TRAVELLING TO THE SOUND OF MUSIC
Five factors that transform fans into aficionados
Targeting a specific destination with a cool concert ticket included is one thing. Hopping a flight to travel somewhere to get immersed in a scene — from the history to the sounds — separates the megafanatic from the casual fan.
While there’s nothing wrong with either scenario, only one is music tourism.
We had experts weigh in and found significant differences between the musical tourist and checking off your “must see” list. Five major themes emerged. These were location, history, genre, convenience and — the most fluid of all qualities — value-added.
Key to our selection of events or tours focused on how unique these five factors were.
The musical tourist isn’t after a collective group experience as much as an individual one that lives on long after the tour date. Years after the fact, discussions arise out of something gleaned on your trip that refers right back to a specific lecture, performance, related cultural experience, or meal. A serving of rice and beans can spur a conversation about that lecture/ performance of all the Cuban songs devoted to this dietary staple and similar such songs of the American South and Latin America.
It’s the sort of thing you encounter on an in-depth musical tour.
LOCATION
What makes a person plan their vacation somewhere other than at home? The lure of the location. This is the same for the globe-trotting musical tourist.
It goes without saying that centres such as New York or New Orleans come ready made for immersing yourself. In fact, it was on my first trip to New Orleans that I picked up a copy of Dr. Karl Koenig’s Just a closer walk: The walkers’ tour of jazz history in the French Quarter (Basin Street Press, 1988), and discovered how much time you could devote to exploring a city’s musical legacy, wandering its streets, book in hand, stopping and reading about unlikely jazz hot spots such as the Screwman’s Hall on Bienville. So began a decades-long habit. Cool as Björk may be, I never saw Iceland in the same light as New York or New Orleans when it comes to musical tourism. Frankly, nobody did. When Icelandair and the City of Reykjavik conceived the first Iceland Airwaves festival in 1999, the plan was to bring some business to the Nordic nation during the slow season. The spinoff of this successful event was an explosion of Iceland’s music scene worldwide, and also inspired greater interest in the country that produced it. Because to really understand the singular sounds of this nation near the Arctic Circle, you need to see the place.
“It was a concept of Icelandair’s marketing department to both showcase the local music scene and also to get industry people coming to see them and get other groups putting it on their circuit,” says Michael Raucheisen, Icelandair’s communications director. “What began as a one-day event in September is now a weeklong one in November, which has become tied-in with wanting to come and see the Northern Lights and other unique winter activities. It’s been really amazing how there is now a tourist season well into what was the down period, and Airwaves certainly played a key part.”
The 2017 Iceland Airwaves takes place Nov. 1 through Nov. 5. icelandairwaves.is
Closer to home, the Edge of the
World Music Festival takes place Aug. 11-13 in Haida Gwaii, B.C. Set in the majestic woods of the Tiell Fall Fairgrounds on Graham Island, the festival offers up the usual mix of local and national touring acts and plays a role in travel investment to the region. Laughingly called “the Hippie Fest” for many years, in recent times it has become a musical component of the greater experience of one of the world’s most beautiful natural settings.
“We did an informal economic assessment impact at one point and we estimated that the event brings in about $400,000-plus to the North and Haida Gwaii, which is pretty significant for an event capped at 2,200 people,” said festival director Janet Rigg. “We don’t have formal ties with other operators, but so many people who come include more in their itinerary because that is the draw of the region.”
While events clearly vary significantly in terms of scale, the attraction of the locale is a key driver for going at all. edgefestival.ca
HISTORY
No story on music-driven travel would be complete without looking at the classical musical capitals of Europe.
In Mozart’s Footsteps specializes in illuminating the rich history and sounds of cities such as Salzburg, Vienna, Prague and others. David Nelson, a music theory professor for 30 years and author of Vienna for the Music Lover: The Complete Guide to Vienna’s Musical Sites and Performances Today (Musikverlag Doblinger, 2006) — a detailed book with editions in English, German and Chinese — leads the tours.
He has very clear ideas on the concept of music tourism, and it’s not a term he is enamoured of.
“What I do is create far more detailed experiences for music lovers so that they can really get a better sense of what it was really like in the time of Mozart, Beethoven or Haydn and where they lived and worked,” Nelson said. “Through the research I’ve done, I have put together trips for people who want to learn more, or who may already know an awful lot and to make it all come alive. The performances are a key part of it, sure, but they are in context with the history and not ‘touristy’ shows.”
As an example of this, he mentions walking the group through a plaza near where Beethoven lived while telling the story of the day the composer finally understood his deafness was irreversible.
GENRE
The Latin polyrhythms of Cuba are some of the most exported sounds of any place on the planet. And while the Caribbean island nation is one of the most visited places around, getting deeper into its music culture and other arts can be difficult. That’s where the Putumayo Cuba! Cuba! Tour comes in. Billed as “a musical and cultural adventure in Havana,” the six-day tour, Nov. 6-11, is lead by Putumayo Records’ resident music specialist, Jacob Edgar.
The Putumayo label has helped launch the careers of many Cuban artists outside their country and this has produced a reciprocal access to artists, venues and studios, which wouldn’t be in the purvey of a standard tour.
“I’ve always explored the world through a musical lens and so has the label, using it as a way to enhance, experience and focus in on a culture,” Edgar said. “We organized the tour after we were approached by InsightCUBA, and jumped at the opportunity to curate a trip there and to have access to not just music, but food, dance and artists who so often really know what there is that’s going on.”
Edgar says that one of the biggest challenges is how to create a trip that is intimate and personal and not purely touristic. Getting behind the scenes is key to avoid the standard “cultural” shows. insightcuba.com
CONVENIENCE
Sometimes, you just want things to be easy.
Vancouver musician and jazz impresario Cory Weeds knows about finding the sweet spot between regular gigs and deeper moments. He has been leading jazz tours in both New York and Chicago for almost a decade. The next one is March 18 to March 25, 2018, with more info at newyorkwithweeds.com.
“This year is the seventh or eighth tour, which is pretty good for something that was supposed to be a one-off. But, frankly, it’s been something really rewarding for the people who come along, and super fun for me, too. This is not just for a jazz sophisticado — there is something for everyone.”
Weeds admits it is possible to tour New York City on your own, but with a caveat: You can get burned or miss out on higherquality events.
VALUE- ADDED
Obviously, any of the examples cited include aspects of location, history, genre and convenience. It also follows that there is a valueadded component on all of these tours. In the case of MUTEK, the electronic music summit that takes place Aug. 23-27 in Montreal, the extra benefit is how the festival has tied in with the City of Montreal as a draw.
“MUTEK was inspired by the Sonar festival in Barcelona and we had a fair bit of concern that we lacked their sexiness as a destination,” said festival founder Alain Mongeau. “Then we realized that if we promoted the festival with its Montreal connection, it added an element of cultural context to it that was much more than just another electronic music festival. To be honest, without that touristic presence from the start — nearly 50 per cent comes from outside the city — we wouldn’t have made it.”
Tourism Montreal has worked hard with MUTEK to develop its brand. The model has been successful enough that it has set up shop in Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Tokyo and even sexy Barcelona. Dubai comes online in November. That’s certainly value-added for music lovers around the globe. mutek.org