Womad teases slice of talent for 2023
Diverse acts feature in festival’s line-up
From Korean folk-pop to talented Occitan troubadours, genre-pushing hip-hop jazz to a Kiwi meteorologist, the first teaser of talent booked for Womad NZ 2023 contains plenty for festival fans to look forward to.
While the full line-up for the threeday festival will be released on October 20, the Taranaki Arts Festival Trust has released a teaser of artists.
The list of confirmed acts and appearances includes ADG7 (Ak Dan Gwang Chil), a multi-award-winning Korean folk-pop music group, featuring six Korean traditional musicians and three powerhouse female folk singers.
ADG7 combines South Korean traditional music with catchy pop styles.
Tom Scott’s hip-hop jazz ensemble Avantdale Bowling Club was booked to perform at Womad NZ 2022, and while Covid-19 precautions meant the festival didn’t go ahead, music fans will be pleased to see the awardwinning ensemble features in next year’s line-up.
In 2019, Auckland rapper Scott won the Taite Music Prize, which recognises outstanding creativity, for the Avantdale Bowling Club self-titled debut album.
Scott is well-known to Aotearoa music fans, particularly as the badboy frontman of Kiwi hip-hop group Home Brew. Also part of the line-up is French group San Salvador.
The six-member band combines Occitan poetry with hypnotic vocal harmonies and plenty of powerful percussion.
Occitan, also known as lenga d’oc by its native speakers, is a Romance language spoken in southern France, including Correze where the group is based.
Kiwi artist Dick Frizzell will feature as part of the a World of Words lineup.
The World of Words celebrates diverse and exciting voices designed to inspire people to think, talk, laugh, listen and learn, and Frizzell is guaranteed to get people doing all of those.
A versatile painter, he is also a sought-after designer of various products from toys to wine as well as being the author of a range of books including The Sun is a Star — A Voyage Through the Universe; and Me According to the History of Art.
The OMV STEAM Lab is a stage where science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics unite, with inventors, innovators and people at the top of their fields invited to share their knowledge with audiences.
The line-up will include meteorologist and author Lisa Murray, who is head of the weather communication team at MetService-Te Ratonga Tirorangi and co-author of New Zealand’s Wild Weather. Tickets for Womad NZ 2023 are on sale now.