MONDAY 8th March 2010

In this week's Australian Music News, South Australian Premier Mike Rann has promised, if his government is re-elected,  to make the biennial Adelaide Festival an annual event from 2012. The announcement has been met with both support and criticism. Some local arts companies fear they will be excluded from the festival in favour of expensive international acts... Also in Adelaide, the world music festival WOMADelaide draws to a close today.  This year's festival was headlined by Indian sitar master  Ravi Shankar with his daughter Anoushka Shankar, and featured over 500 artists from 27 countries... Singer-songwriter Lou Reed and performance artist Laurie Anderson will take over from Brian Eno as curators of the Vivid Sydney festival of music, light and ideas. The second annual festival will run from May 27 to June 21... A Victorian teenager from the town of Timboon has been arrested on charges of offensive behaviour for listening to rap music. The 19 year-old was listening to a CD in a car parked outside a supermarket while waiting for his mother. Police officers claimed the music was "offensive and derogatory to females". The case, the first of its kind in Australia, could set legal precedent... The State Library of Queensland has opened its new centre for digital culture, the Edge. The aim of the centre is to promote experimentation in design, art and technology. The complex provides production spaces for various media, accommodation for artists, and spaces for workshops, conferences and informal discussion. 

For more stories, check out the Australian Music News Bulletin.