Despite being a small land mass in the middle of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man calls itself home to many people from all over the world.

The multi-cultural make -up of our population is to be highlighted and celebrated by a colourful and vibrant new music festival, due to be held later this year.

Created under the title of ’Our Island: Our World Festival of World Music and Culture’, the two day festival will take place at the Peel Centenary Centre and in the grounds of the Peel Cathedral on Friday September 7 and the following Saturday, and will feature a range of world music acts, representing Africa, Gaelic roots, Balkan and Latin styles of music and arts.

There will be two evening concerts, featuring a diverse mix of acts.

Headlining on Friday night at the Centenary Centre will be the Afro-Celtic dance band Baka Beyond.

Currently on tour, celebrating 25 years of continuous writing and touring, Baka Beyond are centred around the partnership of Su Hart and Martin Cradick, who combined Gaelic inspired influences with traditional Baka music from the Cameroon. Their line up has featured a host of world music stars in the past, most notably the Senegalese multi-instrumentalist and percussionist Seckou Keita.

They performed a memorable concert, again in the Peel Centenary Centre in 2004.

They will be joined by the riotous Balkan gypsy folk group Sheelanagig and the folksy Americana of the Vera Van Heeringen trio.

Sheelanagig have also visited the island before, when they almost lifted the roof of the tent at the Mannifest festival in 2011.

The Saturday concert will see performances from local Manx Balkan, jazz and latin-inspired group Clash Vooar and another returning band, the Angel Brothers, the Latin-inspired group who made an appearance in Peel in 2005.

The headline act for that night will be the Afro-dub reggae group Soothsayers.

This will be held alongside a fair highlighting the diversity of the island’s population.

Alongside Irish dancing, from the Sharon Rye Dancers, and Manx dancing from Skeddan Jiarg, there will be more music in the new, open air stage area in the Cathedral grounds from bands such as the Fecktones and African singing workshops from the Baka Beyond singers.

These will be held inside the Cathedral if wet.

Also, inside the Corrin Hall, there will be stalls and tables featuring representatives from as many countries as possible, and the organiser, Dave Mclean, is appealing to anyone who may want to come forward and represent their community.

’At the moment, I have people from the Gambia, Nigeria, Peru, Italy, Uganda, Bulgaria, India, the Philippines, and from many other places,’ said Dave.

’But I know there are more on the island, and it would be great if we could have people from each community.

’The idea is that we will fill the hall full of countries, and you can just go around and pick up bits and pieces from different people’s cultures.

’We will also have lots of children’s art workshops and craft areas, we will be teaching children how to write their names in Cyrillic text. We want to make it fun and informative, and a very friendly, welcoming event.

’I would like people to get to know about other cultures and backgrounds,’ he said. ’Knowledge is the best way of making us all get on together. If you know about other people, you know there is nothing strange about them.

’That is the driving force behind the festival. The basic ethos is to put the Isle of Man in the context of the wider world, especially in this year, which is the Year of Our Island.

’Certainly, it is important, and Manx culture is incredibly valuable, but in the context of other people’s cultures as well.

’It is not like we are holding just a Celtic festival, where we are just simply thinking about one culture or our own world, we are thinking about the wider world.

’And also, it is a great opportunity for me to bring over some of the bands I really like, and create a music festival that I know people will have a real ball at the same time.’

Tickets for the evening concerts of the ’Our Island: Our World Festival of World Music and Culture’, which has been created alongside the one World Centre and the 2018 Year of Our Island Project, are £25 for each night.

There are a limited number of ’early bird’ tickets for both nights, priced at £45 each, available from Shakti Mann, Celtic Gold, Thompson Travel, in Port Erin, Peter Norris Music or online, from etickets.im/cc.

More details are avilable from the ’Our Island: Our World Facebook page.

by Mike Wade

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