globalFEST Announces Lineup for 21st Edition at Lincoln Center

New York’s globalFEST makes its highly anticipated return for its 21st year to Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LCPA) with a full day of music and performances on Sunday, January 14, 2024, as part of Lincoln Center Presents. Newly announced artists from around the world are set to perform across three stages inside David Geffen Hall, celebrating musical traditions, cutting-edge sounds, and encouraging discovery. More information is available at LincolnCenter.org/globalFEST.

After hosting its 20th anniversary at Lincoln Center’s newly-renovated David Geffen Hall, and with its biggest, sold-out crowd ever, globalFEST returns to Lincoln Center with a new lineup curated by festival co-directors Bill Bragin, Isabel Soffer, and Shanta Thake, also Ehrenkranz Chief Artistic Officer at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, plus guest curator Zion Jackson.

The 2024 globalFEST lineup features artists from across the continents, including the traditional South African Xhosa rhythms and funk of Thandiswa Mazwai; the electronic infused Indo-classical sounds of Karsh Kale; Yasser Tejeda’s new spin on Afro Dominican Roots music; gripping singer-songwriter and Brazilian activist Bia Ferreira; Catalan electro folk duo Tarta Relena; Lonnie Holley whose live shows contain new and spontaneously created sounds; psychedelic Moroccan-French Gnawa quartet Bab L’ Bluz; GRAMMY award-winning Villalobos Brothers, fusing Mexican folk with jazz and classical music; the captivating contemporary Puerto Rican Bomba band El Laberinto del Coco; and the Ukrainian-Canadian Balaklava Blues that fuses Ukrainian polyphony and folk traditions with electronica. View the lineup here.

Bragin, Soffer, and Thake, said, "We are thrilled to once again bring artists from all over the world to Lincoln Center's David Geffen Hall. The power of music to bring people together during trying times is more important than ever. globalFEST began following the dark days between 9/11 and the start of the Iraq War. Now in its 21st year, as the world faces new conflicts and the horrors of war are all around us, we remain devoted to encouraging cultural awareness through musical discovery."

Throughout globalFEST’s history, the festival has acted as a musical beacon, bridging cultural divides and bringing audiences together through the universal language of music. The beloved curation has proven influential to arts organizations and venues across the country and jump started the US touring careers of incredible artists, including Antibalas, Amythyst Kiah, Angelique Kidjo, DakhaBrakha, Jupiter and Okwess, Martha Redbone, Rhiannon Giddens and more. 

Since its beginning, globalFEST has showcased more than 200 artists and groups from 70 different countries, and always to sold-out audiences. Founded in response to the aftermath of 9/11, the run-up to the Iraq war, the closing of borders and rising xenophobia, the festival was a music-filled light in a dark time. The festival has grown from a concert into a catalytic non-profit organization that serves an intersectional array of global artists and the larger performing arts field. Recognizing that artists are often advocates and ambassadors, globalFEST has also become a platform for those whose homes were under duress, from Gulf artists post-Katrina to Haitian artists after the 2010 earthquake to Muslim artists amidst Trump’s “Muslim Ban.” Additionally, the festival has centered gender equity as a goal and made LGBTQ+ voices a programming priority.