Setting The Festival Beat

Setting The Festival Beat

Media Release
All Media
Immediate Release

Tuesday June 21, 2005.

SETTING THE FESTIVAL BEAT

The vibrant heart of the "Applaud" Christchurch Arts Festival 2005 will again be the TV One Pavilion located in Victoria square, home to the Jazz & Cabaret season.

Entertaining with a great programme of sophisticated international jazz and Australian parody, the Jazz and Cabaret season aims to make the TV One Pavilion the major social hub of the "applaud" festival.

The TV One Pavilion will be brought to life with 32 events, including these great shows on in the primetime night slot:

First up in the main bill Belgian chanteuse Micheline van Hautem blows the dust off old Jacques Brel 45s. Winner of the much coveted Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival van Hautem's reinterpretations of such Brel classics as "Ne me quitte pas," have re-ignited Europe's passion for this seminal singer/songwriter.

Few people have lit up Sydney's music scene so brightly and in such a short time as jazz guitarist James Muller. Muller's flamboyant style and technical skill have justly earned him a huge following and recording career. With his quartet in tow his three shows will make this much-anticipated New Zealand debut series a highlight of the festival.

From an Angel winner to the Edinburgh Fringe Herald Devil award winner of 2002, Australia's Mikelangelo & The Black Sea Gentlemen are a group whose origins have been written into legend. Blending Eastern European folk music with fireside tales these handsome gentlemen take audiences on a parody-adventure to lands far beyond the Black Sea.

The adventure heads into the Arctic Circle next with Finland's Jukka Perko Trio next. Leading figures on the Scandinavian jazz scene the well-travelled Jukka Perko Trio are a stylish jazz ensemble ideal for festival goers to soak up the atmosphere of the TV One Pavilion in midst of the festival.

Do you like your jazz energized? Taking up the fifth spot on the main bill the highly charged piano and vocal stylings of Brenda Earle and her band run through tight originals and supped up standards. Described as Canada's up and coming Diana Kral, Earle's song writing borrows from such diverse greats as Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson and Elvis Costello. Providing the beat will be New York drummer Markelthwaite and completing the trio the festival's very own Rickard Pickard will once again play alongside Brenda on bass.

To cap off the journey, British Jazz award-winner Alec Dankworth leads his trio through an eclectic repertoire of originals inspired by Dave Holland, Garcia Lorca and Sting, as well as tunes by composers such as Dave Ribeck and Adbullah Ibrahim. The son of Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine, bassist Alec is an award-winning artist with a bright sound that neatly bridges the traditional with the cutting edge.

The TV One Pavilion will also be brought into service as the venue for:

Cool Heat -top New Zealand jazz musicians converge on Christchurch to showcase the best of our nation's jazz fare;

Weekends in the City - from the Bossa Nova to Latin influenced Sri Lankan tones, Weekends in the City is a celebration of world music with a Latin American flavour;

Readers & Writers - featuring Tara Moss, Crime Stories focuses on our literary fixation with crime. Hot on its heals 5 New Zealand Poets pursue with a reading of their most recent works; and,

Celtic Connections - a festival first, Celtic Connections brings Scotland's Eddie Reader and Canada's Mauvais Sort to Christchurch in a concert sure to pull at the ancestral strings of New Zealand's Celtic descendents.

TENT ON THE ROAD

The TV One Pavilion, aka Pacific Crystal Palace, has been doing the international festival circuit itself recently.

The sensational epicentre of the Tasmania's "10 Days On The Island" festival the Pacific Crystal Palace was the home of the stylish festival club. More recently, the Pacific Crystal Palace returned to New Zealand to be used as the central hub of the inaugural Festival of Colour in Wanaka.

Modelled on a traditional European carnival tent, the New Zealand Institute of Architects Nomadic Architecture award winning TV ONE Pavilion offers a beautiful 300 seat venue that is unique to the Southern Hemisphere. Complete with ornate woodwork in recycled native timbers, inlaid paua shell, basket weave bamboo plywood panels, bevelled glass mirrors and stained glass in a nikau palm design, the TV ONE Pavilion is a Festival experience in itself.

For full festival details, visit the "Applaud" Christchurch Arts Festival 2005 website, www.artsfestival.co.nz, or collect a copy of the quirky purple programme from outlets around the country or by phoning 0800 ARTS 05.

ENDS

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