Spain is collaborating with the government of Nigeria to stage a music festival in Lagos State to expose Nigerian young musical talents to producers and promoters from Spain.
The Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, Mr Juan Ignacio Sell, disclosed this while addressing a press conference in Abuja ahead of the festival.
Mr Sell said the project is being promoted by the Nigerian Tourism Development Authority (NTDA) and the Spanish Public Diplomacy Institution (Casa África), after reaching an agreement to organise the next edition of VIS A VIS, the flagship professional meeting between the African music industry and Spanish music producers.
He said VIS A VIS is a project that aims at the internationalisation of African music, adding that Spanish music festivals are amongst the most important in the world.
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“Its main goal is to open up platforms and communication pathways between African artists and Spanish cultural agents.
“In 2023, producers coming from the most important Spanish music festivals and Nigerian artists oriented to the international scene are invited to participate in VIS A VIS,” he added.
Mr Sell called on Nigerian talented musicians to be part of the opportunity to showcase Nigerian musical culture abroad by submitting their music proposals at https://visavis.es/nigeria/ and getting the chance to perform in Spain.
He explained that: “Spanish music professionals and producers of the international Festivals in Spain will preselect 12 groups to perform live in Lagos by the end of March 2023. The preselected groups will be announced shortly after the 14th of March.
“The 12 groups will perform live during a two-day concert on the 23rd and 24th (Thursday-Friday) of March 2023. A massive audience is waiting for them!
“The 12 groups will be scouted by the Spanish music producers and journalists, who will choose two out of them to go to Spain in the Spring-Summer Festivals 2023 Season to perform there.
“The two groups will get a contract from several Festivals and travel to Spain, all costs covered, to perform and make their music internationally known.”
Speaking at the event, the Director General of the NTDA, Folorunsho Coker, said the collaboration marks the beginning of the deepening of the social-cultural relationship between Spain and Nigeria using music as a medium of cultural expression.
While noting that Nigeria’s music industry was the fastest growing globally and was worth about 33 billion naira, he said the festival would “project even more strongly how our music industry is doing well. But this opportunity is to project the vibe whether it is Afrobeat, whether it is Juju music, Akpala, disco, R&B.”
He said Nigeria is the creative hub of Africa, especially in music and film and fashion, saying the country would try to get more interest in all the mediums of Nigerian cultural expression on this one outing.
