A new urban Festival Of Music and Art, MONA FOMA will provide Hobart with a deluge of new sights and sounds from January 9-12, 2009.

MONA FOMA, curated by Brian Ritchie of the Violent Femmes, uses music and art to engage the new. The music will be edgy and challenging. So will the art, drawn from the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) collection and beyond.

The Festival will be centred in and around Salamanca Arts Centre and MONA’s home at the Moorilla vineyard, spilling into other parts of Hobart from the Republic Bar to St. David’s Cathedral.

Headlining the festival’s international guest list is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, performing their only Tasmanian concert with special guests The Saints, in their first ever tour to Tasmania.

All other MONA FOMA program events will be FREE to the public.

Announcing the festival’s program highlights, Ritchie said: ‘MONA FOMA will stimulate new thought and excitement about where and how we live. This won’t be a festival for the faint-of-heart but it will be worth the effort. And a lot of fun. Listen to the art, look at the music, love it, hate it, or ignore it.”

MONA will reveal some of its collection in an exhibition titled Discord: Art from MONA at Salamanca Arts Centre’s Long Gallery. Curator Nicole Durling says “We have chosen discordant art that brings together technology and the organic in a show that gives a hint of what to expect when MONA opens in 2010.”

The full MONA FOMA program will be revealed in December. Further information and announcements are available at www.mofo.net.au

ARTISTS APPEARING AT MONA FOMA

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Legendary. UK/AUSTRALIA
The Saints: Seminal seventies punk band. First time ever in Tasmania. The original. AUSTRALIA
The Zen Circus: Italian Dada Punks
Davide Toffolo: Italy's premier Manga artist. ITALY
James Blood Ulmer: Futuristic jazz meets down home blues. USA
Mamadou Diabate, Jeff Lang & Bobby Singh: Mali's premier kora (harp) artist & friends. MALI
Filastine: Luddite laptopist counter hegemonic brown sound. SPAIN
Fuck Buttons: Drone becomes melody becomes rhythm. UK
DuOud: North African tradition meets electronic saturation. FRANCE/ TUNISIA/ALGERIA
Robin Fox: Sound and visual Artist in live digital media. AUSTRALIA
BalletLab: Inventive, visionary moving imagery. AUSTRALIA
Ansgar Wollenhorst: Improvised German pipe organ excursions. GERMANY
Taiko Drum: Tasmania's popular Japanese drum ensemble. AUSTRALIA
Fiona Burnett and David Jones: Brilliant soprano saxophone virtuoso meets premier
percussion guru. AUSTRALIA
Eugene Chadbourne: free improvisor, instrument inventor & protest songwriter. USA
DJ TR!P: Electronic maestro muso composer remix artist. AUSTRALIA
Propaganda Klann: Indigenous Hip Hop beat merchants. AUSTRALIA
Pinky Beecroft: Crazed songwriter and provocateur. AUSTRALIA
IHOS Music Theatre and Opera: BORDERS – Sketches (work in progress). AUSTRALIA
Jensen Tjhung: Roaming District Church. AUSTRALIA
Cameron Robbins: Sea Shanties of the Subconscious. AUSTRALIA
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot: From Here to Ear – visually and acoustically intriguing. FRANCE