World Music School Helsinki

International Carnaval of Ouidah

The World Music School Helsinki is supporting the International Carnaval of Ouidah in Benin, from the 28^th till the 31^st December 2023.

We are looking for experts on the following competences:

Visual artists for exhibition and realization of mural fresco in Ouidah. December 22 to 31, 2023
Carnival groups to participate in the Popular and artistic Carnival of the IOC. December 26 to 31, 2023
Art photographers to photograph all IOC events. From December 26 to 31, 2023.
Documentary directors to produce documentary films and training of young people. From December 26 to 31, 2023
Singing artists to collaborate with Beninese and African artists. From December 26 to 31, 2023.
Televisions and international media for a stay of cultural and worship report Vodun. December 27 to 31, 2023.
Volunteers to help and work in the Carnival organizing committee. December 23 to 31, 2023.
Financial and material partners (Associations, Foundation, Municipalities, companies, and patrons). From February to December 2023.

Please contact directly [email protected] for any inquires.

The World Music School Helsinki

04.03.2023

OpenMic with Colombian Cellist Sergio Castrillon

Open Mic

Next wednesday the 23 November 2022, at 16:00, we will interview live from Helsinki, the great Sergio Castrillón at the Helsinki Open Waves-HOW.
Interview will be conducted by Pedro Aibeo, in spanish.
Tune in at https://www.helsinkiopenwaves.com/

Sergio will be playing two pieces from his latest solo album GLOBAL SOUNDSCAPES.

Sergio Castrillon is a Multidisciplinary Sonic-based artist/researcher focused on
experimentalism. Over the last years he has been working on the creation of multi-sonic
performances and developing the notion of Multi-process creativity, taking as bases
improvisation, composition, comprovisation and soundscape. Within his last works Castrillón has
been using only domestic/recycled technology as a way to foster more sustainable and
ecological strategies in art and research making.

The new peer-reviewed paper on The World Music School

Publications

Just out now, a peer-reviewed academic paper on the work of the World Music School, “Observing the World Music School Helsinki as a social ecological system to enhance community connectivity and resilience”. Published at an important journal, “Systems Research and Behavioural Science”.

Click here to read it, it is of open access! 🙂

OpenMic with Mayim Alpert

Open Mic

This wednesday the 29th June 2022, at 16:00, we will interview live from Helsinki, the great Mayim Alpert at the Helsinki Open Waves-HOW.
Interview will be conducted by Pedro Aibeo, in english.
Tune in at https://www.helsinkiopenwaves.com/

Mayim Alpert is a luthier, composer and multi-instrumentalist who has created music for theatre and film as well as performing in bands across many genres from soul to klezmer. He
is a professional violin and bow maker serving string instruments players in Helsinki and around Finland, with his colleague Lauri Kallinen, at Alpert & Kallinen Fine Violins, in Töölö.
He is also interested in experimental instruments and musical sculpture, and has built unique instruments such as the räätäliira, or tailor’s lyre, from an old sewing machine, and the
runopiano, or poet’s piano, incorporating an old typewriter. He is an active musician in Krepsko Theatre Group, Helsinki Klezmer Kapelye, and Helsinki Balalaikka Orchestra,
among others. Born in the USA, he has however spent the last 20 years in Europe, primarily in Prague and Helsinki, and has 4 boys.

MENT Festival 2022

WMS events

The World Music School (WMS) attended the MENT festival 2022 in Ljubljana, invited to be part of a discussion group on European music export (EMX – Exporters Meeting – 9th June).

Representing the WMS was me, Pedro Aibéo, the chairman of the WMS. On that group were, among others, representatives of the national export offices of different countries such as Belgium, Poland, Austria or Latvia.

During the discussions there was also time for presentations. For example, Yvan Boudillet introduced us to some tech innovations for the export of music and Aymeric Pichevin briefed us on the opportunities of music in esports. We talked too about some hot topics around royalties, buy outs, the market volume, etc.

There was plenty of time for networking and to listen to the many live performances. For me, the band Tukan from Belgium impressed me the most.

