The mainstay of Sydney’s high summer season, Sydney Festival, sails back this January with a first class line-up of world premieres, extraordinary immersive experiences, cutting-edge public art, and an epic live music offering.
Once again, Sydneysiders and visitors are invited to rediscover their city differently – from parks to beaches, harbour inlets to retro fun parlours – proving there’s nowhere else but Sydney to experience an exhilarating summer of art.
From 5th to 28th January get ready for 24 days of music, performance, theatre, art, fashion, circus and dance right across Greater Sydney. Featuring 26 World Premieres, 29 Australian exclusives, 15 co-commissioned works and 43 free events amidst an expansive program of local and international highlights, several hailing from the UK and Ireland, Sydney Festival will host more than 1,000 artists and over 150 events.
SUMMERGROUND
The sounds of summer in the city will beam out from Tumbalong Park with the festival’s three day live music event, Summerground.
Leading Sunday’s line up is West London acid jazz pioneers, The Brand New Heavies, who’ll perform alongside Sydney Symphony Orchestra in an epic career-spanning showcase.
ART
Art strangles architecture on a grand scale in Hi-Vis, the sinuous sculpture taking over Walsh Bay wharf. British sculptor Michael Shaw – whose works have wound their way around international arts festivals, galleries and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – uses the building like a mould to inform and form the geometry of his vibrant 46-metre-long installation. Designed specifically in response to the architectural features of the venue, HiVis’ neon colours cast a luminous glow on the wood of the wharf, and after the sun sets, UV lights make the sculpture glow in the dark.
THEATRE
Award-winning Scotland-based circus artist Sadiq Ali delivers a heady mix of love and nightlife, expertly performed on Chinese poles and set to a banging soundtrack. Based on Ali’s personal experience and candid interviews with members of the LGBTQI+ community who identify as (ex) Muslim, The Chosen Haram deals with themes of sexuality, faith, addiction and the intricacies of Islam. Stacked with physical humour, pain and joy, it’s a love story like no other.
Ireland’s Brokentalkers and New York’s Adrienne Truscott unpack the cult of male genius in a slapstick comedy that stings. Masterclass proves all too familiar in its wickedly funny takedown of the macho artist.
From internationally acclaimed writer and one of the UK’s most prominent trans voices, Travis Alabanza (Burgerz), Overflow returns to Sydney after a rave-reviewed 2022 Australian premiere season at Darlinghurst Theatre Company, directed by Dino Dimitriadis.
MUSIC
Appearing at the City Recital Hall is one of the most striking folk singers performing today, Ireland’s Lisa O’Neill. Renowned for her transporting live shows, O’Neill’s inimitable voice is raw, evocative and laden with emotion. A powerful storyteller with a strong sense of self, O’Neill’s is a talent that demands to be heard.
LIVE MUSIC AT THE ACO
At The Neilson, in the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO)’s base, week two opens with an Irish songman with a poet’s soul. David Keenan’s prolific catalogue charts folk, rock, blues and his own keen-eyed poetry.
CABARET
Down by the harbour, Sydney Theatre Company’s wharf theatres will together be transformed into an ol’ fashioned speakeasy as the home of the festival’s sizzling cabaret season.
UK singer-performer Sarah-Louise Young and Russel Lucas’ award-winning chaotic cult cabaret rejoices in the raw and fearlessly pioneering artistry of one of the most influential voices in pop culture: Kate Bush. Far more than an act of mimicry, An Evening Without Kate Bush is a spellbinding, shape-shifting, communal spectacle for new and diehard fans alike.
Cabaret powerhouse and Helpmann Award-winner Michael Griffiths takes audiences on a very personal, funny and sometimes melancholic deep dive into the songs of pop superstars the Pet Shop Boys.
Directed by Dean Bryant, It’s a Sin: Songs of Love and Shame sees Michael Griffiths bring his inimitable cabaret style to Pet Shop Boys’ classic songs, including Rent, Love Comes Quickly, Suburbia, You Only Tell Me You Love Me When You’re Drunk and Go West.
VISUAL ARTS
The Museum of Contemporary Art presents a solo exhibition by British visual art Tacita Dean in what will be the largest collection of the artist’s work in the Southern Hemisphere. One of the most important living artists of our times, Dean is best known for her works made with analogue film. Her use of the analogue medium in the digital age speaks to the precarious conditions of the contemporary era. At a time of constant change, her works are distinguished by meticulous attention to detail that encourages slow and careful observation of the surrounding world.
WESTERN SYDNEY
Year on year, Sydney Festival has been committed to bringing some of the festival’s best and brightest performers, artists and talents to audiences in Parramatta. Along with the sure-fire hit BANANALAND at Riverside Theatres, 2024 continues this connection with another packed program of events for festival-goers in the west.
And the starlit summer concert that audiences love is back at Parramatta Park with a soaring new program to lift this evening picnic into the stratosphere. This year, it will showcase the transportive sitar playing of Anoushka Shankar.
The British-American sitarist will also perform at Sydney Opera House.
A virtuoso musician and composer, Shankar and her hotshot quintet will fill the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall with a sublime and dynamic neoclassical approach to Indian music.
A world music superstar with nine Grammy nominations to her name, Shankar studied sitar under the instruction of her father – the maestro Ravi Shankar – and has captivated audiences since the age of 13.
Melding music styles has always been her modus operandi, from incorporating electronic music on Rise and Breathing Underwater to the flamenco meets raga 2011 album, Traveller.
Shankar’s first Australian tour in 2008 sold out. Shankar leads the way in a five-piece of London instrumentalists, all startlingly talented solo artists in their own right, to perform hypnotic and achingly beautiful contemporary music that draws deeply from Indian classical roots and the lived experience of a global diaspora.
Tickets for all shows on sale now. Visit sydneyfestival.org.au for more details.
*This story was first published in the January 2024 edition of Anglo&Celtic magazine
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