World music is an English phrase for styles of music from non-Western countries, including quasi-traditional, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical category pose obstacles to a universal definition, but its ethic of interest in the culturally exotic is encapsulated in Roots magazine's description of the genre as "local music from out there".
Ellen Fullman is an American composer, instrument builder, and performer. She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is known for her 70-foot (21-meter) Long String instrument, tuned in just intonation and played with rosin-coated fingers.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
Rokia Traoré is a Malian-born singer, songwriter and guitarist.
Amadou & Mariam are a musical duo from Mali, composed of the Bamako-born couple Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia (vocals).
Anoushka Shankar is a British-American sitar player and musician, as well as occasional writer and actor. She performs across multiple genres and styles—classical and contemporary, acoustic and electronic. In addition to releasing seven solo studio albums beginning with Anoushka (1998), she has also worked alongside a wide variety of musicians, including Karsh Kale on the full-length collaboration Breathing Under Water (2007) and her father Ravi Shankar. She has received nine Grammy Awards nominations and was the first musician of Indian origin to perform live and to serve as a presenter at the ceremony. She was the youngest and first woman to receive a British House of Commons Shield.
Roman Maksimovich Miroshnichenko is a Ukraine-born Russian jazz fusion multi-award winning guitarist, composer, producer, recording engineer and filmmaker. He has received numerous accolades, including four The Independent Music Awards, 1st Prize of the USA Songwriting Competition, 1st Prize of the International Acoustic Music Awards, Gold medal of the Global Music Awards and four Hollywood Music in Media Awards nominees. He has worked with musicians such as Steve Vai, Al Di Meola, Mike Stern, Marco Mendoza, Paul Wertico, Jennifer Batten, Heather Headley, Djivan Gasparyan, Dominique DiPiazza during his career. In 2008 - 2017 he toured regularly in a duo with fusion guitarist Larry Coryell.
The Rainforest Band was an American jam band that spans several genres, including jazz, rock, world music, R&B, and funk. Founded in 1990, it produced four albums and performed for ten years.
Seckou Keita is a kora player and drummer from Senegal. He is one of the few champions of the lesser-known kora repertoire from Casamance in southern Senegal.
The London Bulgarian Choir (LBC) is a London-based amateur choir specialising in Bulgarian folk music. Dessislava Stefanova has led the choir since its formation in 2000. Primarily a performing choir, the LBC perform around twenty concerts a year and have been involved in high-profile collaborations with British Sea Power, Doves, Orlando Gough, and Nigel Kennedy.
Bongshang are a Scottish band from Shetland, who fuse traditional Shetland and folk styles with rock, funk, electronica and contemporary production techniques. They have been likened to Celtic fusion artists such as Shooglenifty and Martyn Bennett.
Invisible System is the pseudonym for the UK & Africa producer Dan Harper whose music involves a fusion of Ethiopian, dub, reggae, techno, trance, drum and bass, jungle, acid, psychedelic, folk, post-punk, goth and rock.
The Toronto Tabla Ensemble (TTE) is a non-profit charitable organization founded by Artistic Director and tabla master Ritesh Das. The performing ensemble has toured Canada coast-to-coast six times, toured Australia in 2006, and India in 2011.
World Music Network is a UK-based record label specializing in world music.
Arun Shenoy is a Singaporean musician and songwriter. He is best known for his Grammy Award nomination at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards for his debut full-length studio album Rumbadoodle released in 2012. "Bliss", the first song from his Indian Fusion project released as a single in 2013 was featured on a worldwide Exclusive First Look on Grammy.com. His second album A Stagey Bank Affair, released in 2016 was chosen as the Critics's Pick for Best Album of the Year by Jazziz Magazine. He was conferred the Outstanding Computing Alumni Award by the School of Computing at NUS in 2018 and is also a Distinguished Alumni of MIT, Manipal. He is the founder of record label, Narked Records. Looking back at Shenoy's music over the years, music critic Jonathan Widran has noted that Shenoy's discography may sound a bit scattered, but it's reflective of a brilliant, multi-faceted creative mind, pushed relentlessly by a restless spirit. He has stated that (band) name shifts aside, it's some of the most compelling, heartfelt and life affirming music he has heard. Shenoy has been featured by Zen Magazine in the best dressed couples list at the 56th Annual Grammy Awards red carpet arrivals in 2014; and again by Le Guide Noir at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards red carpet arrivals in 2015.
Monsieur Doumani is a three-piece Cypriot band formed in Nicosia in 2011, winner of the "Best Group" award in the Songlines Music Awards 2019. Monsieur Doumani have performed in major festivals and venues in Europe, including WOMEX, WOMAD Charlton Park, Konzerthaus Vienna, Rudolstadt-Festival, Havana World Music Festival etc.
The ARIA Music Award for Best World Music Album, is an award presented within the Fine Arts Awards at the annual ARIA Music Awards. It was inaugurated in 1995 as Best Folk/World/Traditional Release. The ARIA Awards recognise "the many achievements of Aussie artists across all music genres", and have been given by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) since 1987.
Three Score and Ten: A Voice to the People is a multi-CD box set album issued by Topic Records in 2009 to celebrate 70 years as an independent British record label.
Ila Paliwal is a classically trained Indian vocalist, songwriter and producer based in New York City.
The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is one of Australia's leading contemporary ensembles. Founded by pianist Paul Grabowsky in 1994, it has been led by composer/trumpeter/sound artist Peter Knight since 2013 and led by pianist/composer/producer Aaron Choulai since 2023. The Orchestra explores relationships between musical disciplines and cultures, imagining new musical concepts that reference how 21st century Australia responds to its cultural and musical history.
