Arts Centre Melbourne by arrangement with Adelaide Festival present
5 March 2024 | Hamer Hall
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*Concession: Applies to persons u/16, MEAA, Pensioners, Unemployed, Full-time Australian and International Students, Health Care Card Holders, Victorian Carer Card Holders.
Five-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo returns to Melbourne celebrating her 40-year career and sharing music from her remarkable new album Mother Nature alongside selections from her vast back-catalogue. Supported by Noongar song-maker Maatakitj.
With 16 albums to her name, Angélique's unstoppable creative force has seen her recognised as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the World, named one of the top 100 most inspiring women in the world by The Guardian, appointed a global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador and awarded the prestigious 2023 Polar Music Prize.
As a performer, Angélique Kidjo’s striking voice and stage presence is matched by her ability to make connections across genres. Her music cross-pollinates the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and modal jazz, alongside influences from Europe and Latin America.
Forever a voice for change, Angélique Kidjo’s Mother Nature confronts such pressing issues as racial inequity and the climate crisis, again proving her rare power to transform complex subject matter into music that is radiantly joyful.
Meaning ‘long legs like a spear’, Maatakitj is the affectionate stage name of Clint Bracknell, a Noongar musician from southern WA and Professor of Music at the University of Western Australia. Maatakitj’s technicolour high energy dance tracks “dare to envisage future songlines that tell of a yet unknown path both corporeal and metaphysical” (The Australian).
Join us for an evening of rapturous music brought to us by a charismatic performer hell-bent on leaving the world a better place for her presence.
