2012 Festival Coverage On It’s Way
The Radio Adelaide team is gearing up for the 2012 Womadelaide Festival. Stay tuned here for news, broadcast details and preview interviews.
In the meantime, let’s get to know some of the artists appearing at this year’s fest. First Up:
First Aid Kit
Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg strike clean harmonies atop simple guitar, autoharp and keyboards. Their debut album, The Big Black & The Blue, released when Klara was aged 17 and Johanna 19, earned inclusion on several influential ‘best of 2010’ lists. Have a listen:
2011 Festival Wrap Up
It’s been another great year for the community and Indigenous radio team backstage at the Womadelaide festival at Botanic Park, Adelaide.
Follow this website for our onsite blogs, photos, clips, podcasts, interviews and more. We’ve captured the excitement live and hope you can help us share it. Subscribe for email updates – just look in the right hand column.
We also produced three live to air broadcasts - March 12, 13 and 14 - to stations across Australia, as well internationally through our webcast
Find out more about our broadcast partners and broadcast times for your local area here.
Meet the team here
Juan De Marcos – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Onsite interview
Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos Gonzalez is probably best known as the man who put together the Buena Vista Social Club back in the mid-90s – finding those great old Cuban musicians, and encouraging them out of retirement for one last blast of international fame.
He was also the founder of the well-known Cuban band Sierra Maestra, and currently leads the Afro-Cuban All-Stars – a cross-generational band that features some of the best veteran players, alongside the most talented younger musicians in Cuba today.
Seth Jordan speaks with Juan de Marcos at Womadelaide 2011 LIVE!
Juan De Marcos – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Onsite interview (mp3)
Hura Duri Dancers
Human hair is just one ingredient in these fabulous costumes of the Hura Duri Dancers from Papua New Guinea.
Playful punters
Lifes better with a hoola hoop. Womadelaide is not just about the music it’s about the atmosphere and the people you meet along the way.
Phil’s blog – A crumpled yellow band…
As twilight approaches I find myself awaiting the stage one performance to finish and allow the Morten Bay stage to come to life underneath the Gladflys. I quickly look around to ensure my seat is protected. Protected that is from the fall of figs that un-gently rain-domly thump the earth as if the trees themselves are trying to pound out some sacred rhythm, if you slow it down with a video tape or something you can just make out there dance. I’m sure to them its some sort of gypsy, polka, salsa, jig that they love to break out each year at this time.
Whilst trying to imagine this dance I notice a tall raggedy but beautiful grey gum tree. It looks both healthy and happy in its contentment to the goings on around it even though it’s missing a gigantic limb half up its winding trunk. Surrounding this old fellow of the gardens is a multitude of fauna that is now all living together in a silent example of diversity, a reality that seems to envelope the whole festival and question why this is only possible for a week when the trees show us that it is indeed very possible. Oh the band has arrived…
Ian’s Blog – Tara Egans alter ego’s Experience at Womad
Tim O'Brien - Womadelaide 2011
Tim O’Brien and his trio rocked me through a folk tinged aftelrnoon with no sentimentality, firmly rooted in the present, via appalachian and bluegrass motifs. Displaying humour with a loving memory of the cadences of voice and song in the multi cultured suburbs of his youth, Tim and trio led us through the varied musical traditions of America, produced from the collisiion of Indigeonous, African and Celtic influences.
We interrupt the broadcast as Yasar Akpence from Turkish gypsy band Yasar Akpence HARAM’DE has just entered the RadioAdelaide Tent for an interview. Fresh from Stage 2 after another wild, mesmerising set Yasar is here to talk about the origins of his musical heritage and inspiration. Check it out on the website. I saw them the previous day on Stage 3 where the later hour of the performance brought out the whirling gypsy in everyone. Woman twirling, arms undulating, some men swaying, natty dreads akimbo, children enchanted, unable to keep still, pulling on the hands of adults daring to remain so.
Back to the story… well thats Womad, the constant unfolding of new experience, deepening the pattern and colour of the fabric of our lives. I feel like I am stranded on an island with the worlds greatest musicians everywhere. Natalie Natiembe and band are hypnotically rocking the dub out of the stage 1 audience.
