Next year's SXSW tech and music gathering will include a keynote speech from Apple Beats 1 lead DJ Zane Lowe, among its 700 presentations.
The Austin, Texas-based festival will be held on March 10 through March 19, 2017. Lowe's specific speech topics are not known, according to Billboard, but presumably the speech relates to Apple's growing influence in music and streaming media.
"The programming announced today reflects a lot of the bigger-picture trends we think will be getting the most buzz in March 2017," said SXSW Chief Programming Officer Hugh Forrest. "Of course, the biggest trend for SXSW is always the convergence of the technology, music, and film industries."
Zane Lowe helmed BBC Radio 1's evening show since 2003, and signed off from that gig on March 5, 2015 to join Apple's then-unannounced service. Lowe is known as a musical tastemaker and is credited with jumpstarting the careers of artists like Adele and Gnarls Barkley by featuring them on his show.
"When you actually put it on a device, it's with you all the time," said Lowe about working with Apple on Beats 1. "You can reach people anywhere, anytime as long as you give them a reason to tune in. So I just wanted to know what that felt like."
Beats 1 is a 24-hour radio station streamed live through the iOS Music app and iTunes. The broadcast airs in more than 100 countries, with Lowe providing coverage in Los Angeles, while DJs Ebro Darden and Julie Adenuga man the station from New York and London, respectively.