Sydney Festival begins - Music News Australia

Sydney Festival is the New South Wales capital's most popular and prestigious annual cultural event. Over the years, the festival has welcomed thousands of performers, celebrities and professional experts who have performed to more than 250,000 people each year at venues across the city.

The 2012 edition of Sydney Festival looks toward the horizon with a truly global summertime celebration of our shared humanity, of Australian innovation and of two dynamic communities with the potential to shape our city's future cultural identity: Sydney's second CBD, Parramatta, and Redfern - Australia's 'black capital'.

This year's festival will celebrate Sydney's unique history and potential with Black Capital, a series of performances, seminars and exhibitions reflecting the city's diverse contemporary Indigenous culture in Carriageworks in the heart of Redfern. The festival will also visit Riverside Theatres and the Idolize Spiegeltent in Prince Alfred Park in Parramatta.

The 2012 Sydney Festival will welcome an array of prestigious guests, including the creator and host of This American Life, Ira Glass; Faith No More frontman and eclectic musician Mike Patton; songstress and icon PJ Harvey; singer-songwriter Beth Orton; legendary theatre director Declan Donnellan; choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the National Theatre of Scotland.

Overall, this year's festival offers 11 world premieres, 15 Australian exclusives and 14 Australian premieres, presenting more than 1,500 artists from around the globe.

Opening night at the Domain Stage will feature the quietly enigmatic Gurrumul Yunupingu, followed by the gorgeously idiosyncratic Washington and rounded off with the international music globetrotter, Manu Chao, in his first Australian performance.

Who's coming:
Ira Glass, PJ Harvey, Mike Patton, Beth Orton, Declan Donnellan and more