Category: News

2021 inductees into the Transglobal World Music Hall of Fame

Posted on by admin

Much appreciation to the extraordinary legacy of the In Memoriam inductees and congratulations to the individuals and organizations in the Artist and Industry and Media Excellence categories. Special thanks to all the judges involved and the people who sent us proposals.

TWMC Hall of Fame 2021 inductees

  • The Artists category honors solo and ensemble living artists who have achieved lifelong artistic and technical quality or historical significance in the field of world music.

ARTIST
Caetano Veloso
Susana Baca
Fatoumata Diawara
Janusz Prusinowski
Ry Cooder

  • Industry and Media Excellence celebrates influential music industry and media individuals and organizations who have provided increased visibility and recognition to world music and its multiple subgenres.

INDUSTRY AND MEDIA EXCELLENCE
Birgit Ellinghaus
WOMAD/Real World/Peter Gabriel
WOMEX

  • In Memoriam includes posthumous inductions that honor historically inventive and influential artists or industry professionals who passed away in previous years or decades.

IN MEMORIAM
Ali Farka Touré
Ravi Shankar
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Alan Lomax
Violeta Parra

TWMC Hall of Fame 2021 Judges

The 3 TWMC administrators, Juan Antonio Vázquez, Ángel Romero Ruiz and Araceli Tzigane have participated as judges in all of the categories. There have been other 4 judges in each of the categories.

  • Artist Judges: Juan Antonio Vázquez, Ángel Romero, Araceli Tzigane, Alexis Herrería, Alejandro López García, Ciro De Rosa, Zekeriya S. Sen.
  • Industry and Media Excellence Judges: Ángel Romero, Araceli Tzigane, Juan Antonio Vázquez, Petra Hradilová, Derek Andrews, Sonya Mazumdar, Brahim El Mazned.
  • In Memoriam Judges: Araceli Tzigane, Juan Antonio Vázquez,  Ángel Romero, Kutay Kugay, Jordi García, Wilhelm Klopottek, Chris Heim.

Feel free to share this information.

Our panelist, Charlie Crooijmans, from Netherlands, is a samurai for Womex 2021

Posted on by admin

Our dear Charlie Crooijmans, panelist of TWMC from the beginning, more than 5 years, is a samurai this year. Congratulations!

The samurais are the jury of WOMEX, the biggest professional fair for world music. Charlie is part of the jury for the showcases.

This is the complete list of the showcase samurais:

  • António Guimarães (Portugal), owner, general manager, António Guimarães
  • Charlie Crooijmans (The Netherlands), music journalist, musicologist, radio host
  • Kerry Clarke (Canada), artistic director, Calgary Folk Music Festival; programmer, Block Heater Festival
  • Lewis Robinson (UK), owner, Mais Um Records; radio host: WorldwideFM, Soho Radio
  • Todd Puckhaber (USA), former senior music and event programming manager, SXSW

The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020 is just launched!

Posted on by admin

The compilation is already available at the ARC Music store.

As announced already in October 2020 on the occasion of our fifth anniversary, TWMC has prepared a compilation with the best of the season, in collaboration with ARC Music. And it has just been released today!

We are very grateful to the team of ARC Music for their professionalism, enthusiasm and creativity and to all the artists, managers and labels who have done their best to make it happen.

You can get it here. And now, let’s go for the next one!

New panelist, from India/USA: Ankur Malhotra

Posted on by admin

It’s a pleasure to welcome Ankur Malhotra, an entrepreneur, engineer and musicologist with an MBA from the Wisconsin School of Business. He is co-founder of Madison Music Review (producer of Musique Electronique, Willy Street Beats), Amarrass Records (a global music record label), DJ/host on WORT 89.9FM, and a photographer/videographer. He has served as a Jury Member at WOMEX, Russian World Music Awards (RWMA), music advisor to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA). His work in the revival of folk music and vinyl culture in India has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, WPR, Rolling Stone and more.

Welcome, Ankur!

Check our Members page to find out more. There is a contact form in the profile of all the panelists, so you can contact Ankur and any other.

More news coming soon. Stay tuned!

