Sydney Festival is Australia's largest and most attended annual cultural event running every January since it was first held in 1977. Its program features more than 50 events including classical and contemporary music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and public lectures. Its indoor and outdoor presentations attract an estimated 1 million people annually.
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History
Sydney Festival was originally conceived by the Sydney Committee, the NSW State Government and the City of Sydney with a view to attracting people into the city centre during the holiday month of January. The first Festival took place in 1977 and it has since grown to become one of Australia's largest annual cultural celebrations with an international reputation for modern programming. In many ways it is probably still best understood as a celebration of Sydney and what the city has to offer.
For three weeks each January the Festival offers a program of around 80 events involving upwards of 500 artists from Australia and abroad covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts, cross media and forums. In any given year, it makes use of most of the main theatres across the city including Sydney Theatre, CarriageWorks, City Recital Hall and venues at Sydney Opera House.
Sydney Festival also presents a number of free outdoor events such as the long-running Festival in the Domain with Jazz and Symphony concerts, each attracting up to 100,000 people. In 2008 the Festival introduced a new opening event, Festival First Night, for which people are invited to take to the streets to enjoy a large-scale celebration of music and performance. In 2009, Festival First Night attracted 300,000 people into the heart of the city.
The Festival has a history of presenting Australian premieres and many of Australia's most memorable productions such as Cloudstreet have resulted from Sydney Festival's commitment to nurture local artists. It has brought many of the world's great artists to Sydney for the first time including: Ariane Mnouchkine and Thèâtre du Soleil (Flood Drummers), Robert Wilson (The Black Rider), Robert Lepage (Far Side of the Moon, The Andersen Project, Lipsynch), George Piper Dances, Netherlands Dance Theatre, James Thiérrée, Philip Glass, Ian McKellen (Dance of Death), Batsheva Dance Company, National Theatre of Scotland (Black Watch, Aalst), Christopher Wheeldon Company, All Tomorrow's Parties and Katona Jozsef Theatre.
Sydney Festival attracts a total audience of approximately 1 million across all of its events each year making it the most attended cultural event in Australia.
Sydney Festival Program
Sydney Festival aims to present a broard range of events. As an indication of the Sydney Festival programming, the 2009 Festival included Robert Lepage with his 9 hour epic, Lipsynch; Barrie Kosky’s retelling of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic, The Tell-Tale Heart; the Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice; experiential theatre with The Smile Off Your Face; life reflections with Kristin Hersh’s Paradoxical Undressing; and the poster-boy of the Festival, Reggie Watts.
At Sydney Opera House there was Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová performing songs from the film Once; traditional Irish music with Masters of Tradition; Matthew Herbert’s Big Band and a production from Hungary’s Katona József Theatre of Chekhov’s first produced play, Ivanov.
At other venues were Mikhail Rudy and Misha Alperin playing dual pianos in Double Dream; Balkan gypsy musicians, Fanfare Ciocărlia & Special Guests; and the Australian debuts of French singer Camille, indie-folk artist Bon Iver and the UK’s The Cinematic Orchestra.
The Festival's late night venues are Beck’s Festival Bar and Samsung Mobile Festival Garden with the latter hosting The Famous Speigeltent and Bosco Theater.
As a way of making the Festival more acessible, Tix for Next to Nix had limited numbers of $25 tickets to all shows in the program on the day of the performance.
The Festival major annual free events are Festival First Night, the concerts in The Domain and the Ferrython.
Festival Directors
- [From "Festival History" in the Sydney Festival 2009 Official Website]
The 2010 program will be Lindy Hume's first of three Festivals as Artistic Director and Chief Executive.
Previous directors were:
- Fergus Linehan: 2006 - 2009
- Brett Sheehy: 2002 - 2005
- Leo Schofield: 1998 - 2001
- Anthony Steel: 1995 - 1997
- Stephen Hall: 1977 - 1994[1]
Notes
- ^ "Festival History", Sydney Festival 2009: 10–31 January 2009, accessed 28 January 2009.
References
- "Sydney Festival" (Features). Daily Telegraph. News Corporation, (last updated) 29 January 2009. Web. Accessed 28 January 2009.
External links
- Sydney Festival – Official Website (News, updates, features, and "Interact" online community Blog).
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