Sydney Festival Music Program

Sydney Festival's music component has traditionally been astonishing and 2010 is more than living up to the standard. For starters, Festival First Night on Sat 9 Jan includes the first ever Sydney performance of the legendary Al Green– the soul superstar himself – and the theatre-meets-traditional-Indian-music ensemble that is the 43-piece Manganiyar Seduction.

The iconoclastic John Cale (yes, as in the Velvet Underground's co-founder and purveyor of some of the finest and most confronting music of the past five decades) will be giving the keynote speech at the Seymour Centre's 'Circa 1979: Signal to Noise' celebrations, as well as performing at the Enmore Theatre on Sat 16 Jan. The Enmore will also play host to a perfect Australia Day concert on Tue 26 Jan with The Dirty Three and The Laughing Clowns (the former of whom are pictured right and the latter of whom reunited for last year's Sydney Festival) performing their classic albums Ocean Songs and History Of Rock'n'Roll Vol 1, respectively, in their entirity as part of the Don't Look Back series.

The main venues for musical performances over the Festival are City Recital Hall, Beck's Festival Bar and The Famous Spiegeltent, and they're all offering a jaw-dropping line up of entertainment. Among the performers on offer are such names as Neko Case (pictured at the top of the page), Grizzly Bear, The Handsome Family, The Books, Severed Heads, Diotima String Quartet, Vieux Farka Toure, Patrick Watson, The Reels, Sharon Shannon Band, Laura Marling (pictured left), Camera Obscura, The Mess Hall, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the Seckou Keita Quintet and many, many more.

And if that wasn't enough, the Opera House forecourt will play host to Rogue's Gallery on Thu 28 Jan: a night of sea chanteys and maritime worksongs, brought to you by an all-star cast including Tim Robbins, Marianne Faithful, Sarah Blasko, David Johansen (of the legendary New York Dolls) and many, many more.

And while you're reeling from that onslaught, remember that more artists are set to be added in late November, so do check back.

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