Llais Festival 2024 announces first confirmed acts

Some of the most exciting artists from across the planet join Wales’ finest – including Cate Le Bon and Lleuwen – in the just-announced line-up for this year’s Llais Music Festival.

Llais is one of the world’s most unique festivals dedicated to the instrument that we all share – the voice.

Connection

All those craving connection and a joyful, enriching experience this autumn are invited into the halls and spaces of Wales Millennium Centre 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 Le Mystere des voix Bulgares to a quarrymen’s choir accompanied by instruments fashioned from slate and oak… it can only be Llais.

This year, Llais will form part of Cardiff Music City Festival (27 September – 20 October 2024) – a city-wide extravaganza bringing three boundary-pushing weeks of gigs, immersive happenings, residencies, installations and pop-ups to all parts of Cardiff.

This year’s Llais Festival Highlights include:

• UK premiere of a very special performance to launch her seventh studio album by sonic alchemist Cate Le Bon
• 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
• Grammy-nominated Irish sean-nós vocalist Iarla o’Lionaird 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
• A Celebration of Bay Jazz – The Butetown Bay Jazz Heritage Festival returns after a 12-year absence to celebrate its 15^th anniversary
• Le Gateau Chocolat – Negro-Spirituals and Black Queer excellence with an opera singer and cabaret diva like no other
• 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

Wales Millennium Centre’s Chief Creative & Content Officer, Graeme Farrow said: “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 continued: “With the audience sing-alongs which have become a much-loved feature of the festival, and those thrilling moments of planned and serendipitous communion between artists – often meeting for the first time – it is becoming clear that Llais is as much about congregation and connection as it is about the voice.”

“This year we’re thrilled to be part of Cardiff Music City Festival – together we are redrawing what a festival can bring to audiences across three inspiring weeks of innovative and joyful experiences that pay homage to our vast musical landscape.’’

Llais – a Wales Millennium Centre production takes place from 9-13 October 2024 at Wales Millennium Centre.

Find out more at www.wmc.org.uk/llais