New Brunswick's Matt Andersen is the first Canadian artist to be booked for the 2011 Glastonbury Festival in Somerset, England, next year. 

Singer, guitarist and songwriter Andersen will perform twice at the five-day festival, appearing on the Bourbon Street Blues and Jazz Stage on June 23 and on the closing day, June 26. Glastonbury calls itself the largest open air music festival in the world; all the 140,000 tickets for next June's event were sold in a little over four hours on October 3. 

International blues contest win opens doors Andersen's ongoing success story took a leap forward when he won the International Blues Challenge in Memphis last February. He has since played close to 140 shows, including a US tour with Old Crow Medicine Show. He is currently on his second European tour in the last three months, and will return from concerts in France to play 23 dates with Stuart McLean's Vinyl Cafe Christmas tour, with multiple shows in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, London, Owen Sound, Kitchener and Ottawa and one-night appearances in seven other cities. This will be his fourth tour with Vinyl Cafe, and his second this year.  In the midst of his tour schedule, he's completed a Christmas album that will be released in November, and will start work on a new album with producer Colin Linden early next year. In January, he will be the only Canadian artist on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, an eight-day floating tour of the Caribbean, which will also feature Taj Mahal, Joan Osborne and The Holmes Brothers. Tommy Castro, Denise LaSalle and Kenny Wayne Shepherd among many other artists.  The cruise is already completely sold out. Andersen is also nominated as Entertainer of the Year and Acoustic Artist of the Year at the Maple Blues Awards.