festivals
theartsdesk in Estonia: Freedom and Music Thrive in the Shadow of Putin’s RussiaSunday, 06 April 2014
“Art, real art, is a denial of the status quo. A tradition that values the role of the individual.” Speaking in Estonia’s capital for the opening of Tallinn Music Week, the Baltic country’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is referring to what’s just... Read more... |
Listed: Celebrating Dylan ThomasSunday, 30 March 2014
It won’t have escaped the attention of anyone with an ear for poetry that Dylan Thomas turns 100 this year. He was born in a suburban house on a hill overlooking Swansea Bay a few months after the outbreak of war, and by his early 20s had been... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Sydney: Upside Down UnderSunday, 26 January 2014
Sydney has a nervous tic. People think Australians are brash and bolshy but that's not true. There's a deep sense of ingrained anxiety here. That anxiety comes from being at the edge of the world, a long way from Europe and in an unfamiliar and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Rennes: 35th Trans Musicales FestivalTuesday, 17 December 2013
White noise saturates the air. At mind-melting volume, it shifts through the aural spectrum to settle on the bass end. A voice begins yelling angry-sounding gobbets. The words are unintelligible. The stage is in darkness. Gradually, it becomes... Read more... |
Lumiere Festival 2013, DurhamSaturday, 16 November 2013
The trumpeting of a lone elephant can be heard all around Durham city centre, blasting across the River Wear. The organisers of Artichoke’s Lumiere Festival, now in its third biennial year, have been turning up the volume as the evening’s progressed... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Reykjavík: Iceland Airwaves 2013Sunday, 10 November 2013
Kraftwerk closing a festival is a big deal. It’s an even bigger honour when the seminal German outfit reconfigure their set to acknowledge where they’re playing. Last Sunday, Kraftwerk performed the rarely heard “Airwaves”, from 1975’s Radioactivity... Read more... |
Sadler’s Wells, Ambitious New PlansTuesday, 05 November 2013Alastair Spalding, Sadler’s Wells’ Chief Executive and Artistic Director, today announced that the theatre is looking for a fourth London venue, which it hopes will open in just four years’ time.Not content with two proscenium spaces (the main stage... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Dublin: Noh waySunday, 13 October 2013
“Come out to play” is the tagline for this year’s Dublin Theatre Festival, and a great deal of the work presented in the programme manifested suitably playful exuberance. Running over 18 days, and featuring 27 productions, the 56th Festival... Read more... |
Brighton Comedy Festival opening galaSunday, 06 October 2013
Charity gigs, by their very nature, are usually jolly affairs, and Brighton Comedy Festival’s opening gala at the Dome was no exception. It had a stellar line-up, but also the advantage of being hosted by Alan Carr (the patron of The Sussex Beacon,... Read more... |
Flatshare with Bowie: what happened nextSaturday, 28 September 2013
Forty four years ago David Bowie was living in the spare room of the suburban flat I shared with my two young children. He was broke and I was only occasionally employed – so we started a Sunday night folk club in the Three Tuns pub in Beckenham... Read more... |
Brighton Comedy Festival, 4-20 OctoberTuesday, 17 September 2013
Tickets are now on sale for the Brighton Comedy Festival (4-20 October), which takes place in several venues in the South Coast town.As ever, the opening-night gala at the Brighton Dome is in aid of Sussex Beacon, and this year the event is hosted... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Bodø: a World of Music inside the Arctic CircleSunday, 11 August 2013
“Rock ‘n’ roll was invented in Bodø about 1922,” declares Elvis Costello before kicking into “A Slow Drag With Josephine”. “Then it crept down to Trondheim,” he continues. “Then the squares in Oslo got it about 1952.” Up here, 25km inside the Arctic... Read more... |
