MoonJune Music Festival Toledo Spain - September 28 to October 1

MoonJune Music

in association with M Films Producciones

is announcing

Second International MoonJune Festival Toledo 2023

A global multimedia gathering and festival of eclectic, international progressive music exploring and expanding the boundaries of jazz, rock, global music, and the unknown.

September 28 - October 1, 2023

At the Circulo De Arte Toledo

Plaza San Vincente, Toledo, Spain

Official website: www.moonjunetoledo.com

Concept Fit For Toledo

Befitting a label and artist-management company that epitomizes musical multiculturalism, MoonJune's second annual global gathering takes place in the storied cultural crossroads of Toledo, Spain. With its rich history as the onetime capital of Castile, first capital of Spain, and current capital of the La Mancha region, Toledo is a UNESCO World Heritage site that traces its roots back to Roman times - a place where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived together with tolerance for centuries, hence its sobriquet, the City of Three Cultures. Appropriately, the 2023 edition of MoonJune's annual festival will be staged in the historic El Circulo del Arte de Toledo in the erstwhile church of San Vicente, founded by King Alfonso VI shortly after the Muslim conquest of Spain. Once notorious as the headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition, the building has been reborn as a chapel for worship and the creation of art. The magical mysticism and immense beauty of Toledo, rich in more than 2,000 years of history and culture, in a region of La Mancha which deserves to be better known to the world, fits perfectly with MoonJune's philosophy.

Eclectic Music Beyond Borders

It’s a festival of eclectic, international progressive music exploring and expanding the boundaries of jazz, rock, global music, and the unknown. Musicians, who are already part of the extended MoonJune Global Family, are from different parts of the world: Spain, United States, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Germany, Mexico, Israel, Cuba, - and they are from different spectrum of spirituality: Christian, Jews, Muslims, Hindu, Agnostics.

MoonJune’s Guiding Principles

MoonJune’s guiding principles – or as Leonardo Pavkovic prefers, "modus moonjundi" – are in tune with what legendary British bass player Roy Babbington (Soft Machine and much more) memorably described as "poetic entanglement" - that is, the art of being alert to, and confidently acting on, the affinities and happenstances of the moment, in a spirit of openness, curiosity, and goodwill. MoonJune’s mission is to spread unity, joy, and hope through music, toward the elusive goal of peace and understanding on this troubled earth.

The dynamic personality of the festival’s founder, Leonardo Pavkovic – a resident of Toledo since December 2021 – lies at the epicenter of the Festival’s initiative and its spiritus movens. A unique figure in the worldwide musical milieu, "Mr. MoonJune" has long been one of the most creative forces supporting, producing, developing, and organizing ambitious musical projects the world over. The MoonJune Festival is a celebration of the creative spirit and international friendship, a gathering of likeminded musicians, journalists, music activists, and of course music lovers. After a very successful first edition of the festival in Leonardo’s native city of Jajce, Bosnia & Herzegovina - itself a historically important cultural crucible - in June 2022, the Second Annual International MoonJune Festival could not be staged anywhere else but in Leonardo’s new home town of Toledo, Spain, thus connecting two beautiful historic cities.

In February of 2023, Leonardo Pavkovic has joined forces with Mexican born Spaniard Mauricio Aguinaco, also resident of Toledo, who is bringing his rich experience in organizing a vast array of cultural events in the fields of music and film festivals.

A Sensory Feast

Designed as an immersive, multisensory experience, the Second International MoonJune Festival showcases MoonJune talents from around the planet, including distinguished musicians from the United Kingdom, Germany, USA, Spain, Indonesia, Uruguay, Israel, and Mexico. The event offers not just a series of concerts but a unique "pentasensorial" experience blending sounds, flavors, aromas, and audiovisual elements evoking the rich cultural legacy of Toledo and its surrounding La Mancha region, famed for Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes, the Windmills of Consuegra, El Greco, olive cultivation, and much more. The festival will combine:

Hearing – extraordinary music performed by exemplary players representing MoonJune's global diaspora

Sight – projected images complementing live musical performances

Taste – the gastronomic richness of La Mancha's regional cuisine, wine, and olive oil

Smell – fragrances of Toledo's unique natural and built environments

Touch – tactile encounters with the walls and buildings of the ancient town, imbued with mysticism from two millennia of history

In addition to the concerts, the festival will include expert roundtable discussions on the state of today's post-COVID music industry, flamenco and global music as the unifying force in today’s troubled world, plus the inaugural "MoonJune de la Mancha Awards" for Lifetime Achievement in performing and recording music and an outstanding career in the music business.

MoonJune and Toledo invite You to have a unique and unforgettable "MoonJune Toledo Experience"; for those unable to attend in person, high-definition audio and video of all events will be streamed worldwide a few weeks after the termination of the festival.

FESTIVAL PROGRAM

SEPTEMBER 28 - DAY ONE

Venue: TERRAZA DE MIRADERO

7:00pm - PRESS CONFERENCE

9:00 - Live performance by ANTHONY GARONE and DENNIS REA

SEPTEMBER 29 - DAY TWO

Venue: CIRCULO DE ARTE

11:00 - ROUND TABLE

Theme: The current situation in the music business environment in the post-COVID world. Participants: DEREK SHULMAN, BILL HEIN, LEONARDO PAVKOVIC, MARKUS REUTER, SID SMITH, ADAM BARUCH. Moderated by ANTHONY GARONE.

18:00 - Doors Open

18:30 - Live performance by FERNANDO GIRÓN BAND

Featuring: FERNANDO GIRÓN, bass player TBA, drummer TBA.

