11-20 April 2008
The award-winning Aurora Festival is Sydney’s only regular music festival dedicated to works written by living composers.Based largely around Western Sydney, the festival showcases a wide range of national and international composers in concerts given by Australia’s best musicians.
Brand-new music is a strong feature: there are 19 world premieres given by a wide and varied range of ensembles. The majority of compositions will not have previously been heard by Australian audiences.
Strongly featured in the 2008 Aurora Festival are cross-cultural influences: we live in a pluralistic world and it makes sense that this should be reflected in the musical arts. The works by our two featured composers, Chinary Ung and Michael Atherton, convey this focus in particular. Jazz, popular and classical worlds collide in many of the concerts.
