Murray Bramwell

In just seven days time, on March 6, for four days and nights, WOMADelaide 2015 will fill Botanic Park with roving artists, Planet Talk speakers, KidZone artists and, of course, musicians : 58 bands from more than 30 countries. Founded 23 years ago, and an annual event since 2008, WOMAD has long been a major event in March.

Staged in the second weekend of the Adelaide Festival and flanked by the Clipsal 500 and the Adelaide Fringe, it …

March 13, 2012

Adelaide Festival 2012

WOMADelaide 2012
Botanic Park, Adelaide
March 9 – 12.

It is now twenty years since the first WOMAD, scheduled as part of the 1992 Adelaide Festival, introduced world music to Australian audiences. The original program lineup was modest in number but not in stature – introducing, among others, Senegalese singer Youssou N’Dour, violinist Dr L. Subramaniam, and, memorably, the charismatic Pakistani qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. From there, this unique festival established a …

March 9, 2012

WOMADelaide – 20 Years in the World

As Adelaide’s most cherished musical festival celebrates a major milestone it is timely to consider just how far it has come since 1992 when that strange acronym was first welded on to our city’s name – and WOMADelaide arrived. Rob Brookman had programmed this weekend of something called ‘world music’ as part of his Adelaide Festival, and he (and Administrator Ian Scobie) negotiated with UK Director Thomas Brooman to bring …

Adelaide
October 24

Womad Earth Station
Long Gully, Belair National Park, Adelaide
October 21-23.

When, back in March 1992, Adelaide Festival director Rob Brookman was launching his first ever Womad event, he had intended that it be held in Belair National Park in the Adelaide Hills. Severe seasonal fire danger alerts put paid to that plan and, at the last minute, everything re-located to Botanic Park in the CBD where Womadelaide has been a great biennial, and now annual, success …

2010
A World of Difference

Womadelaide 2010
Botanic Park
March 5-8.

Murray Bramwell previews highlights from next month’s Womadelaide

To mark the new decade, and fifty years of the Adelaide Festival, Womadelaide 2010 is bigger than ever. Stretched to a fourth day, it now finishes on the night of the March Monday holiday. The program has added eight more acts, four international, four Australian, and claims performances from more than 500 artists from 27 countries.

Womadelaide remains one of South …