19:45 - Live performance by ANCHOR & BURDEN featuring: MARKUS REUTER, ALEXANDER DOWERK, BERNHARD WÖSTHEINRICH, ASAF SIRKIS.

21:15 - Live performance by SOFT MACHINE featuring: JOHN ETHERIDGE, THEO TRAVIS, FRED BAKER, ASAF SIRKIS.

SEPTEMBER 30 - DAY THREE

Venue: CIRCULO DE ARTE

11:00 - ROUND TABLE

Theme: The Flamenco world - yesterday, today and tomorrow. Participants: JACO ABEL, ÁMOS LORA, JOSÉ MARIA BANDERA, DIEGO AMADOR, ISRAEL VARELA, MARIA NOCETTI. Moderated by (to be confirmed).

18:00 - Doors Open

18:30 - Live performance by JACO ABEL FLAMENCO ELÉCTRICO TRIO featuring: JACO ABEL, JÚLIAN HEREDIA, EL MORENO.

19:45 - Live performance by ÁMOS LORA BAND featuring: ÁMOS LORA, GITO MALETÁ, RAINIER ELIZONDO ‘EL NEGRÓN’, BANDOLERO.

21:15 - Live performance by PAQUEANDO featuring: DIEGO AMADOR, JOSÉ MARIA BANDERA.

OCTOBER 1 - DAY FOUR

Venue: CIRCULO DE ARTE

11:00 - ROUND TABLE

Theme: Global Music as unifying force ion today’s troubled world. Participants: ISRAEL VARELA, ANA ALCAIDE, BELEDO, DWIKI DHARMAWAN, ASAF SIRKIS, LEONARDO PAVKOVIC. Moderated by ADAM BARUCH.

17:30 - Doors Open

18:00 - Live performance by BELEDO & HIS FRIENDS featuring: BELEDO, OFER ASSSAF, PATO MUÑOZ, XAVI REIJA with special guest DEWA BUDJANA.

19:15 - MoonJune Awards for Lifetime Achievement in Performing and Recording Music and Lifetime Achievement for an Outstanding Career in the Music Business. Presented by SID SMITH and ANTHONY GARONE.

20:15 - Live performance by ANA ALCAIDE featuring: ANA ALCAIDE with special guest BILL COOLEY.

21:30 - Live performance by ISRAEL VARELA MUSICA PINTADA featuring: ISRAEL VARELA.

22:00 - Live performance by DWIKI DHARMAWAN WORLD PEACE BAND featuring: DWIKI DHARMAWAN, DEWA BUDJANA, IVAN NESTORMAN, OFER ASSAF, YARON STAVI, ISRAEL VARELA.

Closest airport: MADRID (MAD).

Local travel, sightseeing, gastronomy and accommodation help: BEST MICE & TRAVEL https://www.bestmice.es

Accommodations AIRBNB: https://shorturl.at/bcqN4

Accommodations via KAYAK: https://t.ly/QadhQ

CAR RENTAL (very affordable at Madrid Airport): https://t.ly/T2Co

THE TEAM

Leonardo Pavkovic, the fact-totum of MoonJune Music & MoonJune Records, is the executive producer, creator and mastermind of the Second International MoonJune Music Festival, to be staged in Toledo, Spain in 2023. Born in Jajce in the former Yugoslavia (today's Bosnia & Herzegovina), the peripatetic Pavkovic grew up in Italy, lived in New York City for 31 years, and settled in Toledo in December 2021. Of mixed ethnic background (Montenegrin, Croatian, Armenian, Lebanese), "Marco Pavlo" is a polyglot fluent in five languages and a prodigious world traveler who's visited close to 90 countries to date.

One needs to create a new category to encompass the multifaceted activities of Pavkovic, who as sole operator of MoonJune Music – comprising both a record label of progressive music and boutique booking and management agency – has connected hundreds of deserving creative musicians from around the globe to a supportive worldwide audience. Simply listing his many roles and talents – enabler (as described by legendary drummer Bill Bruford), label owner, booking agent, graphic designer, networker extraordinaire, world-spanning traveler, book publisher, raconteur, musical matchmaker, and tour manager for numerous legendary artists, just for starters – scarcely does justice to the far-reaching scope of Pavkovic’s intersecting activities. He’s more accurately characterized as a preternaturally effective community builder in the service of creative music, a sort of supranational Johnny Appleseed scattering spores of musical goodness across a borderless planet.

https://moonjune.com/mr-moonjune

Mauricio Aguinaco, the event producer and creative director for the 2nd MoonJune Festival Toledo 2023, is a Mexican-born Spaniard based in Toledo since January 2022. He is a director, producer, screenwriter, editor, and production designer with credits in feature films, short films, commercials, documentaries, music videos, and live events, with over 30 years of production experience in Spain, Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. Formerly Mexico City's Film Commissioner, Mauricio acts as writer, producer, editor, music supervisor, and director for the urban music feature film Aerosol. Mauricio financed his film studies as a DJ in the music scenes of Hollywood, Venice, and South Bay in Los Angeles during the 1980sand '90s. He studied art at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico (I.N.B.A.) and film at El Camino and Santa Monica Community College (USA). He is the founder, producer, and director of the Toluca International Film Festival; founder and associate producer for the music festival Tajin Primavera del Milenio; and creator of the Urban Music Festival Marathon vs Violence. He has also collaborated in the atrezzo and design of the operas Cavalleria Rusticana, I Pagliacci, Il Neurisastenico (directed by Juan Jose Gurrola for the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico (I.N.B.A.)), and the musical event Azul, A Tribute to Agustín Lara, for the University of Veracruz. Mauricio was the winner of a Mexican Film Academy award for set design for Like Water For Chocolate.

https://www.mfilms.pro