Juan Antonio Vázquez, about the compilation The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020

Posted on by admin

Juan Antonio Vázquez, about the compilation The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020, to be released by ARC Music in January: “Transglobal World Music Chart is an extraordinary and unique initiative, with a global vocation and a totally independent spirit. I’m happy and proud to be part of its creation and maintenance. Moreover, it does not stand still and continues to create new initiatives, like this compilation, giving a vision of what is more important in what’s happening right now in the rooted music of the world!”

Many more insights will come. Learn more about our panelists, here.

Araceli Tzigane, about the compilation The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020

Posted on by admin

Araceli Tzigane, about the compilation album The Best of Transglobal World Music Chart 2020, to be released by ARC Music in January: “This first TWMC compilation is a great way to celebrate the 5th anniversary. It is a collection of jewels. We are grateful to ARC Music, which we have also seen grow in these 5 years, each time with productions of higher quality and greater reach, for their collaboration. Enjoy it!”

Many more insights will come. Learn more about our panelists, here.

Transglobal World Music Chart celebrates its 5th anniversary… and announces the release of a compilation.

Posted on by admin

21st century. We live in a complicated world: conflicts, pandemics, poverty, racism and other kinds of discrimination… But these times are also an opportunity to be closer, to know each other better, to enrich ourselves with musical diversity. A diversity where we can also learn more about ourselves, since it reflects the common human aspirations in different musical languages.

On the other hand, technology gives us now the opportunity to communicate immediately with anyone, anywhere. We can know exactly what’s happening in any corner of the world. We can listen to the music that’s emerging halfway around the world at once.

So we had an idea: why not use these technological possibilities to make it easier for talented world music artists to reach any part of the world, bringing together a group of disseminators and specialists from the five continents to assess their works and offering artists and labels the opportunity to showcase their music for free, without intermediaries or restrictions, so that only the quality and interest of the music is taken into account?

As a result of that, Transglobal World Music Chart (TWMC) was conceived in the Spring of 2015 by Juan Antonio Vázquez, Araceli Tzigane, both presenters of Mundofonías radio show (Spain) and Ángel Romero, editor of WorldMusicCentral.org and MusicasDelMundo.com (USA).

They explored what might be the best procedure for artists to propose their music, to make it available to the panelists, so that they can evaluate and vote on it and, as a result, produce the monthly and annual charts. It was also important to recruit the members of the panel among prestigious disseminators of these musics, counting on the inclusion of panelists from all continents and as many regions of the world as possible and seeking a significant (ideally equal) presence of women.

So the first chart was launched in October 2015. It was determined by about 30 panelists, included the three founders and administrators, and by 2020 it already included 59 panelists from all continents (except Antarctica!), including countries like China, Senegal, India, Iran, Malaysia, Armenia, Turkey, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, Uzbekistan, Israel, Japan, Spain, Finland, France, Italy, Ireland, UK, Russia, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Greece, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Portugal, Serbia, Australia, USA, Canada and more to come!

Reflecting diversity, making things easy

The panel is envisioned to obtain a real vision of the best world music productions in the entire Globe. Any good quality production, recorded in any country, including self-productions and small label releases can be included in the chart, regardless of geographical or monetary barriers, based on merit and talent rather than popularity, big productions or record sales. So we take advantage of the possibilities offered by the digital world to democratize access to our platform: anyone, from anywhere in the world can submit their album to the chart for free and this album will be immediately distributed to the panelists for evaluation without any intermediary when eligible. We also provide some tips and tutorials to make it as easy as possible.

One step beyond that has come up after these almost five years of work is the need to resolve the language barrier. Now we can take advantage of the development of machine translation that allows us to resolve this situation, not perfectly but reasonably. The world is not only in English and, as our aim is being as inclusive as possible, we don’t want language to be an obstacle for non-English speakers, so we now welcome submissions in any language.

TWMC does not accept any payment or preferential treatment towards any artist or label: one of our fundamental hallmarks is transparency and objectivity. Only in this way can we provide the world with the most accurate picture of what is happening in the world of music and in the music of the world.

