Sufjan Stevens is the first confirmed acts for the forthcoming annual Vivid LIVE, the live music component of the Vivid Festival, which has been run for three years at the Sydney Opera House.
The Opera House have also announced that they’ll be ditching the artist-curated concept which has seen the likes of Brian Eno, couple Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed, and last year the head of Modular – Steve Pavlovic, who were given full access to the venue and told to run wild with their imagination.
Last year Pavlovic oversaw performances from the likes of The Cure, Bat For Lashes, Spiritualized, 2manydjs, and Architecture In Helsinki amongst others.
The decision to axe the curator comes as the Opera House continues on its quest to be seen as a venue for both contemporary music as well as high culture. Over the last year numerous contemporary music events have been held at the venue such as Odd Future, Gotye, Janet Jackson and more.
The decision to bring the festival in-house means that the responsibility for making it all happen is now in the hands of the head of contemporary music at the Opera House, Fergus Linehan.
“The sort of people we were approaching, a lot of them really wanted to do a special project, to do something they couldn’t normally do rather than program 30 different things,” Linehan explained in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald.
“And even the people who did, there was such a time commitment and a geographical challenge that it meant we ended up with a lot of people who would have loved to do something but wouldn’t do the whole thing.”
“I don’t think that Vivid Live would have got off the ground as strongly as it did without the guest curator model,” Linehan continues. “[But] most people want to come over and do something special because they are at the Opera House – that is what most artists want.”
Linehan sighted that the change was instigated so the Opera House could enter back into conversations with artists who required two or three years of preparation for the kind of arts/music show the festival is looking for.
He also admits that part of the reason for the announcement of the curatorial change a few weeks before the lineup announcement is to stem any backlash they may receive from fans of the previous model.
One of the artists on Linehan’s wishlist is Bjork and her multimedia project Biophilia, something that would have been impossible under the old model because every time a new curator came in everything was reset back to zero.
Giving us a small taste of what is to come is confirmation today that one of the shows will see songwriter and composer Sufjan Stevens, composer and arranger Nico Muhly, and composer and producer Bryce Dessner of the band the National all perform together.
Linehan has also strongly hinted that we’ll be seeing each of the three appear in other shows for Vivid LIVE. The full lineup is expected to be announced on March 15.
Vivid LIVE will run at the Sydney Opera House from May 25 to June 3.
