DERRY – EUROPE CITY OF CULTURE 2013
Northern Ireland’s Walled City offers Wall to Wall Entertainment
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You’ve come a long way, baby. Northern Ireland’s second city promises to be the cultural destination for 2013. Nowhere else will be found so many diverse art forms, or performances, artists and exhibitions of such caliber, all in one place, in one unforgettable year. Derry or Londonderry depending on where your view lies may have 1,500 years of history surrounded by its 17th-Century wall fortifications and famous for its divided religious and political loyalties, named Europe’s City of Culture marks an outstanding achievements. Once-divided communities have pulled together to rejuvenate their hometown and now welcomes the world to its new stage, and a literal new bridge across the divide.
Derry/Londonderry is looking forward to many firsts in its UK City of Culture year. Highlights included the Turner Prize the premier event in the UK's contemporary art calendar is presented for the first time outside England in October. The London Symphony Orchestra will perform memorable film music by John Williams in March, including scores from Star Wars and Schindler’s List. In April The Londonderry Highland Dance Festival will bring the cream of dancers worldwide to Northern Ireland’s heart of traditional Ulster Scots dance and classic dance lovers look forward to the first visit to Northern Ireland from the Royal Ballet in two decades with the genius of award-winning choreographer Hofesh Shechter, The Texaco Children’s Art Competition will have its debut public showing in the city from May 31st through June 29th. And for the first time, the city will be host to the world’s flagship Irish music festival, the Fleadh Cheoil na Éireann. Famous city local grown artists return for the festivities, including the punk band, The Undertones, musicians, Phil Coulter, The Priests, as well as Nobel laureate poet Seamus Heaney and the Field Day theatre Company.
The opening event on January 20th gives a taste of what’s to come. A massive, Sons and Daughters concert will feature local heroes who achieved international fame is held for free.
The city’s multi-faceted history will be explored through a number of events during the year including The Maidens’ City: “A Herstory of the Walled City” dramatizing suffragettes, sieges and burnings at the stake atop Derry’s historic walls while a pop-up factory will recall the glory days Derry’s growth was fueled as shirt-maker to the world. The City of Culture year will see special editions of Derry’s many popular festivals - the Jazz Festival, Walled City Music Festival and Celtronic, the Foyle Film Festival in November, and in October, the world’s biggest Halloween carnival.
Major civic projects have transformed the city with performance spaces and city center refresh, with the brand new pedestrian bridge across the River Foyle, the Derry Peace Bridge, with its sweeping suspension architecture providing a virtual handshake across the divide from the old city to the Erbington Square, former British military fort parade ground reborn as public recreational park, where many of the events will be held. With Derry’s Cultural Capital events and Ireland’s The Gathering Events (see The Irish Gathering), 2013 is indeed the year to visit the Emerald Isle. © Bargain
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