Are you starting to get an idea of how incredibly varied WOMEX is? Here is yet another taste of one of the showcases, this one by the Chinese zheng trio, San Chuan. First off, apologies to all Chinese (Mandarin) speakers who will know right away that my subtitles are not quite in order! But in this case, I think the music speaks for itself. And I think each of these women has such a distinct personality that even my little Flip camera "loves" them.

To fill in a little bit of background on the trio, they were friends to begin with, all studied in the same conservatory and all studied under the same teacher, which made them particularly compatable in every way.

WOMEX 09 Part 4 brings us another performance from this substantive musical event. Yves Lambert and Le Bebert Orchestra turned in a great, tight show -- the band (Olivier Rondeau, Tommy Gauthier, Robin Boulianne and Jean François Déry) was a well-oiled machine, barreling through dance tunes and songs with verve and professionalism.

Lambert himself is an almost legendary character in Quebecois music, having been a mainstay of La Bottine Souriante for years; you can see from his spoken interlude he is larger than life. (And if you are going to play the Stomach Steinway, it helps to have a stomach!) I just wish I had kept the camera rolling a little longer, to catch the rest of the great song that followed that instrumental...

One of the real hits at WOMEX was the band Kenge Kenge. They rocked the hall with traditional Kenyan party music based on the Benga beat. With the exception of the electric bass, it was entirely acoustic, with sweet harmonies and two hot dancers. Hang in till the end of this clip-- it just gets better and better, and you'll be grooving in your chair before you know it!

Yours truly had been requested by management to videotape the whole performance, and I had a perilous perch: just on the apron of the stage, straddling a five foot drop, with one foot on a walkway with rotating spotlights on it, and the other on an inclined plane. Taking a step backwards or forwards meant taking my eye off the band, hence the charming ceiling shot...