BBC - Radio 3 - Womad 2004

WOMAD ON BBC FOUR

Friday 13 August: 21.00-22.00 (repeated Monday 15th August at 1.20am)

Rita Ray presents highlights from this year wonderfully sunny WOMAD Festival held by The Thames in Reading. Including performances from the new superstars of world music, TINARIWEN with their unique desert blues from the sands of the Sahara, Malian diva ROKIA TRAORE, Senegalese rappers DAARA J, the new sound of modern Spain courtesy of AMPARANOIA and rising star DABY TOURE who recently supported Peter Gabriel on tour and originates from Mauritania but now lives in Paris. She also talks to Johnny Kalsi from the UK-based DHOL FOUNDATION, whose aim is to educate the masses about the Dhol, a large wooden drum originating from India which is featured heavly in bhangra music and has its roots in Punjabi wedding music.

Friday 13 August: 22.30-23.30 (repeated Monday 15th August at 2.20am)

Rita Ray talks to some of this year's guests along with performances from NIGEL KENNEDY & KROKE, the virtuoso violinist and Krakow folk-klezmer band who were brought together by their love of all things Polish; conscious and spiritual reggae courtesy of Jamaica's very own LUCIANO, former Jefferson Airplane members Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady perform a number backstage in their HOT TUNA guise, pure and simple traditional Irish music from SHARON SHANNON; from Southern-Italy ENZO AVITABILE who has been described as a mediterranean equivalent to the Drummers of Burundi with a little of the Ghostbusters mixed in and Algerian-born/French-based SOUAD MASSI who fled her native land in the late 90s to find a more peaceful existance and has gone on to find critical and commercial success in Europe.

More festival coverage on BBC Four