The
organisers of Mozambique’s Azgo Festival have announced the date and venue for
this year’s musical celebration. The seventh edition of the festival will be
held on 20 May at the Eduardo Mondlane University in the country’s capital
Maputo.Featuring a variety of programmes such as music, art and culture, the
festival will this year host South Africa’s Ray Phiri, Mozambican artists Lay
Lizzy, Ghorwane, and Batuk, which is a collaboration between South African and
Mozambican musicians, as well as Ghana’s Jojo Abot. The next batch of artists
will be announced next week.Speaking to Music In Africa, Azgo Festival
coordinator Jess White said the line-up would include acts from around the
world. “Our line-up will feature more than 15 diverse and amazing artists from
all genres, bringing acts from Mozambique, Brazil, Cape Verde, Ghana,
Swaziland, Reunion Island, South Africa and Portugal to Maputo,” he said.White
said the festival would send a message bent on addressing some of Africa’s
social ills. “Azgo festival has always had a strong social message,” he said.
“Over the past two years we have focused the theme on Say No to Xenophobia and
Climate Change. Our festival theme for 2017 will be based around gender
equality. As in previous years, Azgo will programme a strong line-up of female
artists and representation across our production team.”White said Azgo Festival
would continue to contribute to artistic and cultural development as well as to
greater awareness of cultural issues in Southern Africa. The festival would
also seek to bring together both emerging and well-known artists and involve
local communities to create jobs.
This
year’s festival has been reduced to one day due to the country’s economic
challenges. “Since the 2016 festival, the economic situation in Mozambique has
led Khuzula, the producer of Azgo Festival, to make the decision to reduce the
festival to one day,” White said. “The Mozambican currency (meticais) has
fallen to both the US dollar and the South African rand, which means that
artist, production and logistics costs have risen quite drastically from
previous years.”The
organisers of the event said in a statement that the festival would
traditionally feature other forms of arts.“From musicians, craftsmen and many
other cultural makers, there will be space for everyone to dream and expand
their horizons,” it said. “Speaking of dreams, the younger ones will also have
a space dedicated to their imagination and creativity with the space Azgozito.”Tickets
will be available online at Entradas and Computicket. Promotional tickets with
a 50% discount can be purchased in advance before 20 March.
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