Belfast Festival at Queen's - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's is an annual arts festival

Festival

A festival or gala is an event, usually and ordinarily staged by a local community, which centers on and celebrates some unique aspect of that community and the Festival....

held in Belfast

Belfast

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

, Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

. The 49th Festival will take place from 14 to 31 October 2011.

History

Held annually, usually in November, the festival is primarily run by Queen's University Belfast. It was founded by student Michael Emmerson in 1962. Stella Hall, head of Culture and Arts at the university, was a former festival director, succeeded by Michael Poynor in 2005. The current (2008) Festival Director is Graeme Farrow.

From small beginnings the festival grew through the 1960s and 1970s, expanding to a two week long event. Performers during this time included Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...

, Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

, Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Atkinson

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...

and Billy Connolly

Billy Connolly

William "Billy" Connolly, Jr., CBE is a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname The Big Yin...

.

The festival is held at several venues across the city, including the Mandela Hall, the Naughton Gallery

Naughton Gallery at Queen's

The Naughton Gallery at Queen's is an art gallery and museum at Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Opened in 2001, the gallery is named after its benefactors Martin and Carmel Naughton, who donated £500,000 to the university in 2002. Along with the Queen's Film Theatre and the annual...

, the Queen's Film Theatre

Queen's Film Theatre

The Queen's Film Theatre or QFT is a small independent cinema at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland that was founded in 1968. The QFT focuses mainly on art house, indie and world cinema and plays an important role in the cultural life of Belfast, in particular through contributions to...

, the Brian Friel Theatre

Brian Friel Theatre

The Brian Friel Theatre is a studio theatre located at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was opened in February 2009 and is named after the Irish dramatist, theatre director and author, Brian Friel....

and the Whitla Hall at Queen's, as well as the Grand Opera House

Grand Opera House (Belfast)

The Grand Opera House is a theatre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, designed by the most prolific theatre architect of the period, Frank Matcham. It opened on 23 December 1895....

, the Waterfront Hall

Waterfront Hall

The Waterfront Hall is a multi-purpose facility, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, designed by local architects' firm Robinson McIlwaine. Practice partner Peter McGukin was the project architect....

and the Cultúrlann centre.

2005 festival

In recent years the festival has expanded further and now claims to be the largest arts festival in Ireland, showcasing local talent as well as international artists. The 2005 festival took place between 21 October and 6 November, and covered theatre, politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, dance, classical music, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

, visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

, folk music

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

and popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

. Guests included Harry Hill

Harry Hill

Harry Hill , is a Perrier Award–winning English comedian, author and television presenter. A former medical doctor , Hill began his career in comedy with the popular radio show Harry Hill's Fruit Corner.-Personal life:Hill was born in Woking,...

, Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris

Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris is a British author.Biography=Born to a French mother and an English father in her grandparents' sweet shop, her family life was filled with food and folklore. Her great-grandmother had an odd reputation and enjoyed letting the gullible think she was a witch and healer...

, George Galloway

George Galloway

George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...

, Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk is an English writer and journalist from Maidstone, Kent. As Middle East correspondent of The Independent, he has primarily been based in Beirut for more than 30 years. He has published a number of books and has reported on the United States's war in Afghanistan and the same country's...

, Louis Theroux

Louis Theroux

Louis Sebastian Theroux is an English broadcaster best known for his Gonzo style journalism on the television series Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends and When Louis Met.... His career started off in journalism and bears influences of notable writers in his family such as his father, Paul Theroux and...

, Grandmaster Flash

Grandmaster Flash

Joseph Saddler better known as King Grandmaster Flash, is an American hip hop musician and DJ; one of the pioneers of hip-hop DJing, cutting, and mixing....

, Rich Hall

Rich Hall

Richard "Rich" Hall is an American comedian, writer and musician.-Early life and career:Hall was born in Alexandria, Virginia and grew up in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. He is part Cherokee Indian...

, and theatre productions of Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

and A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 dystopian novella by Anthony Burgess. The novel contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian....

. BBC Northern Ireland

BBC Northern Ireland

BBC Northern Ireland is the main public service broadcaster in Northern Ireland.The organisation is one of the three national regions of the BBC, together with BBC Scotland and BBC Wales. Based at Broadcasting House, Belfast, it provides television, radio, online and interactive television content...

provided comprehensive radio and television coverage of the Festival, principally through Festival Nights on BBC2, presented by William Crawley

William Crawley

-Television presenter:He recently presented Blueprint, a three-part television natural history series, which ran from 31 March 2008, as the centre-piece of the most ambitious multi-platform broadcasting project in the history of BBC Northern Ireland. The Blueprint season united TV, radio and online...

