Around the World Music Blogosphere
Wednesday October 8, 2008
And once again, it's time for a trip around the world music blogosphere. Grab your passport!
World Music Central reports that the 2009 WOMEX (the biggest and best world music expo and conference) will be held in Copenhagen. Part of me is sad, because WOMEX has been held in Sevilla, Spain for the last four years, and I've missed every single one of them, and I really, really, really want to go to Sevilla and now I can't write off the trip as a business expense. However, I love Copenhagen and I'd definitely like to make the effort to go there again, so now I have an excuse.
The good folks over at Calcopyrite Communications speak daggers to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to cut $45 million dollars from Canadian federal arts grants. Yikes! Canada has long been a world leader in using grants to foster artistic creation and create cross-cultural communication through the arts. Harper's claim is that "ordinary working people" could care less about these grant programs. First of all, most of my Canadian friends are artists or work in the arts industry (the obvious result of working in the same industry stateside), and frankly, I find them all to be terrifyingly hardworking people - most of them put me to shame, that's for sure! Secondly, for those people who don't think that grant moneys are a good or necessary government expenditure, come back to me in a couple of years when your cities have all turned to bland concrete jungles, your festivals and free concert series have all shut down, and you've essentially crushed the creative muse in all but the independently wealthy. I don't know as much as I should about Canada's politics, but I do know that these cuts set a scary precedent.
Spinner's Around the World blog gives us a good look at up-and-coming desert blues band Etran Finatawa, whose members come from both the Tuareg and Woodabe cultures. I had the opportunity to meet and hear Etran Finatawa over the summer when they played at the music festival I work for, and they were truly exquisite. It's nice to see them getting further attention, they most definitely deserve it.
And over at the New York Times (I know it's not a blog, but we're gonna make an exception for this one), Bruce Weber has written a fittingly sweet and quirky obituary for Ruedi Rymann, Switzerland's most popular yodeler. People make fun of yodeling, but like anything, it's mostly because they're misinformed. You can hear Rymann singing Alperlabe in this YouTube video... it's actually really beautiful. Give it a listen, you might surprise yourself and actually like it.
World Music Central reports that the 2009 WOMEX (the biggest and best world music expo and conference) will be held in Copenhagen. Part of me is sad, because WOMEX has been held in Sevilla, Spain for the last four years, and I've missed every single one of them, and I really, really, really want to go to Sevilla and now I can't write off the trip as a business expense. However, I love Copenhagen and I'd definitely like to make the effort to go there again, so now I have an excuse.
The good folks over at Calcopyrite Communications speak daggers to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's plan to cut $45 million dollars from Canadian federal arts grants. Yikes! Canada has long been a world leader in using grants to foster artistic creation and create cross-cultural communication through the arts. Harper's claim is that "ordinary working people" could care less about these grant programs. First of all, most of my Canadian friends are artists or work in the arts industry (the obvious result of working in the same industry stateside), and frankly, I find them all to be terrifyingly hardworking people - most of them put me to shame, that's for sure! Secondly, for those people who don't think that grant moneys are a good or necessary government expenditure, come back to me in a couple of years when your cities have all turned to bland concrete jungles, your festivals and free concert series have all shut down, and you've essentially crushed the creative muse in all but the independently wealthy. I don't know as much as I should about Canada's politics, but I do know that these cuts set a scary precedent.
Spinner's Around the World blog gives us a good look at up-and-coming desert blues band Etran Finatawa, whose members come from both the Tuareg and Woodabe cultures. I had the opportunity to meet and hear Etran Finatawa over the summer when they played at the music festival I work for, and they were truly exquisite. It's nice to see them getting further attention, they most definitely deserve it.
And over at the New York Times (I know it's not a blog, but we're gonna make an exception for this one), Bruce Weber has written a fittingly sweet and quirky obituary for Ruedi Rymann, Switzerland's most popular yodeler. People make fun of yodeling, but like anything, it's mostly because they're misinformed. You can hear Rymann singing Alperlabe in this YouTube video... it's actually really beautiful. Give it a listen, you might surprise yourself and actually like it.
Comments
Keep up the good work of global music blog reporting.