When landing in Slovenia, the bus and the airport play Coldplay music incessantly, in opposition, the train station of the Helsinki airport plays soundscapes.

The experience is completely different. I prefer, without any doubt, the latter experience of Helsinki and this strategy likely promotes too local artists.

MENT festival promotes local and international music, long live such festivals.

Pedro Aibéo
11.06.2022
Ljubljana

Revitalizing Downtown

WMS events

The World Music School was invited by the City of Helsinki to contribute to the programme of Revitalizing Downtown – summer streets and city center (Kadut Elävät). We will be bringing on the 26.6 a series of our “Folk Dances with Live Music” events to the Finnish National Museum

Program:

13.00 – Welcoming words by Pedro Aibéo, Chairman of the World Music School

13.05 – Ivory Coast Folk Dances with Live Music (Lassina Ouattara)

14:00 – Yiddish Folk Dances with Live Music (Helsinki Klezmer Kapelye)

15:00 – Nicaraguan Folk Dances with Live Music (José Robelo and Mariano Vega (in the picture above))

Open Mic Shows

Open Mic

The World Music School Helsinki is continuing its live radio shows at the Helsinki Open Waves.

This Wednesday the 25th May 2022, Timo Tuhkanen will be our guest improvising on microtonal music.

Listen to other previous podcasts at the Helsinki Open Waves.

A visit to the Porto’s branch

International Partnerships

The World Music School Helsinki’s chairman, Pedro Aibéo, visited this week the World Music School Porto and his Ambassador Ricardo Coelho.

At the headquarters of the WMS Porto, we watched a live music performance and discussed the ongoing projects, which include some really nice EU cultural calls. 🙂

Lithuania + Hungary Folk in Helsinki

Monthly WMS events

On the 30th November 2021 we combined Lithuania with Hungarian folk dances with live music. Despite the corona restictions (many people left as they did not have covid passes), we had a good crowd! :-

Allthough our events get best advertised via the internet, the word of mouth is growing. It accounted for 40% of the people who came by.

WMS hungary lithuania event stats marketing

7 nationalities joined us. The iranians were broadcsting it live to their families back home 🙂

WMS hungary lithuania event stats nationality

We started the event with the Lithuanian dances lead by Goda Marija Gužauskaitė. Here you can learn the dances via youtube:

Leading the Hungarian side, Botond Emil Gálfi

Exporting European Music

Seminars

the .The World Music School Helsinki (WMS) took part of the EMX, “a new project, funded by the European Commission and implemented by a consortium of European music export offices and cultural institutions, aimed at finding new strategies to develop and promote European music in the world.” (source: https://www.europeanmusic.eu/).

It happened in Amsterdam from 19^th to 20^th October and our chairman, Pedro Aibéo, went there alongside a group of music professionals and exporters from Europe.

Our position, of the WMS, was clear: the strength of Europe is on the diversity, the local ancient traditions mirrored in the Architecture, Music, and food. Even though there are big players in Europe around music, such as Spotify and Genelec, what have these trends done to enhance the diversity of music of Europe, or most importantly, in our view, to the overall improvement of music literacy?

Should we be aiming to quality or quantity? On an age of green trends, we still see excitement about green washing processes such as the current massive tour of Coldplay where people are asked to ride bikes and use no plastic: total nonsense. In our view we should aim at hybrid events, local and online, smaller and with less environmental impact and with higher community engagement.

Are we aiming at diversity or profit? Business or governmental aid? Being online is already exporting music, but the most popular online tools are hegemonizing culture. For example, Spotify is increasingly eliminating the classification of music by genres, which in our view, leads to an increase of consumption of high scored big corporations’ titles, not on smaller independent releases.

But let us take the example of corporations such as Walt Disney. They built an empire based on community instead of product focused. Maybe EU should focus too on communities when talking of the export of music. That is our unique selling point, diversity and communities. Do we want to follow the big player’s trends where artists like Rihanna or footballers like Ronaldo earn more money from virtual tools such as Instagram than from the work on the ground in music or sport? Is this what we want for Europe’s music? Or can we use music to build up real communities and strengthen diversity?

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