Joan Rial: “Amazon or Apple demand music in Catalan”

The 36th edition of the Mercat de Música Viva de Vic has a record of proposals, more than 1,500, and the interest in connecting the course of the fair with the new triumvirat to the capdavant of the ship. Joan Rial, Jordi Casadesús and Rubèn Pujol focus on the retelling of Oriol Roca and the late Marc Lloret with a continuous view and steps to face: the new musical formats, the overture to electronics and the defense of a cultural model relating to the territory are part of the commitment of the new direction, originating from Vic i with long experience in the music sector. “We take care of the details, we focus on the little things,” says Joan Rial, visiting Barcelona with Jordi Casadesus in the final stretch of his first Mercat.

How do you feel about the current programming?

Joan: We are curious to know how impactful the sector is, and the commenters who value it very positively seem to have recovered the sense of encouraging the discovery of unknown proposals within the Market. Això is full of pride with artistic directors because we are not a festival of discovery of emerging music. We hire professionals who work in both companies in the sector, and have positioned ourselves above the private and public sector of the country as the leader of the new season, we have fought very hard to continue.

Work looking ahead

Joan: We want to advance the 2026 program, we want to consult the professionals and provide them with the necessary resources to make the following programs. Here will come the artists who will be on tour everywhere, including multitudinous events with Sidonie, who will play her album in Catalan for the first time; or María Arnal, who has only seen Sónar, Catalonia cannot see more. Triquell will also release his album, and Brighton 64 will begin the recommended tour. And above all the theater proposals, from the professional zone to the unveiling of L'Atlàntida or the new scenes we will work on.

Who else has this goal?

Joan: We will rejuvenate the poster with young artists from all over Europe, in addition to the state and national ones. We have focused our international programming on the territories closest to the State: Portugal, France and Italy, without forgetting Spain. Jordi has been known to visit professional artists in all these countries to present a poster that people want to look for and look at with artists such as Sofía Leao, Rodrigo Leao's daughter, who has not yet published the new project. It is an international proposal that we see very much in the future, and that professionals will not be able to work at the Mercat, because it does not exist.

“It seems that the promoters feel isolated in the space, sometimes the difficulty is in imagining what happens to them”

How do they make the different scenes?

Joan: Let's try to follow a mirall that the sector demands: A small room, a mitjana room, a large one, a large theater or an underground stage. The promoters can select the scenarios they have in their six programs, and they will test the proposals located in their context. Many fires work with the concept of llotja, with the promoter being in the center and passing the proposals: a punk group, a jazz group or an R&B group, but in this way you are not giving the artists the context necessary to shine.

They lack the atmosphere

Joan: Because a group can please the promoter, you need an adequate audience, and for the adequate audience you need an adequate time and a stage that is adapted to the various technical and artistic conditions. It is unrealistic for a punk concert in a theater at 11 a.m., it is not a style of music for that time, and it calls for a more urban scene, don't worry. For each woman it is like opening a church: there are many countries in Catalonia and in the State with programs of 100 to 150 people, each town has a program there.

There are also great programs at L'Atlàntida, or from the middle of the auditorium to room 2, and a room similar to l'Apol·lo which is l'Envelat, a great middle of Catalonia. The perfect setting for jazz to shine is the Vic Jazzcava, both in this club venue for electronics and club culture. It seems that the promoters feel isolated in the space, because sometimes the difficulty is left to their imagination.

How is the Mercat in Vic during the rest of the year?

Jordi: It has always been said that it is the Vic festival, the moment that the city was waiting for to have great concerts. With fills from all that time we enter the Mercat de Música Viva with one of the great events of any time.

Joan: Everything has changed during the last 20 years, we left our homes outside Vic to sleep at home during the Mercat to watch the Els Pets concert. But now we bring to the six cities a major festival with many stage professionals, a small festival, a small cycle. The volume of live music has increased significantly, and this part of the family conglomerate has been lost. There are still doubts about whether the people of Vic are aware of the gift they have at the Mercat.

It is an event that places the city on a musical map

Joan: In Spain there are three great professional files: the Bime of Bilbao, the Monkey Week of Seville and the Mercat de Música of Vic, and there is great pride in the city. Who in 1989 will have the idea of having a professional Mercat will be an il·luminat, it has been a very important favor. Still, and coinciding with the rise of live music, the people of Vic have understood that the Mercat is not a festival, that it has more than a thousand accreditations passed by some of the penjolls assetjant in the town, but I don't know if they are aware that there is the crème de la crème of Catalan music i state, and also from southern Europe.

“Tant Rubén, like Jordi and we have been linked to the Mercat since 2015, worked for Marc and Oriol”

Are you going to coordinate with the previous address?

Joan: So Rubén, like Jordi and I have been directly or indirectly linked to the Mercat since 2015, working in different areas for Marc and Oriol, but now we do not feel foreign people to the guanyar and inform them first. Let them inform you on the day that they will present, and they will finally encourage everyone. This past year there will be a meeting in which they will explain all the things that have happened in the last few years, which they have not been able to achieve, and above all the things that they believe will happen in the future.

