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Preview of Festival International de Louisiane
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2theadvocate.com, Preview of Festival International de Louisiane >>
By Richard Burgess
LAFAYETTE — Festival International de Louisiane organizers announced a line-up Tuesday of more than 50 bands and performers from 18 countries for the free festival’s 20th anniversary in April.
Plenty of local favorites are in the mix — including a hefty dose of Cajun and zydeco — and festival-goers with an ear for the exotic music the festival is known for will have more than enough offerings to choose from.
The scheduled acts range from Swedish folk group Väsen and Cape Verde Afro-Latin star Maria de Barros to the Texas-based conjunto band Los Badd Boyz del Valle, Afro-Cuban collective Yerba Buena and the Kiyoshi Nagata Ensemble, a Japanese drumming group.
As usual, the festival is pulling in several Afro and Latin groups, with scheduled performers hailing from Cuba, Senegal, Mali, Haiti, Martinique, Venezuela, Benin, Jamaica and Congo.
Four big names from New Orleans are in the line-up — Walter “Wolfman” Washington, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint.
“We are celebrating our friends in New Orleans,” festival Executive Director Dana Cañedo said.
Toussaint and Thomas will headline the main stage after official opening ceremonies, and the two legendary New Orleans rhythm and blues musicians might even sing a few duets, Cañedo said.
Local favorites on the schedule include Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, BeauSoleil, Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band, the Red Stick Ramblers, Buckwheat Zydeco and the Bluerunners.
The festival will also offer a good sampling of jazz and folk groups from France and Canada.
The festival, which highlights music from French-speaking countries across the world, runs from April 26 though April 30 in downtown Lafayette.
Festival-goers can expect some changes this year.
In the face of the increasing difficulty in finding parking spaces downtown, the festival will offer shuttle bus service from Cajun Field.
The shuttle will be free to anyone who buys a $5 festival lapel pin, or $3 one-way, festival board member Judi Gunn said.
“You do the math,” she quipped.All of the festival’s more than 1,000 volunteers will ride the shuttle for free.
An addition to the festival’s Sunday line-up is a French-language Mass scheduled for 11 a.m.
“The festival used to do that but we had gotten away from it,” Cañedo said. “But we’ve been looking at things in the past that worked and we can bring back.
”The Destination Gospel Singers, a contemporary gospel group from Louisiana, will perform after the Mass.
The festival is one of Acadiana’s largest tourist draws, packing hotels and restaurants for the week.Cañedo said festival organizers estimated that total attendance at the five-day festival last year was close to 300,000.
“It was definitely the largest crowd we had up to that point,” she said.Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission Executive Director Gerald Breaux said Festival International is “up there with the major festivals in Louisiana if not the South.”
“Hopefully with the line-up they announced, and the fact the Louisiana has been in the limelight, we will have a great turnout,” Breaux said.
City-Parish President Joey Durel said the festival “opens the doors of the world to Lafayette.
”For information on the festival and volunteer opportunities, visit the Web site http://www.festivalinternational.com, or call (337) 232-8086. 02/22/06 >> go there
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