Increasing initiatives

Throughout these five years, we have been implementing new ideas and initiatives, such as the Festival Award, based on a well thought-out methodology of objective assessment of world music festivals, taking into account not only the musical quality but also profound diversity, opportunities for lesser known artists, communication, festivalgoer experience, logistic, environmental responsibility and social responsibility. We’ve also become partners of WOMEX in the determination of the WOMEX Label Award and the Top Labels of the Year together with the World Music Charts Europe.

The compilation!

And what better than to celebrate our fifth anniversary with the release of a compilation with the best of the season at the TWMC, in collaboration with ARC Music.

We will shortly announce the date of release and where it will be available.
This is the cover ?

This selection will offer an overview of the most voted albums during the last season. It is interesting to observe how many artists from all over the world often manifest a coincidence in the themes and messages of their songs, which come to talk about the problems of people all over the world (poverty, inequality, racism, sexism, environmental disasters, the threat to cultural diversity…). In this way, they turn their music into an instrument of change in favor of justice, equality, the defence of rights and the strength of their own cultures.

More information and charts: transglobalwmc.com
Album submissions: transglobalwmc.com/album-submissions
Meet the members of the panel: transglobalwmc.com/members

Presenting the Transglobal World Music Chart

Posted on by admin

We are glad to announce you the launching of the Transglobal World Music Chart (TWMC).

Transglobal World Music Chart is a network of world music critics and journalists, who are working on a regular basis, spreading world, roots, traditional music… in any kind of media. It has a real global approach, including representatives from most regions, with a very inclusive point of view.

TWMC produces a monthly chart and also a “best of the year” chart, selected according to quality. The panel is envisioned to include any good quality production, recorded in any country, including self-productions and small label releases.

The first chart will be published in October.

The goal is to spread the best world music productions selected by renowned world music specialists from all over the Globe. The aim of the Chart is also to facilitate artists to be included, regardless of geographical barriers, based on merit and talent rather than popularity, big productions or record sales.

How does it work?

The panel of critics holds two monthly ballots:

  • The members choose a certain number of albums each month. The most voted albums are nominated for the chart poll next month. The label/manager/artist responsible for the nominated albums are notified, so that they can send the album to the members that still don’t have it, so they can consider it for the chart the following month.
  • Simultaneously, the panel members vote their favorites among the albums nominated the previous months. This poll produces the chart of the highest rated albums.

The members of the panel might receive the music in CD or digital format. Monetary reasons (like the cost of shipping physical albums to all the members of the panel) should not be a handicap for any artist or label to be included in the Chart.

How is an album considered for the Chart?

The albums can be considered in two ways:

  • The members of the panel propose freely and proactively some albums each month. The most voted albums (nominated) enter in a selection period (from beginning of the month until the end), in which they can be sent to any other member of the panel for their ranking for the next month.
  • The record labels, artists, publicists, managers… can send the album to the members of the panel for their consideration. There are two options:
    • Get in touch directly with the members. Go to Members to contact them individually in order to send them a physical or digital copy.
    • Provide a link to download a digital copy to the administrators of the chart’s email that would be distributed exclusively to the members. You can email us from here.

Important to note:

Do not send audio files by email. Use other transfer methods, like DropBox, Wetransfer, a link to download from your server or any other. Don´t make it complicated for the members of the panel to get to listen to your music.

Sending digital albums involves including the booklet and the same information as the physical edition.

The members.

Currently there are 30 world music specialists in the panel from North America, Latin America, Asia, Australia and Europe (and more coming soon). You can check their profiles and contact them in Members.

The administrators and founder members of the TWMC are Juan Antonio Vázquez (Mundofonías, Spain), Araceli Tzigane (Mundofonías, Spain) and Ángel Romero (World Music Central, US).

First news

Posted on by admin

TWMC produces a list of albums, a chart, each month and also at the end of the year, selected according to quality. The panel is envisioned to include any good quality production, recorded in any country, including self-productions and small label releases.

The goal is to spread the best world music productions selected by renowned world music specialists from all over the Globe. The aim of the Chart is also to facilitate artists to be included, regardless of geographical barriers, based on merit and talent rather than popularity, big productions or record sales.

First chart will be published in October 2015.