Festival Director: Lieven Bertels
The 2014 Sydney Festival was awash with Australian premieres and sold out shows, with a mix of ticketed and free programming. This year’s Festival included a renewed focus on classical music and large-scale visual arts projects. Two hugely popular installations were Sacrilege, Jeremy Deller’s inflatable Stonehenge, and Merchants Store, Leandro Elrich’s gravity-defying interactive artwork.
Highlights included everything from intimate musical discoveries in the Spiegeltent early music series to the unique suburban spiritual tour The Calling, the centrepiece Baroque dance opera Dido & Aeneas and the world premiere of Black Diggers (pictured above), a co-production with Queensland Theatre Company, directed by Wesley Enoch.
In western Sydney, Parramatta hosted the world premiere of the international family show Band of Magicians and a sell-out music season at the Riverside Theatres.
THEATRE & DANCE
Dido & Aeneas
Sasha Waltz & Guests, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Vocalconsort Berlin
Choreography by Sasha Waltz
Music by Henry Purcell
Black Diggers
Queensland Theatre Company and Sydney Festival
Directed by Wesley Enoch
Written by Tom Wright
La Voix Humaine
Toneelgroep Amsterdam
Directed by Ivo Van Hove
AM I
Shaun Parker & Company
Band of Magicians
Justin Willman, Nate Staniforth, Justin Flom and James Galea
The Shadow King
Co-created by Tom E. Lewis & Michael Kantor
Directed by Michael Kantor
Malthouse Theatre
Othello: The Remix
Written, directed and performed by GQ & JQ
Developed with Rick Boynton
Chicago Shakespeare Theatre & Richard Jordan Productions Ltd
Okham's Razor
Ockham's Razor
Chi Udaka
Taikoz and Lingalayam
The Piper
My Darling Patricia
Funpark
Karen Therese and the Community of Bidwill
All That Fall
Pan Pan Theatre
The Serpent's Table
Griffin Theatre Company and Performance 4A
Oedipus Schmoedipus
POST and Belvoir
Lao Qiang
Zhang Family Band
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin
Apollo Ensemble
Symphony in the Domain
Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Simone Young and John Bell
The Hilliard Ensemble
OPERA
The Turk in Italy
Opera Australia
CIRCUS & CABARET
Scotch and Soda
Company 2 and the Crusty Suitcase Band
Amanda Palmer
LIMBO
Strut & Fret, Underbelly Productions and Southbank Centre
La Cucina dell'Arte
Circus Ronaldo
Lady Rizo
FILM
Spirit of Akasha
Featuring surfers: Stephanie Gilmore, Beau Young, Mick Fanning, Kelly Slater, Tom Curren
Featuring musicians: Grouplove, Ben Howard, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, The Windy Hills
Visitors
Godfrey Reggio, Philip Glass and Jon Kane with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra
EXHIBITIONS & INSTALLATIONS
Chance
Christian Boltanski
Merchants Store
Leandro Erlich
Sacrilege
Jeremy Deller
The Very Near Future
Alex Davies
ABOUT AN HOUR
Forklift
Kage
Gudirr Gudirr
Marrugeku
Bullet Catch
The Arches and Rob Drummond
His Music Burns
Sydney Chamber Opera
Cadavre Exquis
Kassys
I, Malvolio
Tim Crouch
The Redux Project
Richard DeDomenici
MUSIC
Amadou & Mariam
Ambrose Akinmusire
Ambrose Akinmusire Quintet
Andrew Weatherall
Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers
Big Star's Third
Jody Stephens (Big Star), Mile Mills (R.E.M.), Ken Stringfellow (The Posies), Mitch Easter (Let's Active), Chris Stamey (the dB's) and vocalists Skylar Gudasz, Brett Harris and Kurt Vile
Bombino
C.R. Avery And The Sojourners
Chris Thile
Colin Stetson
Dom Flemons
Donny Benet & The Donny Benet Show Band
Eclipse
Amadou & Mariam
Edwyn Collins
Funki Porcini
Hot Dub Time Machine
DJ Tom Loud
Hurricane Transcriptions/Laborintus II
Lee Ranaldo, Mike Patton, Ensemble Offspring XL, The Song Company and conducted by Roland Peelman
John Murry
Kurt Vile Solo
Lee Fields & The Expressions
Matmos
Paradiso Lates
Paradiso: Future Classic
Jacques Renault, Medlar, Touch Sensitive & Wave Racer
Paradiso: John Grant with support from John Murry
Paradiso: Kurt Vile & The Violators
Paradiso: Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Man
Paradiso: Modular
Movement, Roland Tings, Wordlife & Softwar
Paradiso: Orquesta Tipica Fernandez Fierro
Paradiso: Georgia Anne Muldrow & Dudley Perkins with DJ Romes
Paradiso: Soil & Pimp Sessions
POP 2014
Boxwars, Ambrose Akinmusire, Bella Kaolo, Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers, Lee Fields & The Expressions and more
Project 28: Roman Ondak
Samaris
Sinkane
So Frenchy So Chic
Cartell Music
Summer Sounds in the Domain
Chaka Khan
Sun Ra Arkestra
The Calling: a sonic tour of the sacred and the suburb
Information and Cultural Exchange
Tom Thum - Beating the Habit
Tyondai Braxton HIVE + Canyons & Daniel Boyd 100 MILLION NIGHTS
AUSTRALIA DAY
Ferrython
FAMILY
Boxwars
Jazzamatazz
Ali McGregor
Kaput
Strut & Fret and Tom Flanagan
Squaring the Wheel
Jens Altheimer