What I really sat down to write about was something special I experienced yesterday on the grassy rise at Stage 3. Archie Roach, Neil Murray and Shane Howard talked about what led them to song writing. All from the same region in Victoria, their young lives were separated by the Governments aparthied policies toward Indigenous Australians and the racism extant in broader society. All three mens questioning of society and their place in it led them to music, friendship and collaboration. Shane Howard talked about his path to Solid rock, Neil murray to Island Home and Archie Roach to Took the Children Away. All three compelling in their unimbellished eloquence and honesty, it was Archie Roachs’ journey that was the most emotionally powerful and moving. Some may have wanted more music but that missed the point. At this point in time, story and song are the performance, the audience were being engaged not simply entertained. Extending a folk tradition whereby stories and songs are intertwined these three fellas brought a little more humanity to this corner of Botanic Garden.
Dont blame me, Tara made me do it.
-Ian
Womadelaide 2011 Photos!
Féfé - Womadelaide 2011 LIVE!
There are some stunning photos already available from our Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! team. Check out the albums here.
Horace Andy & Dub Asante – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Live music performance
Horace Andy & Dub Asante – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Live muisc performance (mp3)
Asa – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Onsite interview
Over the past few years. Paris-based musician Asa has been quietly but steadily building a reputation as an artist of substance.
Her fresh style combines influences from western music, calypso and African sounds, resonating with audiences from all parts of the globe.
Asa is performing in Australia for the first time and she dropped by our backstage tent for a chat with Michelle Smith
Asa speaks with Michelle Smith for Womadelaide 2011 LIVE!
Asa – Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! – Onsite interview (mp3)
2011 Festival Wrap Up
It’s been another great year for the community and Indigenous radio team backstage at the Womadelaide festival at Botanic Park, Adelaide.
Follow this website for our onsite blogs, photos, clips, podcasts, interviews and more. We’ve captured the excitement live and hope you can help us share it. Subscribe for email updates – just look in the right hand column.
We also produced three live to air broadcasts - March 12, 13 and 14 - to stations across Australia, as well internationally through our webcast
Find out more about our broadcast partners and broadcast times for your local area here.
Meet the team here
Top End communities to hear national broadcasts
Communities across the Top End will join listeners around Australia for this year’s live coverage of Womadelaide on the community and Indigenous radio networks.
TEABBA – the Top End Bush Broadcasting Association will provide the Womadelaide 2011 LVE! by satellite to its many remote Indigenous communities, as well as larger centres Darwin and Bachelor.
TEABBA provides operational support to 29 RIBS – Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Services, local community services often provided in language. These services can also access TEABBA’s satellite network, allowing local programs to be broadcast to other communities and each service to access additional programs for their communities
The Womadelaide festival has a great mix of sounds from around the world, including many Indigenous artists from Australia and other countries.
Womadelaide 2011 LIVE! Executive Producer Deborah Welch of Radio Adelaide says she is chuffed to know the program is reaching these new communities and that the international artists at Womadelaide will be really excited.
‘Each year at our backstage tent we explain to performers what kind of radio we are, and where our live programs are going. Many artists come from countries without community radio and are amazed to hear we have local radio run by communities in so many types of communities. Many are most excited that they will be heard in the Indigenous communities. We’re really pleased to have the ‘top end’ join the central Australian communities who have been enjoying the programs for some years through CAAMA.
The Top End communities that will be hearing Womadelaide 2011LIVE! are:
Anguraugu, Barunga, Beswick, Batchelor, Borroloola, Daguragu, Darwin, Galiwinku, Gapuwiyak, Jabiru, Jilkminggan, Kunbarlianjnja, Maningrida, Milikapiti, Milingimbi, Miniyerri, Minjilang, NumbuiwarNauiyu, Nambiyu, Nguiu, Ngukurr, Palumpa, Peppimenarti, Pirlangimpi, Ramingining, Robertson River, Umbakumba, Wadeye, Warruwi and Yirrkala
These communities have also provided a number of outstanding artists to Woamdelaide festivals over the years, including Yolngu Dance from Yirrkala as far back as 1995, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunipingu from Galiwin’ku on Elcho Island in 2009 and Young Wagilak Group from Ngukurr in 2010.
So like we always hope it will be, ‘it’s a two way thing’.
The full range of broadcast services bringing the programs to their local listeners can be seen by clicking the ‘broadcast stations’ tab above.
