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  Sevilla, Spain - Sunday, October 26’s ceremony to honor the WOMEX Award 2003 recipients
Freemuse – The World Forum on Music and Censorship marked the Grand Finale of
this year’s WOMEX 2003 at FIBES and El Palenque in the Andalusian capital of
Sevilla.
From Wednesday Oct 22 to Sunday Oct 26 more than 2000 attendees from over 80
countries – amongst them 250 journalists – met 300 exhibitors at 200 stands in
FIBES’ WOMEX pavilion, and discussed in 25 conference sessions. For the second
time, WOMEX 2003 included a Film- and TV market focusing on world music content.
From Thursday to Saturday, professional visitors as well as the Sevillan public
were digging the music WOMEX is all about and partied to 33 concerts at El
Palenque. Complementary to the WORLD Flamenco Fair – taking place simultaneously
to WOMEX 2003 at FIBES – this year’s WOMEX showcases had a focus on Spanish and
Latin music and featured numerous musical highlights from all over the world
alike.
Amongst producers, distributors, publishers, record labels, festivals, booking
agencies and cultural exchange organisations, the international WOMEX community
included more than 400 professionals from Spain and Latin America. According to
the quantity of deals and agreements set, WOMEX again proved to be the central
marketplace for the international world music community.
Thousands of regional world music fans followed the invitation to visit the
public showcases and set a new WOMEX record for public attendance: Together with
the official WOMEX delegates they very successfully provided the atmosphere of
curiosity and excitement artists as well as producers like to have at their
concerts.
WOMEX 2003 showcases offered a diversity of styles from Uru Punk to UK Club Funk,
Maghreb Blues to the latest Global Dance News with artists from Uzbekistan and
Israel, Mali and the Ivory Coast, Romania and Sweden, Gujarat to Andalusia to
Brazil and beyond. Along with international stars like Tunisian singer Amina and
Brazilian Mangue innovator Otto, Spanish localistas like Amparanoia and Elbicho
made up for highly excited audiences on the 3 stages of former EXPO venue El
Palenque.
To accept the invitation of FIBES, the Bienal de Flamenco and Turismo Andaluz
and to move the international WOMEX caravan to Sevilla’s luxurious Conference
and Exhibition Centre FIBES proved another successful WOMEX decision altogether:
Exhibitors and individual delegate numbers again increased by more than 10 % in
relation to last year’s WOMEX in Germany. Moreover, the trade fair/conference
and music locations in FIBES and El Palenque were granted an especially warm
embrace by WOMEX delegates and public alike.
After the successful debut at Zeche Zollverein in 2002 WOMEX will return to
Essen / Germany for its next edition in 2004.
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