Sydney Festival

Symphony in the Domain

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 around 80 events including contemporary and classical music, dance, circus, drama, visual arts and artist talks. The festival attracts an estimated 1 million people to its ticketed shows and large-scale free outdoor events.

History

Sydney Festival was established 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 summer holiday month of January. In many ways it is probably still best understood as a celebration of Sydney and what the city has to offer. Attendees are predominantly Sydneysiders with a growing national and international audience.

For three weeks the Festival offers a program of around 300 performances and 80 events involving more than 1000 artists from Australia and abroad covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts, cross media and forums. In any given year, the program's diversity might include burlesque circus to New York rap to Russian theatre; from contemporary dance to family programs to traditional Indigenous arts practice. The Festival uses at least 20 venues including the city's main theatre venues such as Sydney Theatre, CarriageWorks, City Recital Hall and venues at Sydney Opera House, as well as community halls, parks and the city steets themselves.

Sydney Festival presents a number of large-scale free outdoor events including the long-running Concerts in The Domain with, each attracting up to 80,000 people.

Since 2008 the Festival's free opening event is Festival First Night, attracting approximately 250,000 people into the city centre. With up to seven stages set-up in the city's closed streets, parks and laneways, Festival First Night features up to 500 local and international performers, many of who are part of the Festvial program. Over the past three years, performers at Festival First Night include: Brian Wilson, Grace Jones, Al Green, Sharon Jones & The Dapkings, Pink Martini, Santagold, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Cat Empire, The Manganiyar Seduction, Dan Zanes & Friends, Spanish Harlem Orchestra and many more.

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 (Junebug Symphony, Au Revoir Parapluie), Philip Glass, Ian McKellen (Dance of Death), Batsheva Dance Company, National Theatre of Scotland (Black Watch, Aalst), Christopher Wheeldon Company, All Tomorrow's Parties, Al Green, Katona Jozsef Theatre, Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, The National, Sufjan Stevens and Joanna Newsom.

The Festival's inclusive programming, broad range of free events and accessible pricing policies for the ticketed shows means that Sydney Festival is open to all, welcoming Sydneysiders and visitors alike. Within the program there is always a group of shows - all about an hour long - with $30 tickets. Tickets to all performances are available on the day for only $25 at the Tix for Next to Nix booth in Martin Place in the heart of Sydney's CBD.

Sydney Festival's total audience of approximately 1 million across all of its events makes it the most attended cultural event in Australia.

Sydney Festival Program

As an indication of Festival programming, the 2010 Festival included Schaubuhne Berlin's Hamlet, Headlong's Six Characters in Search of an Author, Peter Sellars' Oedipus Rex & Symphony of Psalms, 43 Rajastani musicians in The Manganiyar Seduction, Al Green, Shaun Parker's Happy As Larry, Fabulous Beast's Giselle, Circus Oz' Barely Contained, Red Leap Theatre's The Arrival, John Cale, Grizzly Bear, Medeski Martin & Wood, Laura Marling, Patrick Watson and many more.

The free program for Sydney Festvial 2010 included an outdoor concert by Indian superstar AR Rahman (with an audience of 50,000 people); Summer Sounds in The Domain with Toumani Diabate; Symphony in The Domain with Sydney Symphony; Mazda Opera in The Domain with Leonard Bernstein's Candide; and the much-loved annual AAMI Ferrython on with four Sydney ferries racing on Sydney Harbour.

The Festival's late night venues, both presenting contemporary music, are Beck’s Festival Bar and Festival Garden with the latter hosting The Famous Speigeltent.

Festival Directors

• Lindy Hume: 2010 - 2012
• Fergus Linehan: 2006 - 2009
• Brett Sheehy: 2002 - 2005
• Leo Schofield: 1998 - 2001
• Anthony Steel: 1995 - 1997
• Stephen Hall: 1977 - 1994

See Also

• Symphony in the Domain
• Jazz in the Domain- Since renamed Summer Sounds in the Domain.
• Opera in The Domain

References

• "Sydney Festival" (Features). Daily Telegraph. News Corporation, (last updated) 28 December 2009. Web. Accessed 28 December 2009.

External links

• Sydney Festival – Official Website (News, updates, features, and "Interact" online community Blog).

• Sydney Festival 2011 (the Daily Telegraph) – News & reviews about the Sydney Festival 2011 section on 'the Daily Telegraph'