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