Here’s a bit of good news for lovers of quality live music. If you are anywhere in Southeast Asia at the end of March it’ll be well worth making a detour and heading over to Penang in Malaysia.

The Penang World Music Festival returns after a hiatus of three years. It will be held from 30^th March to 1^st April 2012 at the Quarry Garden within the beautiful Botanic Gardens, not far from the heart Georgetown.

When it comes to life music, Malaysia is way ahead of its neighbours, and the return of the Penang World Music Festival is a another welcome addition to the annual events calendar that includes Borneo Jazz in May, the fabulous Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Sarawak during July, and the Penang Island Jazz Festival in late November/December.

Huun Huur Tu performing at the Rainforest World Music Festival in Sarawak a few years ago.

The 3^rd Penang World Music Festival will feature renowned musicians from Malaysia as well as a great line-up of international artists. They’ll be 18 bands in all, performing and conducting workshops, including Maite Hontele from Colombia, Beoga from Ireland, the Tori Ensemble from South Korea, Phong Nguyen Ensemble from Vietnam, Loyko from Russia, and the band I am really looking forward to seeing most of all, Altan Urag from Mongolia. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing several Mongolian and Tuvan bands and am always enthralled by them. I actually discovered the sound years ago through my love of the music of Frank Zappa after seeing a film of him at home having a ‘musicial soiree’ with members of Huun Huur Tu, a band I was lucky enough to interview and see perform a few years back at Rainforest World Music Festival.

You can find out more about the line-up at the 3^rd Penang World Music Festival website. The event is organized by the Malaysian Ministry of Tourism & Culture and the official sponsoring hotel for the event is Hard Rock Hotel.

I really enjoy the challenge of photographing live music and am looking forward to capturing images of the performers. And of course there’ll also be the chance to explore the delightful UNESCO World Heritage town of Georgetown and other attractions in Penang. For flights to Penang from Bangkok and other regional destinations, check-out the no-frills, no service, and plenty of bad attitude, Air Asia or for a little extra enjoy the service and quality of Malaysia Airlines.

I flew down to Kuala Lumpur with Malaysia Airlines. It was nice to see a recent article of mine in their inflight magazine, ‘Going Places’. Thanks to editor, Vivian Chong, it is certainly one of the best inflight reads around at the moment.  My feature was on the market town of Pakse in southern Laos. Here’s a scan of the opening page of the five page spread.  If you want to know more about Pakse and are not flying with Malaysia Airlines in January, you can pick up my book, ‘Enchanting Laos’ online or at all good bookshops or have a look at pictures in the Portfolio.