Goanna: superb at WOMADelaide 2022

The Goanna reunion performance was a wonderful emotion-charged event. It was clear they were having the time of their lives on the main stage at WOMADelaide 2022. Respect was flowing freely from and to the band.

Together and in their solo careers Shane Howard, Rose Bygrave & Marcia Howard have made Australia a better place through their music and activism.

They’re great storytellers, in their songwriting, performing and in person. 

And it’s storytelling with a purpose. They helped clear a path forward for First Nations audiences and performers. 

Continue reading

WOMADelaide 2021 – COVID-safe

I have to confess that I felt cheated when I first saw the COVID-safe plan for WOMADelaide 2021. How can it be WOMADelaide if it’s not in beautiful Botanic Park, and if it’s really just a series of 4 evening sit-down concerts?

But eventually I realised I was being greedy. After all, how lucky were we to squeeze in a full WOMADelaide last year, just before COVID lockdowns and border closures swung into force?

And I also remembered how brilliant the mini-WOMAD in the Vales had been in 1998, starring the late great Geoffrey Oryema of Uganda.

Continue reading

Fatoumata Diawara on Mali, music and militants

I had a chat with Fatoumata Diawara ahead of her appearance at WOMADelaide 2019.

Brian: First of all, many congratulations on your nomination for this year’s Grammy Awards for your album Fenfo. Will you be attending the Awards Ceremony?

Fatou: Yes, I’m going to go, definitely. Last year it was the Victoires de la Musique in France, so I’m familiar with the significance of the ceremonies.

Brian: Many West African artists we’ve had at WOMADelaide have been in the wall of sound tradition, with horns, electric guitars and kora all competing for attention. But your new album Fenfo is much more spacious and open in style. Is that the style you prefer to use?

Fatoumata Diawara
Continue reading

Nano Stern on Chilean musical heritage and the revolutionary act of kindness

Ahead of his appearance at WOMADelaide 2018, I spoke with Chilean singer, multi-instrumentalist and song-writer Nano Stern about cultural heritage, his hopes for the future and the incomparable instrument, the human voice.

Brian:  It’s been six years since we last saw you perform at WOMADelaide, and eight years since your Live in Concert album was recorded in Mullumbimby. What are the main changes we can expect at WOMADelaide 2018? Different instruments and band line-up? More influence of rock and jazz or stronger influence of Chilean roots since your return to live in Santiago? Continue reading

WOMADelaide 2017

The sprinkling of rain at the start of this year’s WOMADelaide didn’t do much to quell excitement. A rather good lineup, delicious food stalls, and friendly crowd in Botanic Park all returned to the four day world music festival.

I find it difficult to quantify WOMAD weekends; they’re reliably wonderful experiences and each year the highlights are unexpected, but this felt like a particularly good year. Continue reading

Five paradoxes about the state of the media

We are living in a time full of threats – and unprecedented possibilities, especially when it comes to the state of the media. Let’s consider five paradoxes, in no particular order.

Is print dead or reviving?

Rumours of the death of print magazines and newspapers have been circulating for years – but many of us are still here. What’s more, we are seeing signs of a renaissance in independent, alternative print magazines and hyperlocal newspapers.

The internet, that great disrupting technology, has prompted print’s decline, cannibalizing the revenue of publishers. After all, why buy news in print when you get it all for free online? The proportion of readers actually prepared to pay for news online (nine per cent) cannot replace those who used to buy print.1

But the internet has also been amazing for media like ours. In the days before the worldwide web, we never imagined that two million people a year would be reading our content and getting our kind of journalism, rooted in social, economic, global and environmental justice. Continue reading

A chat with Sir Tim Smit – co-founder of the Eden Project

Today I had a chat with Sir Tim Smit, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of the Eden Project, ahead of his forthcoming presentation for the Planet Talks at WOMADelaide 2017.

In the prologue to his book, Eden, two sentences stand out, and they sum up the spirit of our chat: “Neither do I make any apology for being optimistic about the future. I am.”

Continue reading

Book launch: The Abyssinian Contortionist – by David Carlin

I am delighted to be able to launch David’s book here in Adelaide – particularly as so many of you will remember him from his previous life as a South Australian playwright and theatre director.

David’s first acclaimed book, Our Father Who Wasn’t There, was connected to his early theatre writings performed at the Red Shed, but The Abyssinian Contortionist is a new departure.  It is – as he describes it – his first not-me book.

I got so much pleasure from reading the unexpected twists and turns of this story – particularly when I reached the heart of the book, David’s second visit to Ethiopia -that I don’t want to give too much away.

Continue reading

Leard Blockade – Maules Creek coal mine

A few months ago, I left my home in Adelaide and travelled up to Maules Creek, New South Wales. I’ve never been much of a wanderer, but when I heard that Whitehaven was working on the largest coal mine currently under construction in Australia in the middle of the Leard State Forest, I realised that things were pretty serious.

Continue reading