Other Voices heads for Texas

IT will be a dream come true for Other Voices founder Philip King when the music series that started in St James’s Church in Dingle 15 years ago heads across the Atlantic to Austin Texas for a residency in Arlyn Studios from October 7 - 9.

The line-up for the Texas instalment of the Dingle music phenomenon will be a combination of Irish and international talent, which will be announced at the start of October.

“To head to Austin, Texas has been a lifelong dream. When we made Bringing It All Back Home 25 years ago we never got west of the Mississippi…I have been dreaming about Texas since,” said Philip.

For those who don’t already know, Bringing It All Back Home was Philip’s groundbreaking TV series that explored the links between Irish and American music. Other Voices, in turn, has been groundbreaking as well, bringing the Dingle music festival ‘off-campus’ to Electric Picnic, Derry, London and Suffolk.

Other Voices has also been employed to garner support for an idea about which Philip is passionate: that the arts and technology both draw from the same type of creative mindset and therefore a merging of the two could produce huge dividends for both. Philip hopes the Texas trip will provide opportunities to further the arts/technology project, a prospect that gains legs from the fact that technology and music are the two main industries in Austin.

Other Voices hopes its Austin adventure will also reap a dividend for Irish tourism and draw new global attention to Dingle, the Wild Atlantic Way and, of course, the Other Voices Festival.