The Festival International de Louisiane was set up in 1986 to celebrate the French cultural heritage of southern Louisiana and is the larges outdoor FREE francophone event in the US. Taking place April 22-26 the line up boasts over 100 musical acts including – Louisiana’s own Marc Broussard, Algeria’s Rchid Taha, Dobet Gnahore from the Ivory Coast and Rootz Underground from Jamaica.
From Louisiana we head to Florida for Heineken’s Translatlantic Festival. Now in its 7th year this event showcases Miami as a city chock full of diverse cultural and musical influences from funky cubano, cumbia glitch, electronica to hip hop to rock and more – artists on the bill include Columbia’s Aterciopelados, New Yorks’s Budos Band, Brazil’s Curumin, Mexico’s Ximena Sarinana and the nomadic rockers from Mali Tinariwen. The Transatlantic Festival takes place throughout April with the main weekends being April 17-18 and April 24-25.
And finally we head to the UK for the annual Ether Festival. Held at the Southbank Centre just along the Thames by Waterloo station Ether calls itself a festival of innovation in sound and art with an emphasis on digital culture, cutting edge collaborations and cross arts experiments. Artists taking part at Ether feature…David Byrne, Peaches, Roysopp, a conversation between Jon Hassell and Brian Eno, and Germany’s Mouse on Mars perform a soundtrack inspired by Werner Herzog’s film Fata Morgana.
KCRW
