Festival Pavillion
Monkey: Journey to the West
Zaha Hadid
“Manchester is the beating cultural heart of Britain" Billed as the world’s first international festival of original, new work, it featured some 25 world premieres, attracted an audience of more than 200,000 people and led The Observer newspaper to declare that "Manchester is the beating cultural heart of Britain". As an artist-led, commissioning festival, it presented new works from across the spectrum of performing arts, visual arts and popular culture. Among the world premieres were ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’, an opera directed by Chen Shi Zheng, composed by Damon Albarn and designed by Jamie Hewlett and ‘Il Tempo del Postino’, a group show by 15 of the world’s leading contemporary artists such as Matthew Barney, Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon, Philippe Parreno and Olafur Eliasson. There were also new theatre productions including a site-specific work by Stewart Lee and Johnny Vegas, debates, food inventions by Heston Blumenthal and an international music series featuring Lou Reed, Kanye West, Happy Mondays, PJ Harvey, and The Gossip.
The result: a triumph for the organisers and one hell of an event to live up to in 2009, when the biennial festival returns for round two. Although the full programme for 2009 has yet to be released, the planning and preparation is well underway. The three items that have already been confirmed by the festival HQ have most definitely caught the eye of the UK’s culture vultures. Acclaimed singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright is penning his debut opera for the festival. Entitled, ‘Prima Donna’, it will tell the story of a fading Parisian diva and will be performed in French at The Palace Theatre for five performances during the festival. Following his success at last year’s festival with ‘The Pianist’, director Neil Bartlett will pay tribute to a very British institution: Bingo, in ‘Everyone Loves A Winner’. The theatrical performance will see the Royal Exchange transformed into a bingo hall for the duration of the Festival and will continue to run post Manchester International Festival. And finally, at Manchester Art Gallery, Zaha Hadid Architects have been commissioned to design a unique environment for Bach’s solo piano, violin
and cello works, some of the most sublime chamber music ever written. The performers will be Piotr Anderszewski, Jean-Guihem Queyras and Alina Ibragimova. On the strength of these first three commissions it seems that the second festival will be as impressive as the first. The festival team can take pride in the fact that their first attempt went on to receive numerous awards, including Tourism Experience of the Year at the Manchester Tourism Awards 2008. And success was not limited to the festival organisers themselves. It launched many performances onto the world scene. Indeed, ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’, which headlined the launch festival, has since taken to the stage in Paris, the US and at the Royal Opera House in London. Whilst we wait for the full programme to be unveiled, it’s safe to say the Manchester International Festival 2009 is definitely not to be missed. The Manchester International Festival 2009 takes place between Thursday 2 and Sunday 19 July 2009. The full programme will be unveiled in March 2009. For more information, visit: www.mif.co.uk
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