For example?

Joan: Include the new way of publishing music, both the growth and success of the single and our new formats. They have positioned the Mercat as an exclusive space for album releases and tours, but they also see that the sector is beginning to become more liquid. A project like Mushkaa's will pass the stage of playing to 100 people at the Heliogàbal hall, on March, to be held at the Moll de la Madera with 20,000 people in September. The world is evolving rapidly, and we have doubts that the Mercat can wait for the presentations that people carry an album, but not even the third.

Do you have any ideas to include these new formats?

Jordi: I might miss the importance of releasing albums and tours, which means presenting things that do not strictly follow a concert, and allowing artists to come who do not play at the Mercat.

Joan: There is such a huge inflationary cash bid that the promoter needs to be the first to target the group, and bet on young talent. In the professional department there is a new singles release activity in collaboration with Apecat (association of phonographic producers of Catalonia) to escort unreleased singles that will be drawn during the following season so that the promoters know what they will be paying attention to during the season. We will take a break, donate space to people so that we can present the things and that the professional can buy exactly what they see.

“A major party is organizing a great paella, while a concert hall is eating potatoes and playing every day”

How has the increase in live music consumption affected us?

Joan: The major festivals are at a very high level, many councils are committed to them because, historically, it is a moment of popular celebration and the success of the government. But the 100,000 euros that it is easy to spend on artists could also be invested in managing a small venue throughout the entire town. But of course, a major party is organizing a great paella for all your friends, while a concert hall is eating potatoes and playing every day.

A model question

Joan: The rise of major festivals has meant that Catalan groups are increasingly becoming more demanding in terms of format, music in Catalonia has increased in quantity. Be sure to speak on platforms such as Amazon Music or Apple Music that require music in Catalan because it is located on the six lists. On Amazon Music, music in Catalan is among the top 10 of the most escorted to the Iberian Peninsula.

Music in Catalan has become mainstream

Joan: It is at a very high moment, and we are aware of the number and quality of the professionals who are accredited, and for the impact of the southern European sector that we have. In Madrid people talk about Mushkaa, Julieta i fins i tot d'Oques Grasses, Tyets or María Hein. Now d'Ouineta, Fades, Svetlana, Maria Arnal, La Ludwig Band started talking. There is an investment in music in Catalan, but is it the right investment? It would be more pleasing than committed to a sustainable model, looking more to the future and menys the melics of cadascú.

“Tothom will have a concert at Casa Seva, and from the Mercat we have to play from the Cicle Petit Fins to the festival.”

Are these major festivals inflating the artist's caixet?

Jordi: With more groups hi ha, more competition hi ha and more spectacles bons fas.

The caixet also bids because it believes the infrastructure, the production of the bits. Oques Grasses is an example, at the Catalan level there has been no tour of these dimensions. We are at a time when everyone wanted to have a concert at home, and from the Mercat we had to play all the countries, from the small cycle of Poble Fins to the great festival. But it has to be equitable, we have to promote the small projects, also at the international level, because the budget is what it is. We will not be able to enter this little rain of great festivals with great fons.

Fan committed to electronic music

Joan: It is a difficult sector that has always functioned independently, it has not entered countries with major festivals. But it is widely consumed among young people, and increasingly among the adult public.

Jordi: Both electronics and jazz have a lot of potential in southern Europe. It is easier to enter France through electronics or jazz than with a traditional Catalan proposal. There is a professional feeling, so we want to work with these groups that have already contacted both of these groups.

How is the controversy raised by Sónar?

Joan: More than a problem with Sónar, it is a consequence of globalization, which causes contradictions. We believe in the culture that we see below, the little culture, because when we sew it, it is more and more difficult to make it sustainable. It is normal that in a project as large as Sónar, investment funds come in from which faction will lose control of the project, which is the one that will pass away. We defend the decentralization of culture, and try to avoid inconsistencies, but we live a life full of contradictions, we buy neighborhood shopping in a supermarket. Sónar is one of the most culturally coherent projects in Europe in recent years, and I would dare to say that they have no idea about the Zionist links of the investment funds that they are going to buy, but this is the one that happens when you lose control of the new company.

How do you rate the noise pollution decree prepared by the Generalitat?

Joan: There have been great battles, for a band the survival of the concert halls, and for the other hand the coexistence between the citizens, keep in mind that many are public and visible now. When you are at the concert you like one thing, but when you see you like another. We have to work together because decrees and laws contemplate the music sector, which has not been escorted by fins unlike cinema or theater. The changes that may come from this decree cannot cause the loss of live music countries, on the contrary, they take time to promote. And if there are regulations that oblige premises to be remodeled for acoustic reasons, it is necessary that they be accompanied by policies that help to not lose the few spaces that we have.