THE WORLD COMES TO GAGE PARK
World Music Festival draws local and international talent
Hamilton music lovers have a chance to expand their artistic horizons at this weekend’s World Music Festival.
The three-day festival, now in its third year at Gage Park, is set to welcome acts from Cameroon, Colombia, Italy, Mozambique, Senegal and the U.K. showcasing musical styles as diverse as bluegrass, hip hop, folk and reggae. And there’s also a healthy dose of local performers.
“It’s an addition to the Hamilton arts scene,” says festival artistic director Filimone Mabjaia.
The festival’s early focus was exposing Hamilton to what encompasses “world music,” Mabjaia says. After two years, it’s now adding an element of introspection, highlighting some of the world music that’s being made right here at home.
The local acts in the spotlight this year include Hamilton Music Award winners Canadian Winter, modern reggae ensemble Riddim Riders and Celtic roots-rock quartet Scantily Plaid. There’s also Hamilton’s hiphop-funk-Afro-beat-inspired Mother Tareka and the folk duo Hunter’s Corners, who have roots in the Cambridge area.
But sticking with its quest to scour the globe for the best acts, the festival has no shortage of guests from far away.
From Cameroon, singer and guitarist Kareyce Fotso sings in eight different languages, her music style reflecting her country’s diverse regions.
The U.K.-based quartet Cardboard Fox is quickly gaining momentum for their bluegrass-inspired style that’s played on fiddle, guitar, mandolin and double bass with vocals. Another quartet, Taluna, instead fuses sounds as diverse as flamenco and jazz from their home base in Italy. Their concert closes the main stage on the final night of the festival.
Mabjaia says he is especially excited to see the collaboration between local sitar and tabla performer Neeraj Prem and the Riddim Riders with Senegal’s Zal Sissokho on the kora and Brazil’s Sergio Perere, known for his fusion of traditional styles, including samba with jazz and rock. (The sitar is a plucked string instrument and the tabla is a percussion instrument, both used in Hindustani classical music; the kora is a 21-string harp used extensively in West Africa)
Juno Award-nominated Alysha Brilla, whose Indo-Tanzanian-Canadian background influences her music, is the main act on Saturday night’s main stage.
Along with the main stage, a secondary stage will host musical acts and local dance performers — whose styles span from Irish to Russian to Colombian folk. Food and craft vendors, kids’ activities, drumming circles and outdoor yoga classes are also on offer.