MUMBAI: This year's Kala Ghoda Arts Festival boasts a musical line-up from around the world. Artists from France, Germany, Israel and Poland will perform at Cross Maidan and The Asiatic Library Steps during the nine-day art and cultural festival that runs from 7 February through to 15 February. Along with international music acts, up and coming Indian independent artists like pop vocalist/guitarist Tejas Menon, electro rock music duo Sidharth-Suhas (known for composing the recent Bollywood film, 'Crazy Cukkad Family'), acoustic trio Stella by Starlight and India's first all-vocal musical ensemble Voctronica will also perform at the festival.

The first Sunday, called World Music Day, will have The Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) as the opening act. This also marks the first time the SOI will perform a free, non-ticketed outdoor concert with its entire orchestral force. Among the international acts, performing are musical duo Itamar Erez & Yshai Afterman from Israel, Polish multi-instrumentalist Maria Pomianowska who is set to perform an assortment of Indian ragas, and white-funk, dark disco Isreali band- Cut Out Club. The Indian representative for the World Music Day is Neha Bhasin's Cinnamon Gully. The closing acts for the grand finale of the festival will include Ankur and the Ghalat Family, Black Strat Blues followed by Amit Trivedi. Trivedi was present at last year's edition of the festival to launch the soundtrack of his last film, 'Queen'.

The theme of this year's festival is 'Resonance'. Through this theme, the event encourages music lovers to enjoy the melodies of artists across experimental genres.

Hindustan Times continues to be the festival's title sponsor along with 9X, who are also conducting a competition in association with Pepe Jeans. The winner will be given a chance to perform at the festival. This year, the Kala Ghoda Festival has also roped in the new general entertainment channel 'Zindagi' to help promote peace and harmony between Pakistan and India through theatre. The channel is known for airing acclaimed Pakistani television programmes such as 'Aunn Zara', among others.

Regarding the marketing, Kala Ghoda Festival Music Section Co-Creator Arpana Gvalani said, “Kala Ghoda does not really need marketing. Last year, we had more than five thousand people who had turned up during the music performances. While we stopped the entry after five thousand, hundreds of people waited outside to watch the performances.” Gvalani also said that she started working on the line-up in August 2014 and it was packed by October. “There are artistes performing for merely 20 minutes, because there are so many people performing. This in fact gives the audience more variety in terms of music genres,” Gvalani added.

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival will be held from 7 February to 15 February and it will be open for all.