Grab your diaries: Perth Festival has just launched its spectacular 2024 program

One of Perth’s most anticipated events, Perth Festival, has today announced another awe-inspiring program for 2024, centred around Ngaank (Mother Sun).

Commencing on February 9, 2024 and running through until March 3 (plus the Lotterywest Films season from November-March), this year’s program is a celebration of our shared humanity and Ngaangk’s effect on Earth.

A bright, warm selection of performance, fine and contemporary music, film, literature and ideas and visual arts awaits as the festival closes out Iain Grandage’s five-year cycle as Artistic Director that began with fire, travelled down river, into the ocean and up to the heavens.

If you’re keen to dive right in – grab your diaries and check the program at perthfestival.com.au, or read on below for some highlights…

It all begins with one of Perth Festival’s many commissions, Wundig wer Wilura, a Noongar opera from festival faves Gina Williams and Guy Ghouse, before wrapping up with a huge free concert at Supreme Court Gardens – Under The Same Sun. Taking place on Sunday 3 March, it will see leading Aboriginal musicians and international greats come together to sing songs of nature, nurture and shared futures.

The month between is an array of stunning international and local offerings to tantalise all of the senses, including a stunning re-imagining of Rudyard Kipling’s much-loved classic in Jungle Book reimagined; FOOD – a dinner party performance on the stage of His Majesty’s Theatre; a Black Swan State Theatre Company world-first production, The Pool; and The Invisible Opera, set aside the ocean at Scarborough Beach Amphitheatre, which sees a hidden vocalist bring everyday interactions to life.

The musical magic continues across an expansive contemporary and fine music program, including iconic Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi; American string quartet Brooklyn Rider; a live movie experience from the Australian Chamber Orchestra (narrated by Willem Dafoe!) called River; and global superstars like Angélique Kidjo and Paul Kelly at Perth Concert Hall, and Sampa the Great and Sampha taking over a purpose-built stage in the Supreme Court Gardens.

And after a fantastic contemporary music program last year, The Rechabite takeover returns with a host of electrifying talent from here and abroad, including Courtney Barnett, Kings of Convenience, Greentea Peng and Flewnt’s Boorloo Block Party.

In the visual arts realm comes one thing we cannot wait to see – two major site-specific commissions bring the vacant stores and spaces of Carillon City to life. Rebecca Baumann’s Light Event is a “direct collaboration with the sun” in the central lightwell of the building, while Linda Tegg, working with Noongar elder Vivienne Hansen, reimagines an empty basement as an expansive wetland, creating conversations around humans’ relationship with the natural environment.

All of this is to barely scratch the Perth Festival 2024 surface, the program is also filled with a diverse series of offerings in Literature & Ideas including the returning Writers Weekend and a massive Lotterywest Films lineup, along with some of its most anticipated shows heading to regional venues around the State.

We’ve tried our best… But to really do it justice, head to perthfestival.com.au, immerse yourself in the program and start booking those tickets -we’ll see you there in 2024!

Header Image: Sampha by Jesse Crankston

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