Award winning musicians plan for the future

They’ve been to Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Belgium promoting the critically acclaimed CD, Watina … and tonight Andy Palacio and the Garifuna Collective are back in Belize. And the musicians did not come back empty handed either as on October twenty-eighth Palacio and producer Ivan Duran of Stone Tree Records were the recipients of the prestigious Womex Award in Seville, Spain. This afternoon the duo stopped by our studios to tell us about their plans for the future, including this weekend’s concert.

Andy Palacio, Musician
“This is precisely the kind of action that needs to be carried out to safeguard the Garifuna culture because it is about keeping the culture vibrant, guaranteeing that it remains in use as opposed to being preserved in a static form in a museum or in a library. So I think that the contribution of the Garifuna Collective to that process has been quite significant. … We’re really, really pleased with the outcomes.”

Ivan Duran, Producer, Watina
“It’s been a hectic year, a lot of work, a lot of travelling. But I am very, very pleased with what has happened and I am happy for everybody, especially the musicians from the Collective and Andy.”

Kendra Griffith
“What’s next for Stone Tree?”

Ivan Duran
“We’re releasing another Garifuna project in March which we’ve been working on for many, many years. It’s called Umalali and it’s a Garifuna women’s album, over fifty women participated in this project. … Some of the ladies now will be touring with the band and Andy, so next year there will be a lot more touring. So far we have at least three legs completely booked in Europe, Asia, and U.S. and Canada.”

Andy Palacio
“We’ll be at the Brodies parking lot as of six o’clock tomorrow evening and from what I have been told, all of Belize is going to be there.”

Ivan Duran
“They’ve been doing this exact type of show throughout the summer, especially in Europe, playing huge crowds in parks with ten, twenty thousand people and coming back to Belize and doing the same thing is really, really exciting for everybody, so I’m are really hoping that everybody comes out and enjoy the show.”

Saturday’s concert at the Brodies Northern Highway parking lot is free of charge. “Watina” has also earned a nomination for the BBC World Music Awards, which will be announced in April.