Yesterday, the mega sports machine of ESPN has announced that they will be bring the X games to Barcelona in 2013.  Barcelona is a meca of skateboarding and X games sports and is excited to see this come to Spain.

The list of X Games host cities will grow by three in 2013, as ESPN announced Tuesday that Barcelona, Spain; Munich, Germany; and Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, have been chosen as X Games venues for the next three years…

X Games to grow from three to six events in 2013 – ESPN.

Since we arrived in Barcelona 8 years ago – when we were discovering local musicians and helping to develop the concept for the music documentary Playing for Change – Local Producer has taken great pride in working with the local Spanish music scene.  This year was no exception at the MWC.  Our goal each year is to convince visiting clients to hire more local performers, instead of importing them, for their entertainment.  This year we had several local acts perform over two days at the Fira conference center – all received glowing reviews from the public and the client. 

The first day was highlighted by some smooth saxophone by Lucila Ciocoletto on the conference floor and then jamming with Nokia´s own DJ Hannu during Happy Hour.  Later, Lucila was joined by her guitarist, Leonardo Ferrari for a duet performance.

Day 2 at the Nokia ´Adventure in Barcelona´Happy Hour was kicked off by the Bella Union String Band, this collection of Barcelona all-star musicians was put together specifically for this performance.  They played a set of original songs and jams driven by the violin strumming of Naomi Wedman and vocals by Daniel Dodds.  These Barcelona-based performers regularly tour in their various groups throughout Spain and Europe.

The finale was a performance by Local Producer´s own Barcelona Brazilian Samba School lead by Ms. Fernanda Accorsi Santos.  Dancing through the crowds and accompanying the beats of DJ Hannu to rounds of applause.

We would like to share some highlights of their performances and again ask our followers to support live local music.

Barcelona is lleno de talented performers struggling to survive and still produce their music.  Local Producer would like to help.  If you are a local musician, we want to hear from you so we can have you on file for productions and events.

Local Producer has a large network of music professionals – record label executives, band managers, film students that want to make music videos, sound techs, other musicians and fans that appreciate live music.

Our goal is to ´keep music live in Barcelona´

If you are an interested musician or have a band, please email us with a clean concert video, a few photos, a short description of your project/ style of music and the instruments.  If you have a festival or concert coming up, let us know so we can talk about it.

We will use this to promote your band.  Please keep in mind, the easier you make it for us, the quicker we can start to promote your music.

We appreciate your efforts and will see you on stage soon!

It will be in full force from the 24th til the 26 of November, from 17:30 – 21:30 at the metro Universitat.

(www.TMB.cat)

Local Producer´s Brian Heinen was asked to participate in a special 10 year anniversary exhibit of Live Music in the metro (Barcelona), by producer Acardi Poch (Kognitif Platform Productions) to open the festival.  Brian´s interview about the live music scene in Barcelona was featured in a video that is on display in the Sala Merce in the Metro Diagonal station,   (See Video below)

After various live music productions in Spain; starting with the local production of the “Playing for Change” documentary and continuing to the Local Jam  and Tommy Hilfiger Sessions platform (http://localproducer.es/eventplanning/), Brian has an extensive perspective of the direction of local live music.

Brian discusses in the interview his belief that the local public and musician need to be more proactive in supporting the music scene through the education on the value of live music.  He describes how, “it is not just enough to view free concerts supported by the government, but to understand the importance of paying for the right to have quality live music.”  Brian believes, “Quality music is a privilege, not a right and the public should feel the need to pay or commit for it.  The public should want go to hear live music – not only for the brand name musicians – but for the culture and recognition of the live music venues.”

View more about what Brian (8min 40 sec.)  and others in the Barcelona music scene had to say in the video:

Margaret Stepien El bulli.(Link)

 Local Producer event photographer and good friend, Margaret Stepien, is back with some new photos from El Bulli

She also has a new book out with photography of the famous La Boqueria Market on Las Ramblas!!  Great work Marge!

In Catalan & English