Sydney Festival 2011

Beach House © Sydney Festival

My absolutely favourite time of the year is nearing and I thought it’d be nice to share with you my best-loved events for everyone staying in Sydney over summer.

Just like every January, Sydney Festival will light up our city with over 80 events across venues like the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Theatre, CarriageWorks and temporary venues like Beck’s Festival Bar and The Famous Spiegeltent. We will have the opportunity to see a very diverse and attractive mix of Australian and international artists covering dance, theatre, music, visual arts and more over three weeks of the festival.

Firstly, let me tell you how stoked I am about the Baltimore-based dream-pop duo Beach House hitting our shores this summer. With its atmospheric and dreamy marvel, the band’s third and highly acclaimed album Teen Dream has received outstanding reviews and won them a ‘band to watch in 2010’ tag from big industry guns. They are here for the sold-out St Jerome’s Laneway Festival in February and will do a few side gigs at the Sydney Festival. They play Beck’s Festival Bar with Parades on Wednesday 26 January and City Recital Hall Angel Place on Thursday 27 January.

Wire is a 70s English post-punk band whose live performances are said to be “full of urgency and vitality”. The band has been around for over 30 years and has over 10 studio albums, and has influenced the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and REM. Wire will play with the Los Angeles four-piece HEALTH at the Beck’s Festival Bar on Thursday 20 January.

Catching Brooklyn-based Sufjan Stevens and Holly Miranda this time around would also be good. It’s their second visit to Sydney and both will be playing material from their new albums, The Age of Adz and The Magician’s Private Library, respectively. Set in the beautiful Sydney Opera House and backed by a large orchestra and video projections, Sufjan’s performance should be a treat for the senses. Dates to look out for are Thursday 27 and Friday 28 January. Holly Miranda will play at The Famous Spiegeltent on Saturday 15, Sunday 16 and Tuesday 18 January.

I am also very excited about seeing two of my favourite Australian acts, Paul Kelly and Gotye. Both will be on stage at the City Recital Hall Angel Place, Gotye with one show on Thursday 27 January, and Paul Kelly with a few from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 January.

Live: An intimate video study of the art of performing is precisely that … a large-scale video installation showing a collection of performances of over 20 of the world’s best singers and musicians—Jarvis Cocker, Peaches, Róisín Murphy, Sarah Blasko, Warren Ellis, Rufus Wainwright to name a few. Its purposes is to create an intimate connection between the performer and their audience, and offer a profound, larger-than-life front row experience. Live will be showing from Friday 14 to Sunday 23 January at Sydney Town Hall.

Free Sydney Festival events are always great fun. For photography lovers like myself, Exposed will be a delight. It’s an engaging and diverse collection of images showing the role photography has played in capturing different interpretations of the classic nude. Works included are by some of the greatest photographers like Max Dupan, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau. Exposed will be on from Tuesday 4 January until Friday 11 March at The Nicholson Museum, University of Sydney.

And if you’re into large-scale picnics in the park with some form of music or entertainment in the background, then head to Festival in The Domain. Especially if you are fond of Latin beats and rhythms and don’t mind a bit of a dance to the late 80s hit La Bamba! Catch the East-LA Chicano rock legends Los Lobos and the Sydney-based mariachi band The Real Mexico for a true fiesta experience on Saturday 15 January, in the Domain.

If Latino isn’t quite your cup of tea, what about a Symphony in The Domain instead? Bring your picnic rug and set up camp early to get the best spot for a night of Sydney Symphony with Bell Shakespeare and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs under the stars. Relax to tunes from Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Then watch John Bell enact scenes from Shakespeare’s Henry V, accompanied by the mesmerizing Sydney Symphony and Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. Symphony in The Domain is happening on Saturday 22 January.

Well, so much to see and do and so little … Enjoy!

Ice skating around Sydney

Winterland @ CarriageWorks

Winter can be charming after all. Take advantage of the cold weather, rug up and head to one of the winter festivals around town after nightfall or on the weekend. Ice skating is this year’s centrepiece at both Winterland festival at CarriageWorks and the Winter Festivals in Sydney and Bondi. Spread across the forecourt of St Mary’s cathedral, Sydney Winter Festival is on until Sunday 4 July, and then it moves to Bondi, where it becomes Bondi Winter Festival from 16 July to 25 July. If ice skating is just not your thing, sit back and watch the fun on ice while sipping on a hot cup of mulled wine. Or hot chocolate. Also coming to town very soon, is the Winterland festival in the inner west. It will run from 5 July to 31 July.

Shoot the Player: Sydney and music on film

A great way to start the new year is by getting out and indulging in the goodies Sydney has on offer this summer. If you need a break from the beach or find the weather rather unappealing, get out there and see lots of international and local gigs at the Sydney Festival, catch a movie at one of the outdoor cinemas, or, for something a bit out of the ordinary, head down to Carriageworks in Newtown for a very interesting project from the Sydney-based Shoot the Player.

Together with Carriageworks, they are presenting an interactive showing of unique one-take music videos featuring local and international artists doing things like hanging out in their pyjamas, performing on the street and buying pastries. The aim of the exhibition is two-fold: to experience the musicians in a new light by seeing them in places one wouldn’t expect them to be normally; and the evolution of the spontaneous and unpredictable one-take music videos as an art form and the ‘do-it-yourself’ concept of filmmaking.

The installation runs until Saturday 30 January, and is free.

Shoot the Player