The Womexican Programmes. Easy to catch up

Next Edition: WOMEX 25 Tampere Finland, 22-26 October 2025

 

 

WOMEX – Worldwide Music Expo – is the most international and culturally diverse music meeting in the world and the biggest conference of the global music scene, featuring a trade fair, talks, films and showcase concerts.

Over 2,600 professionals (including 260 performing artists) come together every October from 90 countries, making WOMEX the leading networking platform for the world music industry. Its musical spectrum is unparalleled in the international showcase performance market, ranging from the most traditional to the new global local underground, embracing folk, roots, jazz, local and diaspora cultures as much as urban and electronic sounds from all over the globe.

7 stages, around 700 exhibiting companies, 100+ speakers, films, an opening concert and an award ceremony across five packed networking days and rather short nights.

WOMEX and the many delegates in its community aims to support and strengthen the role of culture around the globe and to spread its values through the nurturing and promotion of creativity and art. The local and global world music community is able to – and needs to – contribute to cross-cultural understanding in a welcoming, tolerant, diverse and productive manner.

The event remains devoted to facilitating and promoting the global music industry and providing a platform to connect, inspire and share experiences, enabling new partnerships across transcontinental markets and an open economic and international cultural dialogue.

 

WOMEX 23 OPENING:

RESOUNDING PICASSO

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) was one of the most influential and well-known artists of the 20th Century. Picasso's revolutionary artistic style broke from traditional representational art as he explored new ways of expressing the world through abstract and fragmented forms and experimentation with rhythm and movement in his works. His inspiration as a creative boundary breaker touches all areas of the creative arts.

This year -2023 - marks the international celebration of the work and artistic legacy of the Spanish genius for two significant reasons: on the 8th of April it will be the 50th anniversary of Picasso's passing; and, on the 25th of October, this year's WOMEX Opening in A Coruña coincides with the anniversary of Picasso's birth.

To celebrate Picasso's lifetime of continual artistic Innovation, and to honour his deep connection to his homeland — Spain — we will travel the artistic thread of Picasso for the WOMEX Opening evening's line-up with four bands/artists representing those four key places that marked his childhood and youth:Andalucía, where he was born; Galicia, where he began his artistic journey; Madrid, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts; and Catalunya, where he held his first exhibition and connected with the most avant-garde artists.