Music and Heritage Festival To Celebrate Bahamian Roots

Visitors and locals are excited to head to Georgetown, Exuma for the 13th Bahamian Music and Heritage Festival to be held March 9-11.

The festival, under the theme “ Celebrating Our Bahamian Roots” looks to bring the best in Bahamian food, games, music and culture.

The event will be held at the picturesque Regatta Park, where by day it will be transformed into the epicenter of mouthwatering food, exciting games and informative demonstrations. 

Daytime demonstrations include Bahamian dancing, a display of artifacts, Bahamian bush teas, coconut crafts, woodcarving and Bahamian baking and cooking. 

There will also be an international cooking demonstration.

Additionally for children, there will be “playtime way back when,” ring play, kite flying, sack races, hopscotch, egg and spoon races and marbles.  

By night, the park will be a musical center starting with Thursday night, which is dedicated to Bahamian gospel music.

Artists such as Lyrically Blessed, Voices of Thunder, Anglican Choir Baptist Choir; Irwin Clarke; Natasha Lewis; Al Gibson; Washington Williams; Gospel Boys; Cooling Waters and Prophet will perform.

 Friday and Saturday nights will be dedicated to secular music.

Bahamian music artists like Long Island Rake n’ Scrape; Just Us; Sweet Love; Tingum Dem Band; Ira Storr and the Spank Band; Stevie S; Puzzle; Geno D; Veronica Bishop and D’MAC.

The exhilarating event will conclude with a Junkanoo rush out and fireworks.

Director of Events in the Ministry of Tourism Charity Armbrister said she is looking forward to this year’s events, particularly since Exuma’s economy benefits greatly from it. 

“Every year, the event is special. But this year what makes this year special is the fact that we are really celebrating our roots and taking that to the next level. We are really stepping it up for games and competitions,” she said.

“We know that a lot of people will be traveling to Exuma for the weekend of the festival and in addition to that, we always have a significant amount of visitors. So everyone will get to see what Bahamian culture is all about.”

For more information on Bahamian Music and Heritage Festival contact the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism’s Exuma Office at 336-2430 or visit www. Bahamas.com.