tue 02/09/2025

festivals

theartsdesk Q&A: Jo Bartlett of the Green Man Festival

The Green Man himself at the 2009 festival

The Green Man festival takes place this coming weekend at the Glanusk estate near Abergavenny in the rolling hills of the Brecon Beacons. What begun in 2003 as a glorified gig for the husband and wife duo It's Jo And Danny has become the very...

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Edinburgh Fringe: Daniel Kitson/ Leisa Rea/ Misconception

Daniel Kitson only occasionally performs at comedy venues at the Fringe these days - perhaps a late-night spot here and there, though not a full set - but it has become almost a tradition that he writes a new piece for the Traverse each year. On the...

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Ken Livingstone pitches for London SXSW

Former and, he hopes, future London Mayor Ken Livingstone (looking groovy in a fashion shoot, left) has announced if elected he hopes to create a similar Festival to South By South West, the successful music Expo in Austin, Texas that has launched...

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theartsdesk in Bregenz: The Genius of Mieczyslaw Weinberg

Ever since I can remember, the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg has played a walk-on part in histories of Soviet music. If you find him in an index at all (probably under Vainberg or Vajnberg, and usually with the first name given him by a box-ticking...

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theartsdesk in Verbier: Musicians Peak in the Alps

You want to see Yuri Bashmet, arguably the greatest living viola player, but you can't because you've chosen to go to a recital by Yevgeny Kissin, one of the world's top pianists, on the same evening in another hall. Even the option of dashing from...

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WOMAD 2010, Charlton Park

“We all come from the same DNA, as Desmond Tutu is always reminding us, and we shouldn’t be surprised that these musical collaborations take place - and work so well.” That was Peter Gabriel's comment on the music at WOMAD last weekend, a festival...

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WOMAD 2, Charlton Park

The dogs bark, the caravan moves on

Its acronymic moniker stands for World Of Music, Arts and Dance, but the line-up at this year’s WOMAD is, as usual, very much skewed towards the first of those artforms – hailing from anywhere and everywhere between Australia and Azerbaijan. The “...

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theartsdesk in York: York Early Music Festival

Early music of all shapes and sizes: Fretwork performs at the York Early Music Festival

York is a bit like Oxford, I’ve always thought: that perplexing contrast between the central squares and marketplaces, in all their twee glory – all aimless, besatchelled French students and anoraked tourists queuing for tea at Betty’s – and the...

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Latitude Festival, Suffolk

Latitude: Blue skies and a cornucopia of culture

So little time, so much stuff to see: that, in essence, is the story of Latitude. Now in its fifth year, this Suffolk festival offers a bewildering cultural cornucopia: music, theatre, dance, cabaret, comedy, circus, literature, poetry, as well as...

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Verbier Festival: an Alpine symphony

It becomes increasingly hard for a music festival to stick out from the crowd these days. But high culture, high summer and high altitude create a rousing major chord each July in Verbier, which can genuinely claim to be the only festival you reach...

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theartsdesk in Buxton: The Buxton Festival

As I alight from the train at Macclesfield and scramble into the back of the taxi which will take me on the 20-minute journey across the Pennines to Buxton and its eponymous festival, the driver announces with grim satisfaction, “I am now going to...

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BBC Proms 2010: theartsdesk recommends...

It's that time again. The BBC Proms - in classical music terms, the greatest show on Earth - begin tonight with Mahler's massive Eighth Symphony. From Bryn Terfel in Wagner on the second night of the Proms to Sir John Eliot Gardiner and...

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