World Music Showcase
02 JULY 2026
powered by UPBEAT
A to JazZ Festival is part of UPBEAT – The European Showcase Platform for World Music. The showcase program is supported by Upbeat and the European Union.
JURY:
Araceli Tzigane
Director of Mapamundi Música
Araceli Tzigane began her work in music dissemination in 2000, driven by a passion for sharing the sounds she loves. She is the director of Mapamundi Música, the global management and booking agency she founded in 2007, specializing in outstanding acoustic music from around the world.
Araceli is also the founder and administrator of the Transglobal World Music Chart and co-hosts the radio show Mundofonías with Juan Antonio Vázquez, broadcast in 18 countries. She serves on the board of the European Folk Network and regularly participates as a jury member in international music competitions.
Götz Bühler
Artistic Advisor to jazzahead!
Götz Bühler is a music journalist and author, as well as a radio and TV host of “Jazz thing Mixtape” on ByteFM and OneJazz.net, and the German Jazz Prize. He is the Artistic Advisor to jazzahead! – an international trade fair, conference, and festival.
Held annually in Bremen, Germany, jazzahead! is the world’s largest gathering for the jazz industry. In 2026, it will celebrate its 20th anniversary, with Sweden as the partner country.
Jan Hoozee
Artistic Director & Programmer of Trefpunt Festival
Jan Hoozee was born and raised in Ghent, Belgium, where he studied cultural anthropology and cultural management. He is a DJ, amateur musician and radio producer. He used to run the internationally acclaimed world music record label Zephyrus Records and produced more than 20 albums. Currently Jan is the artistic director and programmer of Trefpunt Festival, and the main organizer of the Ghent Festivities (Belgium), a ten-day city festival attracting more than 1.5 million people.
Trefpunt Festival is still the core, the soul, the biggest and most diverse organizer of the huge open air event, the Ghent Festivities, bringing local and international artists in world music, jazz, folk, pop, rock and hiphop, as well as street theater, circus, dance, visual arts and debates.
Jan Hoozee / Trefpunt is the leading partner of Sounds Of Europe, a collaboration project funded by Creative Europe of 13 festivals from 11 countries that gives opportunities to bands from around Europe and exchanges expertise through residencies and sessions around Europe.
Margarita Borisova
Music Journalist & PR at Jazz Plus Concerts
Margarita Borisova is a freelance music journalist based in Sofia and a coordinator in many musical projects, a long-term PR of Jazz Plus Concerts (since 2004) and the owner and music consultant in the oldest vinyl and CD shop in Sofia - “Dukyan Meloman” (since 1994). The store is focused in retailing and distributing the production of the European independent labels like ECM, Act, Enja, World Circuit, Karonte, Wagram. Together with Yavor Ganchev Margarita Borisova has conceptualized and put on stage three crossover projects: Estruna - Arcángel and New Bulgarian Voices, a 2018 Latin Grammy winner, the guitar duo The Storytellers: Cenk Erdogan and Antonio Forcione and Roberto Fonseca and New Bulgarian Voices. She has been a jury at the Jazz Eñe Festival 2017 in Madrid, Spain, led a radio show at RFI Sofia and a weekly jazz review column in the period 2000-2010.
Olivier Rey
Director of Babel Music XP
Olivier Rey has been a musician for over 20 years and an activist in the music world for more than 30 years, organizing major French festivals. He is now Director of Babel Music XP, the economic and cultural forum for contemporary world music held in Marseille. A Mediterranean crossroads for contemporary world music, the event takes place every year in March and brings together the entire music industry around an international trade show, professional meetings and a festival.
