¡Globalquerque! New Mexico’s Annual Celebration of World Music & Culture is honored to have been nominated for the 2012 About.com World Music Readers' Choice Awards in the Best World Music Festival category. Festival fans can vote once a day online until March 21 at http://worldmusic.about.com/b/2012/02/21/2012-about-com-world-musicreaders-

choice-awards-vote-now.htm

Other nominees in the category are Festival au Desert (Tombouctou, Mali), Festival International de Louisianne (Lafayette, LA), globalFEST (New York, N.Y.) and Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Washington, D.C.) Tom Frouge and Neal Copperman, who co-founded, produce and direct ¡Globalquerque! were excited to learn of the nomination.

“We are honored to be nominated along with such esteemed colleagues.” says Frouge, (whose Slacker.com World Radio program was also nominated in the Best World Music
Radio Show category). “For ¡Globalquerque! to be recognized on a national level in this way is humbling. It is a testament to our fans, supporters and partners who have helped us raise the festival to such a level. It is also a great nod to Albuquerque and New Mexico. And kudos to About.com for giving world music a forum like this! We hope everyone will take the time to vote often!”

Other related nominations include past ¡Globalquerque! performers Frigg (Finland/Norway), Aurelio Martinez (Honduras) and New Mexico’s own Rahim AlHaj (Iraq) in the World Music Torchbearer category.

The 8th edition of ¡Globalquerque! returns to the National Hispanic Cultural Center September 21 & 22, 2012. As in the past, the festival will be presenting a variety of international acts on three stages along with their free Saturday daytime Global Fiesta and the popular Global Village of Craft Culture & Cuisine. This year the festival will also present some collaborations with the visiting Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) conference.

“We will be announcing our first confirmed acts very soon, along with some other surprises” Frouge says. “We are also looking forward to working with the ISEA folks.”

Info on ¡Globalquerque! can be found at www.globalquerque.com