With the event less than two weeks away, Michael Bugeja interviews Renzo Spiteri, artistic director of the Malta World Music Festival. This first edition, to be held at Fort St Elmo, Valletta on Friday 19 and Saturday 20 May, promises to enhance Malta's fast-growing annual music calendar with a strong dose of vibrant, exotic music and a colourful mix of cultural flavours that should help boost the presence and popularity of world music within the Maltese islands.
Falling within the six-month period of the Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the festival takes its cue from Malta's central position in the Mediterranean Sea and the important role our islands have played in linking North and South, East and West. This is precisely what the Malta World Music Festival is celebrating - the beauty of cultural diversity, the exchange and dialogue of people’s roots and the vitality that is borne out of such experiences and expressed through the powerful medium of music.
For more event and ticket information, visit www.facebook.com/maltaworldmusicfestival