Llais 2024: First Acts Announced
Wed, 08 May 2024
A life enhancing line-up of global voices is set to make waves on Cardiff Bay. First confirmed acts for LLAIS – one of the world’s most unique festivals dedicated to the instrument that we all share – the voice.
A world of extraordinary music and voices will make waves in Cardiff Bay, at a festival like no other.
All those craving connection and a joyful, enriching experience this Autumn are invited into the halls and spaces of one of the finest auditoriums in Europe to escape into CATE LE BON’s crackling musical brain, transcend earthly bounds with GANAVYA’s South Asian incantations, or get lost in hypnotic desert grooves of Somali icon SAHRA HALGAN. From the a cappella harmonies of SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK and the microtonal majesty of LES MYSTERE DES VOIX BULGARES to a quarrymen’s choir accompanied by instruments fashioned from slate and oak… It can only be LLAIS.
LLAIS FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:
▲ Cate Le Bon returns to Wales with a very special performance at this year’s Llais.
▲ Rare live performance by Joan As Police Woman performing songs from her forthcoming new album.
▲ Transcendental jazz and ambient experimentalism from New York-born and Tamil Nadu-raised vocalist Ganavya.
▲ Hypnotic desert rock from Somali singer and freedom fighter Sahra Halgan.
▲ Acappella legends Sweet Honey in the Rock join the festival for their only uk appearance in 2024.
▲ Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares returns with “voices and strings” in collaboration with composer Georgi Andreev and Quarto Quartet.
▲ Grammy-nominated Irish Sean-nós vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird joins forces with pianist and composer Cormac McCarthy.
▲ Tafod arian (silver tongue) – lost hymns, a celebration of the roots of Welsh sacred music and a 50-date chapel tour led by folk singer Lleuwen
▲ Le Gateau Chocolat – negro-spirituals and black queer excellence with the opera singer and cabaret diva like no other.
▲ Colored: The Unsung Life Of Claudette Colvin – An immersive experience adapted from Tania De Montaigne’s account of teenage bravery and defiance in segregation era America.
▲ The Welsh Music Prize will once again be a part of this year’s festival with a celebration of Welsh music made over the past year.
“Fittingly for a venue situated on the edge of a harbour that has for centuries rung with voices from across the world – the richly diverse and global line-up assembled for this year’s festival celebrates the incredible versatility of the human voice and its power to move and heal.
The perfect expression of the inscription cut so boldly into the copper facade of the Wales Millennium Centre that speaks of an industrial past, a poetic soul and a shining future, Llais says so much about who we are and who we could be.”
GRAEME FARROW, WALES MILLENNIUM CENTRE’S CHIEF CREATIVE & CONTENT OFFICER
