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Almost before we knew it, the last day of Womex 2003 was upon us. The customary time change in the early morning having generously given the delegates an extra hour to play with, most appeared to have chosen to spend it out tasting Seville's rich night life, despite the torrential rain drowning the city relentlessly until dawn. Others grabbed the chance to visit some of the sumptuous Arab-Andalusian treasures such as the magnificent Alcazar and the gigantic cathedral and its Giralda tower. Nevertheless the most diligent amongst us headed back to the FIBES and spent Sunday morning visiting the remaining stands or simply packing them away. | |||||
The closing ceremony was held in one of the congress hall's ample auditoriums. Christoph Borkowsky Akbar was first up, summing up another successful edition of this leading world music event and giving all present rendezvous next year in Essen. Next Lucy Duran and Charlie Gillett got up on stage to present the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music nominees. Newcomers like Brazil's Cibelle and Spain's Ojos de Brujo rubbed shoulders with well-established artists such as Cesaria Evora, Bob Brozman and Radio Tarifa , yet all are considered to have done some extraordinary work during the past year and their nominations are well-deserved. We stayed in the world of awards with the presentation of the Womex Award, this year not to just one artist but to all those suffering from censorship, an ill against which the award winner Freemuse has been fighting valiantly for the past few years from their base in Copenhagen. Director Marie Korpe received the award (the little fat lady as she called the replica statue from the Neolithic age), and then passed the microphone to Gerald Seligman, founding member and co-chairman of the executive committee, who stressed the formidable work of the tiny permanent team (just three people) struggling to protect musicians' freedom of expression around the world. Proceedings then came to an end in music, with a performance by Palestinian singer and actress Amal Murkus whose name, meaning 'hope', perfectly reflects the sentiment of many artists living in Israel, a country torn apart by politics and ignorance. And so Womex 2003 drew to a close. Adios Sevilla ! See you next year in Essen. | |||||
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