Other Voices founder Philip King says Derry 2026 'an antidote to a digital world’

The respected musician and producer is keenly anticipating what promises to be a magical weekend of music when the pop cultural phenomenon returns to the city for its 25th edition.

"It's almost like an analogue world. It is human. It is not AI. It is not virtual. It is real. It is happening in front of you. You collapse the distance between the audience and the stage. That communal getting together is so important,” he tells the ‘Journal’ ahead of the landmark celebration.

Performances by Kate Nash, Bleech 9:3, Westside Cowboy, Brògeal and Muireann Bradley in Derry’s iconic St. Columb’s Hall will be streamed live to audiences around the world as part of the showcase.

In addition local bands Tessio, Our Krypton Son, Eimile, Cartin, Autumns, The Celluloid Escape, The Fully Automatic Model, Declan McLaughlin, Tramp, Ramper, Gabriel Paschal Blake, McGrath and George Houston will play at a range of venues over Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26.

The acclaimed festival famously visited Derry during the City of Culture year in 2013, returning in 2014.

Philip, who founded the world-renowned musical celebration in Dingle in 2001, is thrilled to be back in town.

“Derry is made for it. The atmosphere that we experienced the last two times we were here invigorated us. It gave us the motivation to keep on doing this thing. It was great to be in Derry and it is great to be coming back,” he says.

Over the past 25 years Other Voices has showcased and spurred the careers of some of the greatest artists of their generations.

Looking back on the two year stint in Derry over 2013-14, Philip reflects: “I have really fond memories of The Gloaming playing in The Glassworks. That gig was something else. You also had Neil Hannon singing ‘Sunrise’, which was a big, big moment for me.

“And then you had guys like George Ezra who was beginning his career, banging out ‘Budapest’. We have been so privileged, so lucky over the years. Hozier came, CMAT, Fontaines, all these folk, have been with us. It's just a privilege to continue to be able to do it.”

Philip says he is thrilled to have legendary Clare fiddler Martin Hayes with Brian Donnellan opening Other Voices 2026 with a special concert in the Guildhall on Thursday night.

Over the weekend as eclectic a programme as can be imagined is scheduled.

“There is such diversity in the music. Westside Cowboy are on their way – coming from Manchester and about to go on the road with Fontaines DC,” he says.

There is special mention for Ballybofey’s own maestro Muireann Bradley who will be coming to ‘play her absolutely mesmerising blues guitar’.

“That country blues thing that she has...to me Mississippi John Hurt is what I hear when I close my eyes and listen to songs like ‘Delia’.”

When Philip established Other Voices in the depths of the West Kerry winter in 2001 it was a shot in the dark that has, beyond his expectations, grown into a cultural flagship of incredible reach and power.

By basing itself in satellites like Dingle, Cardigan and Derry, Other Voices has proven over the years that the very best in international music can be brought to and experienced on the periphery like nowhere else.

“When I look out the window I'm at the edge of Europe, the most westerly tip, the next stop is America,” he says of the Dingle peninsula where he is based. “That sensation is not lost on me when we are in Derry as well. ‘From Derry quay we sailed away...’”

Back in 1991 Philip produced the acclaimed ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ series for BBC2.

"That really was about what happened to Irish music when it left here in the feet and the heads and the hands of migrants in various different migrations out of Ulster, Ulster Scots first, and then later, after the Famine,” he observes.

Other Voices, in ways, has been a continuation of that exploration.

"The whole of our music history through generations is suffused with emotion and feeling. In the 25 years that we have been doing this thing it is a very accurate emotional response as to how we feel. The artists and musicians are so eloquent about capturing that.”

Philip explains how this year’s series is the beginning of a three year cycle which he hopes can ‘grow and take root in Derry in the same way that it has in Dingle’.

Over the weekend Others Voice 2026 will feature Soundings, a cultural forum that brings together artists, writers, makers, thinkers, civil society leaders and others to explore some of the defining questions of our time.

Sure to be placed under the microscope will be whether Derry enjoyed a dividend from the UK City of Culture year in 2013 or not.

“We were disappointed, as were many people in Derry across all sorts of disciplines, that the legacy of the UK Capital of Culture piece was not realised,” says Philip. “Here is a second bite at the cherry.”

He believes Derry is well-poised to benefit from its status as an Other Voices host and to put itself on the map again as a go-to destination for touring artists.

"Other Voices has grown to the extent that when we ask folks [major artists] to come they do. They are excited by the notion of doing the thing...to sustain the live thing in the city is part of the plan. To really sustain it so that more bands will come. But for the bands from the place itself and from the general area.”

And it is great to be back in Derry. “It just has that vibrancy, that welcome, the city was hugely warm the last time we were there and continues to be very warm.”