The Virgin Mary Musical

The Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine in Mexico City is among the widely visited religious sites in the world and has inspired travelers from all over the globe seeking to pay homage to the Virgin Mary. As part of a new musical, ‘Guadalupe: The Musical,’ those wishing to learn more about the Virgin Mary based in Manila, will have access through this new production. 

At the start of Guadalupe: The Musical, audiences experiencing a retelling of the mysterious events revolving around the Blessed Virgin in 1531. The original English musical marks the return to stage acting of Cocoy Laurel, who essays the real-life role of Juan Diego, the Aztec mat weaver who witnessed the apparition of the Blessed Virgin.

Official Catholic accounts state that the Virgin Mary appeared four times before Juan Diego and once more before Juan Diego's uncle. According to these accounts, the first apparition occurred on the morning of December 9, 1531, when it is said that a native Mexican peasant named Juan Diego experienced a vision of a young woman at a place called the Hill of Tepeyac, which would become part of Villa de Guadalupe, a suburb of Mexico City. Speaking to Juan Diego in his native Nahuatl language (the language of the Aztec empire), the woman identified herself as the Virgin Mary, "mother of the very true deity" and asked for a church to be built at that site in her honor.

Composer Ejay Yatco has said that Guadalupe: The Musical took 2 years to create with Upstart Productions founder, Joel Trinidad, initially writing the lyrics and the script. Learn more about the production, cast and more by clicking below.

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Play On The Spanish Stage

Play On The Spanish Stage

If you’ve ever wanted to join musicians from all over the world onstage in Barcelona, IMEXA may have just the opportunity you’re looking for. The Independent Music Exporters South Africa (IMEXSA) is now accepting submissions for participation at the Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona, Spain, on 28 May 2019. 

Founded in 2001, IMEXSA's focus is to develop and increase the number of music exporters in South Africa by identifying trade opportunities and assisting companies to take advantage of those opportunities. IMEXSA is funded by the Department of Trade and Industry and has been operating over the past eight years. During this time, the organization has presented unsigned and independent South African music professionals at Popkomm (Germany), WOMEX, Primavera Pro (Spain), Canada Music Week, MIDEM (France) and SXSW (US).

Primavera Sound's first edition took place in 2001 in Poble Espanyol and in 2005 it moved to the Parc del Fòrum. The festival frequently includes up and comers in independent music and well-established acts while presenting an array of styles and genres. Every installment of the festival has shown growth both in terms of numbers and in terms of media exposure both nationally and internationally. The first festival in 2001 closed with an attendance of 8000 people with the latest run in 2015 concluding with 190,000 attendees.

To apply, interested applicants should complete or download an application form on the IMEXSA website.

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 Looking to experience this ever-growing festival in the heart of Spain? Our culturally immersive group classes and native teachers are sure to prepare you for all of your foreign musical adventures! Click below to learn more.

The Red Line For Music

The Red Line For Music

The conflict between music publishers and SGAE (The Spanish Society of Authors and Publishers) could be reaching a boiling point. As you may remember from our previous article, “The Wheel of Royalties,” a number of Spanish TV broadcasters and music-publisher affiliates have schemed to play more of the songs they own themselves on the air and collect the royalties, thus leaving tens of millions of dollars less each year for everyone else whose music is played on Spanish TV.

Music publishing giants Sony/ATV, Universal Publishing, Warner/Chappell, Peer Music, and BMG may leave Spanish rights’ society (SGAE) by the beginning of next year as the argument over “mistreatment” of broadcast rights rages on. Momentum for this shift picked up late last year when reps for Warner/Chappell, Peer Music and EMI, were ousted from the board of directors for surpassing their term limits. SGAE then replaced the publishers on its board with reps of publishers owned or affiliated with Spanish television stations, in a scheme opponents dubbed “The Wheel.” The publishers took up the issue with the courts, which rejected their appeal, Billboard reports. 

Now, the publishers are looking at other options to manage their authors’ royalties. According to local media reports, the companies last Friday effectively handed in their six months’ notice and requested the PRO remove their international repertoire in relation to broadcasting.

Those companies at war with SGAE collectively represent nearly 60% of broadcasting music rights in Spain, including the famous artists Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, and Radiohead to name a few.

SGAE collected 246 million euros in royalties last year, with television and broadcast royalties accounting for more than 12% of the total. While they do not necessarily desire to leave, the collective of publishers have stated that that "if things changed before January 2019” that they may reconsider their decision.

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The Wheel of Royalties

The Wheel of Royalties

The global music publishing community is putting increased pressure on the controversial Spanish song rights collecting society SGAE, stating that publishers may be forced to find other ways to license their rights in the country.

Image credit: Gavin Whitner

SGAE has been the subject of many controversies in recent years including an alleged scam titled ‘the wheel’ that incorporated royalties paid by TV networks and alleged that SGAE members had colluded with executives at Spanish TV stations in order to collect a disproportionate amount of the TV royalties. The scam chiefly involved TV stations playing music by certain SGAE members overnight, so that those members could claim a portion of the broadcasters’ royalty payments.

This incident resulted in an investigation by the World Intellectual Property Organization following action by the International Confederation Of Music Publishers that suspended SGAE’s membership until it dealt with the controversy.

In a recent statement, the ICMP said: “Despite having been reprimanded in recent months by a WIPO Arbitration Panel, the international publishing community and the international community of collective management organizations, the society is returning to its inappropriate and unbalanced television broadcast distribution scam by rejecting the decision of the WIPO Arbitration Panel to which it is bound”. ICMP has also expressed concern about “the lack of firm action coming from the collective management community to address the seriousness of this situation”, which is presumably a coded dig at CISAC. 

ICMP Chair, Chris Butler, has stated firmly that: “We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: it’s time for the collective management community to work decisively towards a definitive solution. If they don’t, we will have no choice but to look at alternative licensing options”.

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