Melbourne Festival (formerly Melbourne International Arts Festival) is a celebration of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, multimedia, outdoor and free events held for 17 days each October in a number of venues across Melbourne, Australia.
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Melbourne Festival is an important event on the Australian cultural calendar. Each Festival brings a range of dance, theatre, music, visual arts, multimedia and outdoor events from renowned and upcoming Australian and International companies and artists to Melbourne. It also offers a wide variety of free family-friendly events.
It was first established in 1986 by the Cain Government as a sister festival of the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto and the Spoleto Festival USA held in Charleston, South Carolina. [1]. The Festival changed its name from the Spoleto Festival Melbourne to the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in 1990, and then became known as Melbourne International Arts Festival from 2003. It is now simply referred to as Melbourne Festival.
It has had a number of high profile Artistic Directors including Clifford Hocking, Leo Schofield, Robyn Archer [1] and Richard Wherrett. [2]. Kristy Edmunds was the previous Artistic Director, curating from 2005-2008.
The Artistic Director for the 2009 - 2012 Festivals is Brett Sheehy. Brett is one of Australia’s most accomplished and acclaimed artistic directors, and is the first person ever to be appointed to direct three of the five international arts festivals of Australia’s State capital cities. Previously, Brett has been Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (2006–2008), and Festival Director & Chief Executive of Sydney Festival (2002–2005).
Melbourne Festival is one of the most significant festivals in Australia together with the Sydney Festival and the Adelaide Festival of Arts. As such, it hosts performances by established artistic companies as well as more independent acts. The 2006 Melbourne Festival hosted a production of Ngapartji Ngapartji with much of the dialogue in the Pitjantjatjara aboriginal language. Melbourne Festival also premiered the universally critically acclaimed productions from The Black Arm Band, murundak in 2006, Hidden Republic in 2008 and dirtsong in 2009.
| Year | Artistic Director |
|---|---|
| 1986-88 | Gian Carlo Menotti |
| 1989-91 | John Truscott |
| 1992-93 | Richard Wherrett AM |
| 1994-96 | Leo Schofield AM |
| 1997 | Clifford Hocking |
| 1998-99 | Sue Nattrass |
| 2000-01 | Jonathan Mills |
| 2002-04 | Robyn Archer AO |
| 2005-08 | Kristy Edmunds |
| 2009-12 | Brett Sheehy |