2006 festival

The 2006 festival programme was launched on 7 September 2006 at Queen's Film Theatre. The 44th festival ran from October 19 to November 4. Performances included José Cura

José Cura

José Cura is a prominent operatic tenor known for his intense and original interpretations of his characters, notably Verdi’s Otello and Saint-Saëns’ Samson, as well as for his unconventional and innovative concert performances. He is also able to perform high baritone roles with the extended...

, a celebrated musical theatre company from South Africa and the world music 'kings' of "rumba flamenca". Speaking at the Waterfront Hall

Waterfront Hall

The Waterfront Hall is a multi-purpose facility, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, designed by local architects' firm Robinson McIlwaine. Practice partner Peter McGukin was the project architect....

launch, 2006 festival director Graeme Farrow said:

Belfast Festival at Queen's aims to refresh the parts that other events throughout the year can't reach and we are confident that the 2006 festival programme - further details of which will be released in the coming months - will set a high benchmark for years to come.

2007 festival

The 2007 festival ran from 19 October to 3 November 2007. Acts included The Blind Boys of Alabama

The Blind Boys of Alabama

The Blind Boys of Alabama are a gospel group from Alabama that first formed at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind at Talladega, Alabama in 1939. The three main vocalists of the group and their drummer/percussionist are all blind....

, John Prine

John Prine

John Prine is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a recording artist and live performer since the early 1970s.-Biography:...

, Bill Bailey

Bill Bailey

Bill Bailey is an English comedian, musician and actor. As well as his extensive stand-up work, Bailey is well known for his appearances on Black Books, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, and QI.Bailey was listed by The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy in...

, Sean Hughes

Sean Hughes (comedian)

Sean Hughes is a British-Irish stand-up comedian, writer and actor.-Career:Hughes was born in London, but spent most of his youth in Firhouse, Dublin...

, Ute Lemper

Ute Lemper

Ute Lemper is a German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill.- Biography :Born in Münster, Germany, Ute Lemper was raised in a Roman Catholic family. She joined the punk music group known as the Panama Drive Band at the age of 16...

, Andreas Scholl

Andreas Scholl

Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...

and a performance of Brian Irvine's The Tailor's Daughter.

Funding crisis

In January 2007, sufficient funding was not in place to ensure that the 2007 festival would go ahead, and the university launched a 'Save Belfast Festival' campaign, encouraging people to petition Maria Eagle

Maria Eagle

Maria Eagle is a British solicitor and Labour Party politician. She is the Member of Parliament for Garston and Halewood, having been the MP for Liverpool Garston from 1997 to 2010....

MP, then minister responsible for cultural activities in Northern Ireland. The campaign received support from the Belfast Telegraph and celebrities including Patrick Kielty

Patrick Kielty

Patrick Kielty is an Irish comedian and television personality from Dundrum, Northern Ireland.-Background:He was affected by The Troubles in Northern Ireland. On 25 January 1988 his father, businessman Jack Kielty, was shot dead by the Ulster Defence Association /"Ulster Freedom Fighters" , a...

. On 16 February 2007 the Minister announced a £150,000 one-off payment to the Belfast Festival at Queen's, although the campaign to raise more funds continued throughout the year. The university subsequently announced that the 2007 festival would go ahead, albeit on a reduced scale, but that work is still required to secure its long-term future. On 18 December 2007, Arts Minister, Edwin Poots

Edwin Poots

Alderman Edwin Poots MLA is a Northern Irish politician and a Democratic Unionist Party Member of the Legislative Assembly for Lagan Valley. He is one of three DUP MLAs for Lagan Valley.-Biography:...

, announced a grant of £300,000 over three years for the Belfast Festival at Queen's.

Sponsorship

On 8 February 2008, Ulster Bank

Ulster Bank

Ulster Bank is a large commercial bank, one of the Big Four in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Ulster Bank Group is subdivided into two separate legal entities, Ulster Bank Limited and Ulster Bank Ireland Limited...

Group Chief Executive, Cormac McCarthy, announced a three-year sponsorship deal worth over £1m for the Belfast Festival at Queen's. It was hailed as a "new dawn" for the festival which had been suffering underfunding.

External links

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