Vivid Live Announces Plans For 2012

Yesterday saw the first announcement of plans for the 2012 installment of Vivid Live. Vivid Live is the ten day musical extravaganza held under the Vivid Sydney banner, the annual mid-winter festival of lights, music and ideas, which this year will run from May 25 to June 11.

Beginning in 2009, each successive installment of Vivid has seen the sails of the Opera House lit up like a psychadelic rainbow and one super-special person or two curating the festival's musical component. Past curators have included Brian Eno, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, and Stephen Pavlovic. This year, however, the idea of musical curator has been done away with, and in 2012 Vivid Live will be overseen by Festival Director, Fergus Linehan.

Linehan, who was Director of the Sydney Festival during its boom years of 2006-2009, has been Head of Contemporary Music at the Opera House for the past two years. In collaboration with the programming team at Sydney Opera House, Linehan is this year charged with "cultivating artist-driven projects including unique collaborations, one-off projects and special events."

While the full festival line-up won't be announced until March 15, the first Vivid Live announcement has revealed that this year's Vivid Live will showcase specially commissioned new works from Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Denner of The National and Nico Muhly, a composer who's worked with the likes of Bjork, Grizzly Bear and Anthony & The Johnsons.

Stay tuned for more announcements from Vivid over the coming weeks.