Adonis Puentes, Celso Machado, Tonye Aganaba, Kurai Blessing, JP Carter, Locarno (Tom Landa, Pedro Mota, Robin Layne, Liam MacDonald, Nick La Riviere, Kalissa Landa, JeanSe LeDoujet) and First Nations (St?:lo/St’át’imc/Nlaka’pamux Territories) rapper, Ostwelve

The project first began in the summer of 2015, when the artists were asked to come together to perform at the Vancouver Island Music Festival. After an intense week of rehearsals, the group made their first appearance on the main stage of the festival. After their set, they were all elated with how it went, and decided one performance just wouldn’t be enough. A few weeks later, a plan was hatched to turn the one-off project into the province’s most exciting World Music band.

Vancouver Island Music Festival director, Doug Cox, who was instrumental in bringing the project together, has this to say about the band’s first performance.

“The B.C. World Music Collective was one of those special projects at our Festival that worked from the get-go. Quite a wonderful celebration of the multiculturalism that makes up our fair Province. Beyond all that, it was just good, high energy fun as well!“

The summer of 2016 saw the band take on it’s first mini tour, playing at The Hornby Island Music Festival, The Filberg Festival, The Harmony Arts Festival and more. Artistic Director of the Hornby Music Festival had this to say about the band:

These 13 musicians, all with their own careers in world music, brought energy and new life into musical traditions from around the world.  The collaboration, musicianship and enthusiasm on stage was exciting and our audience was up and dancing from the first song.” – Dierdre Atkinson (Hornby Music Festival)

The group went on to showcase at Pacific Contact (BC 2017) and Arts Northwest (WA, 2017) and more tours are in the works!

This is truly an exciting band with some impressive talent. Their performance is very much a collaboration that sees all the musicians playing with each other, and backing each other up as they sing their own songs and tell the stories of where they are from, and how they got to BC. They are the ideal festival band and take listeners on a worldwide journey without ever leaving home.

Learn more about the B.C. World Music Collective at their official website –  www.bcworldmusiccollective.com