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The WOMEX 09 Awards
Quality, creativity, impact
The WOMEX 09 Awards
About the WOMEX Award
WOMEX Awards 99 - 08
 Since its introduction in 1999, the WOMEX Award has been honouring high points of world music on the international level. Musical excellence, social importance, commercial success, political impact, lifetime achievement – any or all of these might make one a worthy recipient.
Last year for the first time we have decided to present not only one but two WOMEX Awards, one to an artist, and the other to honour an educational institution.
The WOMEX 09 Awards
WOMEX 09 Artist Award for World Music:
Staff Benda Bilili (DR Congo)
Photo by Belle Kinoise | The artists will perform at WOMEX Copenhagen during the Award Ceremony on Sunday, 1 November 2009.
Access for WOMEX delegates only
We are used to honouring great artists at the end of long illustrious careers. This time, however, it might appear like we’re lionizing mere beginners. Therein lies a humbling lesson. "So often, by the time many groups play their first note on a European stage, they have already lived, struggled and suffered a tale of epic proportions," says Andy Morgan. And no group could possibly illustrate this truism more effectively than Staff Benda Bilili." Read more... | | |
WOMEX 09 Award for Professional Excellence in the Service of World Music: Christian Mousset (France)
Photo by Fred Pluviaud | As Yorrick Benoist of Run Productions notes, "For almost 35 years Christian Mousset and his 'Musiques Metisses' Festival has kicked off the careers of greats such as Cesaria Évora, Salif Keita, the Mahotella Queens, the Super Rail band, Danyel Waro, Johnny Clegg, and many others. His was arguably the first festival dedicated primarily to African music, starting a trend that many followed and few could match.” Add to that his work first for Label Bleu and now for his own Marabi label, and this is a popular choice indeed. Read more...
| | | About the WOMEX Award
Being the mother of all awards, and supporting musical creativity and fertility, it is only fitting that the mother of all and everything serves as the symbol for our tributes in the name of the WOMEX Award. Especially when it is represented by a statue that was created at a time when there was no such thing as Asia or Europe, black or white, first world or third. The Award figurine is an ancient mother goddess statue dating back about 6000 years to the Neolithic age. It was found in Haçilar in modern-day Turkey and bears witness to the existence of a matriarchal society. Such a female goddess appears in many ancient mythologies as an initial primal figure, representing fertility and procreation either as the earth itself or as a mother giving birth to the world and all the creatures in it.
The WOMEX Award and the figure that represents it stand for life itself. Life is what music is all about … or should that be: music is what life is all about?
WOMEX Awards 99 - 08
So far we - you - have honoured Juan de Marcos and Nick Gold (1999), Mahotella Queens (2000), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (2001) and Jivan Gasparyan (2002). Since 2003 we took two steps further: In 2003 we honoured with Freemuse - The World Forum on Music and Censorship, for the first time an institution rather than an individual. Followed by the sixth WOMEX Award in 2004 which was dedicated Marc Hollander and Crammed Discs for 25 years of pioneering label work in the field of world music. The Award 2005 was given to the almost hundred-years-old energetic Taarab singer Bi Kidude from Zanzibar. In 2006 the Award went to Colombia's incomparable Totó La Momposina , in recognition of her ground-breaking work for Afro-Caribbean music and dance. The Award 07 paid homage to Andy Palacio (1960-2008) and Ivan Duran, both of Belize. Last year we refined the Award concept again and gave out two: one to Muszikás from Hungary and another one to the Folk Music Department of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. See our archive for more information on all WOMEX Award winners.
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