The festival will present music from nine islands and four continents and its schedule has been already made available.
The event kicks off on Wednesday September 25th with an international showcase of local folk music. This day devoted to world and Polish ethnic music is a novelty at the festival. The project, called Sounds Like Poland, (which is co-organised by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute) includes numerous panels, meetings and discussions about the role of Polish artists in the world music industry.
The second day of the festival will feature the concert of a vocal quartet called Tenores di Bitti Mialinu Pira - they are perfoming polyphonic Sardinian singing from a 3000 year-old tradition. Danyel Waro - a legendary singer, poet and rebel will outline the traditions of the indigenous population of Reunion, an island located in the Indian Ocean. It is him who brought back to life maloya - a slow, oceanic blues performed by the island slaves in the past. Waro sings in Creole about politics and racism, but also about culture, which allows one to retain freedom.
On Friday the 27th instrumentalists and vocalists from several countries such as throat singers from Canada, Maori haka dancers from New Zealand, a flute player from Sicily, an Irish drummer and a Sufi singer from Djerba will perform during the Concert of Masters. They organize a one-week workshop, and then appear only once on stage united, performing, improvising and mixing ethnic sounds. During the same evening we will see dance and a variety of maloya, played by eight musicians from a group called Lindigo - they mix traditional Reunion sounds with Brazilian samba and African rhythms.
On Sunday it will be possible to listen to the diva of the Caribbean music - Calypso Rose, a 73-year old singer with limitless energy and scenic charisma; she will bring calypso to Warsaw audiences. Having reached stardom in the seventies, she has never stopped since being the most outstanding representative of the genre.
A performance by Moana Maniapoto, one of the most distinctive singers from New Zeland, will follow - she is accompanied by musicians and dancers forming a group called Moana & The Tribe. Their music is an artfully selected combination of past Maori sounds combined with classical music and contemporary soul, reggae and hip hop.
On Sunday there will be a collective concert of Aurelio Marinez, drummer, composer and singer from Honduras, and a band called The Garifuna Collective from Belize. They participate in cultural preservation and promote the rich culture of the Garifuna people (Black Caribbean), who come from Africa, and who have become community (approx. 600 thousands of people) scattered in many countries.
The Cross Culture Warsaw Festival is devoted to multiculturalism and diversity. It was initiated for the first time in 2005 and so far it has gathered 170 artists from 54 countries. Stołeczna Estrada organizes the event, which was created thanks to financial support from Urząd m.st.Warszawy.
Source: press materials, edited: SW, 6.08.2013
Translation: GS 08/08/2013