begins his great and extremely rich music career." He died in 2002.
And according to Last.fm, "his renditions of local folk songs are particularly well known and, in many cases, the first known recorded versions. These include "Jovano, Jovanke", "More Sokol Pie", "Makedonsko Devoichee" and "Uchi Me Maiko, Karai Me", among others. The popular folk song "Zaidi Zaidi" is also attributed to him."
It took me some time to decide which other song to share. This is a very different one: "Sulejman Sedi Na Kula", that means "Suleiman sits on a tower". I haven't found a translation of the lyrics but here it is in its original language and transliterated.
The picture at the top is from Discogs.
For much more biographical information, this is a very interesting work that is reasonably understandable with an automatic translation.
Special content: Trad Machine
By Birgit Bornauw
As a folk-teacher, I felt that ensemble playing is not always easy to manage. It can be difficult to explain to accompaniment instruments what kind of rhythm to produce, if you can't show it yourself on the instrument, for example. Or scale-limited or drone instruments can have difficulties to find their place in the ensemble, because the teacher is not used to deal with their limits, etc...
Also in lockdown periods, it was difficult to make pupils play together and nobody knew how to handle this (except the typical lockdown-play together-videos, who were mostly a lot of work for the teacher).
With the website we made, we tried to give an answer to this; to help the teacher and let the student train themselves at home: www.trad-machine.com (You can change the language to English).
I don't think that a similar website exists already. We started with 5 tunes, arranged for bagpipes, fiddle, guitar and diatonic accordion. We would love to record much more, but so far we didn't find any funding, only gifts, and this concept is very expensive (video + recording + website). So we would love to be able to share our website with as much as possible people interested in learning (Western) folk music.
This is a teaser about the project:
Special content: #AuxSons, the web media by Zone Franche, open for contents
By Zone Franche
#AuxSons is French collaborative media shining light on worldwide music. You can create an account on our plateforme and contribute with article proposals to give visibility to your projects. We then moderate the submitted content before publishing them, and sharing on our social media and newsletter, if they comply with our specifications and our editorial line. Here's how it works: - « News » : presentation of initiatives or singular, innovative projects / presentation of the artistic direction of a festival / presentation of a recent clip (published in the current month or so) 1. create an account on #AuxSons if you have not already done so: https://www.auxsons.com/en/sign-up/ 2. once the account is validated, log in: https://www.auxsons.com/en/connexion/ 3. go to: https://www.auxsons.com/en/contribute/ / click on the green button "Publish News", enter title, text, image etc. 4. click on the yellow button "Submit post" for moderation - « New Releases » : presentation of a recent distributed album or EP (published in the past 6 months) 1. create an account on #AuxSons if you have not already done so: https://www.auxsons.com/en/sign-up/ 2. once the account is validated, log in: https://www.auxsons.com/en/connexion/ 3. go to: https://www.auxsons.com/en/contribute/ / click on the red button "Publish New Release", enter title, text, image etc. 4. click on the yellow button "Submit post" for moderation.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS NEWSLETTER Are you already a member? Then, remember that you can submit contents for this monthly newsletter. Email your content to efneditors@gmail.com, for these sections:
· News from EFN Members. Brief announcements – of around 100 words and a link.
· Featured artist. A profile with around 200 words, an embedded video and one link. Members are invited to submit profiles, considering solo and ensemble living or not living artists who have achieved lifelong artistic and technical quality or historical significance in the field of folk art from or developed in or settled in Europe. If you have any artists in mind that you'd like to feature, please ask in advance, just to be sure there is no other member already doing it.
And whether you are a member or not, you can participate in this section:
· Special sections. For instance, an interview with someone from an institution that is not a member or a thematic article by a guest writer or anything that can appear and be considered as interesting. This section can also host guest writers that are not members. If you'd like to share any content, contact us in advance to schedule it by emailing efneditors@gmail.com
Of course, self promotional articles lacking interest won't be accepted. In case of doubt, the EFN board will be consulted and will decide.
BECOMING A MEMBER? EFN membership is growing rapidly – why not join the network of traditional arts organisers and artists that stretches across Europe from the Irish Sea to the Baltic, the Mediterranean to the Black Sea? Find out more about membership and download an application form from www.europeanfolknetwork.com/membership.
DO YOU WANT TO SUPPORT THE EFN MORE? The EFN welcomes donations. We do a lot with little money. Imagine what we can do with a little more :) Let us know how much do you want to donate and we'll issue an invoice for your organization.