NSW Governor to open KV festival

NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir will officially open this year’s Arts in the Valley Festival in May.

Professor Bashir became patron-in-chief of the festival late last year and will attend the opening night performance and officially open the festival on May 3.

Arts in the Valley president John Wright said it was a coup for the region.

“This is an extraordinary honour for Arts in the Valley,” Mr Wright said.

Arts in the Valley is a biennial three-day festival, combining classical and fine contemporary music with sculpture and Aboriginal performance.  

The 2013 festival will take place from May 3-5.

Artistic director Belinda Webster, who received the prestigious Don Banks Music Award from the Australia Council for the Arts in 2011, has themed Arts in the Valley 2013 Valley Dreaming. She said many of the concerts would feature works inspired by Aboriginal themes.   

The opening night performance, Corroboree Ballet, will feature conductor Max McBride, with the Sydney Youth Orchestra and Canberra Youth Orchestra performing John Antill’s Corroboree, an orchestral ballet from 1946 and the first serious Australian orchestral work inspired by a real corroboree, as well as Stravinsky’s orchestral tour de force, The Rite of Spring.  

This performance will take place at The Scots College Glengarry Campus and will mark the first time a symphony orchestra has played in Kangaroo Valley.  

Arts in the Valley 2013 will also feature the signature outdoor and indoor sculpture exhibition, Sculpture in the Valley; and Hausmusik, a series of concerts in several private homes in Kangaroo Valley – Barrengarry House, Sassafras, Binya Hill and Alcheringa. 

A highlight of Arts in the Valley 2013 will be a corroboree performed by the dance troupe from the local Yuin Nation, Yuin Ghudjargah at Kangaroo Valley Showground on Saturday, May 4.  

This event is free and open to all.

For details about the festival or a program, visit www.artsinthevalley .net.au or phone 0438 631 351.