City of London Festival - Trading Places - Australasia

City of London Festival 2011 - 26 June to 16 July

Our final Australia related post (with a good dose of New Zealand and the Pacific thrown in) focuses on the City of London Festival. This year there is a theme looking at Australasia and music and arts from Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific will "animate the cathedrals, livery halls, gardens and squares of the City of London - with added birdsong!"

Premiéres include the orchestral version of Brett Dean's Between the Spaces in the Sky by the City of London Sinfonia, Elena Kats-Chernin's River's Lament for The King's Singers, the Royal New Zealand Ballet at the Barbican and Liminal's outdoor music installation Organ of Corti.

Music and culture from Australasia are celebrated throughout this year's Festival as part of Festival Director Ian Ritchie's annual Trading Places theme. The Festival opens on 26 June with A Fifteen Piano Salute to Grainger - Luke Jerram's Street Pianos ring out some of the Australian maestro's best-known works in a promenade performance at Peter's Hill, St Paul's and Paternoster Square.

It is an unprecedented array of music from Australia and New Zealand with over 30 living composers represented. World-renowned Australian guitarist John Williams and the English Chamber Orchestra present works by Peter Sculthorpe and Ross Edwards at Guildhall Old Library (27 June). Australia's foremost didjeridu player William Barton joins the Choir of Southwark Cathedral to give the London premiére of a new version of Peter Sculthorpe's Requiem conducted by Peter Wright at Southwark Cathedral (4 July) and appears with pianist Piers Lane at Apothecaries' Hall (1 July) and the Goldner String Quartet at Goldsmiths' Hall (6 July). The King's Singers give the world premiére of Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin's River's Lament at Mansion House (7 July). New Zealand-born organist Dame Gillian Weir and soprano Anna Leese perform with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Simone Young at St Paul's (12 July). Maori instrumentalist Richard Nunns performs with The New Zealand Quartet String Quartet at Haberdashers' Hall (13 July) and the NZTrio at Butchers' Hall (14 July).

More information can be found at the City of London Festival website