WOMAD Earth Station Festival 2011 Program

Womad EARTH STATION, an exciting new arts and sustainability event to be held in October, today released its first announcement of speakers and performers.

Womad EARTH STATION, a unique companion event to the WOMADelaide festival, will be held at Long Gully in Belair National Park, Adelaide, from 21-23 October. The festival will bring together an international performance program and an engaging series of forums and discussion panels – ‘the Sustainability Program’ - which will receive and transmit concerns and ideas for sustainable life on our planet.

The highlight of the music and arts program will be the world-renowned Kronos Quartet presenting SUN RINGS, a work described as ‘an overwhelming multimedia epic of a show’ (Daily Telegraph (UK).

Sun Rings is a transcendent and visually spectacular musical odyssey into deep space commissioned by NASA and created through the collaboration of one of the world’s most esteemed and ground breaking musical ensembles The Kronos Quartet, composer Terry Riley and the multimedia director Willie Williams who regularly works as visual designer on U2’s concert tours. Combined with the subtle yet stirring sounds of space, as captured by the Voyager spacecraft, the score of 10 movements, accompanied by the Adelaide Chamber Singers, is a unique contemplation of the boundless age of the universe and is music as scientific exploration.

Performers and Speakers By Day

Friday 21 October

PERFORMERS

•    Kronos Quartet

•    Frank Yamma & David Bridie

•    Vika & Linda

•    Stan’s Cafe: Of All the People in All The World

•    Man Up A Tree

SPEAKERS

•    Stephen Pekar: “The Last Time It Got This Hot: The Past Informing The Future”

•    Professor Mike Sandiford: “Welcome to the ‘Anthropocene’: Humans as Geological Agents”

•    Special Keynote Speaker to be announced

Saturday 22 October

PERFORMERS

•    Zakir Hussain & The Masters of Percussion

•    Toumani Diabate

•    Wu Man

•    The Audreys

•    Mista Savona

•    Shanghai Chinese Orchestra

•    Iwantja

•    Pacific Curls

•    The Yearlings

•    Stan’s Cafe: Of All the People in All The World

•    Man Up A Tree

SPEAKERS

•    “The Impact of Climate Change on Biodiversity”: Professor Lesley Hughes

•    “Greening Australia’s Economy”: Professor Mike Young, Sue Richardson & panelists

•    Professor Ian Lowe

•    “Populate and Perish? The Limits to Growth”: Paul Gilding, Graham Turner & Fiona Heinrichs

•    “Beyond Ideology: The Politics & Policy of Climate Change”: Roy Neel, John McTernan & panelists

•    “Sustainable Energy”: Matthew Wright & panelists

•    “One Summer Dream”: Peter Cosier

•    “The Price of Inaction”: Bernie Hobbs & panelists including Stephen Pekar, Paul Gilding, Graham Turner

•    “Loaves and Fishes. How To Feed 9 Billion Mouths – Forever”: Scott Kinnear, Judy Carman, Graham Brookman

Sunday 23 October:

PERFORMERS

•    Abdullah Ibrahim

•    The Tallest Man on Earth

•    Kronos Quartet

•    Rickie Lee Jones

•    Konono No. 1

•    Toumani Diabate

•    Shanghai Chinese Orchestra

•    Paris Wells

•    Emma Donovan

•    The Catholics

•    Mark Atkins

•    Stan’s Cafe: Of All the People in All The World

•    Man Up A Tree

SPEAKERS

•    “Greening in the Community: Case Studies”: Robyn Williams and panelists including Cate Blanchett and Andrew Upton.

•    “The Business Case for Protecting the Environment”: L Hunter Lovins

•    “Bugger the Polar Bears, This Is Serious!”: Rod Quantock

•    “Building Sustainable Businesses”: Giselle Weybrecht, Sam Mostyn & panelists

•    “River, Estuary, Sea: Who cares about the Coorong?”: Professor Bruce Thom, Tim Stubbs, Keth Walker, David Paton, Dominic Skinner

•    “What is to be Done?”: Roy Neel, Professor Lesley Hughes, Phillip Toyne & panelists

•    Closing Event to be announced