Features

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Førde Festival 2024: exploring the roots of music

Jo Frost heads to Førde Festival, a picturesque event that values home-grown Norwegian music as much as the global artists which are its calling card

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Re:INCARNATION - the spirit of Lagos youth comes to the UK

Izzy Felton speaks to the team behind a new Nigerian music-and-dance production aiming to showcase the energy of contemporary Lagos

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Marta Pereira da Costa interview: “It’s difficult to be the first one, it’s difficult to open doors…”

April Clare Welsh speaks to the Portuguese guitarist Marta Pereira da Costa who is breaking barriers for female fado musicians

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Charlie Parr interview: “Ten-hour drives are not pleasant, but my reward is getting to play the guitar”

US troubadour Charlie Parr discusses his earliest influences and life on the road with Paul Slade

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Raymond Antrobus & Evelyn Glennie: a meeting of minds

A one-off recording pairs the poet and award-winning percussionist. That they’re both deaf was incidental. Jane Cornwell uncovers the duo’s “instant connection”

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Vincent Moon: Nomad Cinema

French film-maker Vincent Moon walked away from a career documenting Western rock royalty to create what could be the most impressive and vast ethnomusicology experiment of the 21st Century. Anne Girard Esposito speaks to Moon about his many travels

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Mari Boine interview: “I was on my way somewhere, but now I’m really, really me”

Fiona Talkington speaks to Sámi activist and singer Mari Boine who, now in her 60s, finally feels confident in her own work

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Rachel Newton and Lauren MacColl shine a light on the Scottish witch trials

Jo Frost speaks to Scottish folk artists Rachel Newton and Lauren MacColl whose Heal & Harrow project aims to raise awareness of the women who were persecuted as a result of the Scottish witch trials

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Svetlana Spajić: “I learned my ancestors’ sung aspect of language as my ‘second language’. But now I feel more like it’s really mine”

Serbian singer, folklorist and cultural activist Svetlana Spajić has dedicated her career to the passing down of oral traditions, and it’s taken her to some surprising places, including collaborations with Marina Abramović and Robert Wilson. Celeste Cantor-Stephens takes a journey through her career

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Celebrating 25 editions of the Gnawa festival in Essaouira

The annual Gnawa festival in Essaouira, Morocco has just celebrated its silver anniversary. Torben Holleufer has been a regular visitor since its first incarnation and returns to assess its impact, reflecting on some of the magical, unique and heartbreaking moments of the past 25 editions

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: “He remains an enigma, to this day…what was that magic?”

Jameela Siddiqi plots the unprecedented international success of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Pakistan’s ‘King of Kings of Qawwali’ and, for many, one of the greatest singers of all time

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Omid Djalili's My World interview: “In general, there’s something very coquettish about Persian music… flirty moves and dances and pauses”

Anne Templer speaks to the actor and comedian about his love of prog and Persian music and how he once kicked a famous jazz musician out of his band

Thursday, August 29, 2024

Dispatch from Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil

Charlotte Algar speaks to musicians Nani Medeiros and Gabriel Selvage about the disastrous flooding in Rio Grande do Sul this year

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

20 Years of Morgenland

Simon Broughton visits Morgenland Festival in Germany for an opening concert celebrating 20 years of an event which has provided a vital showcase for many artists from the Middle East and North Africa