MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
2 — 19 JULY 2009
Il Tempo del Postino – 4 Butterflies by Anri Sala. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
Manchester International Festival is the world’s first festival of original, new work. For its inaugural year in July 2007, this artist-led Festival presented 25 world premieres, including the performance exhibition ‘Il Tempo del Postino’, the opera ‘Monkey: Journey to the West’, and the music theatre piece ‘The Pianist’. It featured a wide range of artists creating new work and unique performances including Damon Albarn, Matthew Barney, Kanye West, Mike Figgis, PJ Harvey and Heston Blumenthal.
"A festival like you’ve never seen before."
Rupert Christiansen, The Daily Telegraph
Carlos Acosta. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes
"Manchester is the beating cultural heart of Britain."
Miranda Sawyer, The Observer
"Anything that celebrates adventure, newness, intellectualism, radicalism has to be in Manchester. The whole city is about that
and this – the Festival – is the kind of thing that suits it."
Paul Morley, BBC2 Newsnight Review – special live broadcast from
the Festival
A number of these productions are now featuring at major cultural centres around the world, before the biennial Manchester International Festival returns in July 2009 with a new range of world premieres.
The first commissions will be announced in October 2008, with the
entire Festival programme revealed early 2009. To sign up for the
Festival’s free e-newsletter and for sneak previews, go to
www.mif.co.uk
