About
the Manchester International Festivals
The
Manchester International Festival (MIF), is a biennial
event, the world‘s first festival of original, new
work and special events, which takes place in Manchester.
It was launched on 27 June 2007, to peak in July of that
year, and focused on new music by established and new
international musicians. This ambitious international
festival is believed to have been the first of its kind
in the world, and drew on the leading role Manchester
holds as a centre of excellence in music and its long
association with innovative and new music. The
Festivals have been sponsored by both corporate companies
and public sector organisations who underwrote the huge
cost of creating a commissioning festival.
Director Alex Poots said: "The
Festival exists to bring extraordinary new work by some
of the most exciting creative talent from around the world
to premiere in Manchester."
The
next festival will be in 2013.
Contact
details:
Festival
Office
Manchester International Festival, 3rd floor, 81 King Street,
Manchester M2 4AH.
Tel: 0161-238 7300. Fax: 0161-832 7047. Email: info@mif.co.uk
Press Enquiries
Nadja Coyne, Head of Press, Tel: (Mobile) 07799 532 373.
Email: press@mif.co.uk.
Sponsorship
Enquiries
Helen Bowdur, Head of Sponsorship, Tel: 0161-238 7316. Email:
sponsorship@mif.co.uk
Website
http://www.mif.co.uk. Registered charity no: 1113902.
Manchester
International Festival 2011
30 June
- 17 July 2011
Those
performing in the 2011 event included Victoria Wood, Snoop
Dogg, Sinead O'Connor and Bjork. Featured artists and performers
included Björk, Damon Albarn, Snoop Dogg, Marina Abramovic,
Victoria Wood, WU LYF, D/R/U/G/S and Air Cav.
Björk
began the 2011 festival, with the live debut of her new
album "Biophilia".
The
festival included the previously announced play by Victoria
Wood at Manchester Opera House; the collaboration between
Marina Abramovic, Willem Dafoe, Robert Wilson and Antony
(of Antony & the Johnsons) at The Lowry; and Mark Elder
and the Hallé playing Wagner’s Die Walkure
at the Bridgewater Hall.
There
were also be exciting contributions from major international
artists in every conceivable field.
Manchester
International Festival 2009
2
– 19 July 2009
The entire
festival programme featured more than 20 commissioned new
works for the 2009 Festival. These included "Prima
Donna", Rufus Wainwright's debut opera, "Everybody
Loves a Winner" by director Neil Bartlett, and a
"unique environment within Manchester Art Gallery"
for solo piano, violin and cello JS Bach works, created by
Zaha Hadid Architects.
Other works included a one-off performance by Kraftwerk and
a Steve Reich commission being performed at the Manchester
Velodrome, as well as performance art by Marina Abramovic
at the Whitworth Art Gallery.
Other
performers included De La Soul, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson,
Antony and the Johnsons with the Manchester Camerata, Carlos
Acosta and The Durutti Column, performing a tribute to the
late Tony Wilson.
The
2009 Festival Team
Alex Poots
- Festival Director
Simon Mellor - General Director
Christine Cort - Associate Director
Kate Beard - Producer
Caroline Birnie - Volunteer Coordinator
Helen Bowdur - Head of Sponsorship
Jennifer Cleary - Head of Creative Learning
Catherine Corlett - Sponsorship Account Manager
Gemma Cowan - PA to Associate Director
Nadja Coyne - Head of Press
Marie-Claire Daly - Press Officer
Rachel Down - Office Assistant
David Fox - Office Administrator
Cathy Gallagher - Marketing Director (consultant)
Christine Gettins - Producer (consultant)
Ian Griffiths - Sponsorship Account Manager
Jonathan Higgs - Marketing Officer
Jackie Johnston - Production Administrator
Devina Kumar - Creative Learning Manager
Tracey Low - Senior Producer
Kerenza McClarnan - Producer
Jackie McNerney - Administrative Director
Lindsey Moutrey - Personal Assistant to Festival Director
& General Director
Billy Partridge - Ticketing Manager
Sandra Roemermann - Marketing Manager
Sarah Rowland - Head of Artist Liaison
Sapna Sanghvi - Marketing Officer
Emma Stenning - Head of Producing
Jack Thompson - Technical Director
Hannah Woolnough - Sponsorship Account Manager
Yasmin Younis - Finance Manager
Manchester
International Festival 2007
28 June - 15
July 2007
Festival
Directors
ALEX POOTS
London-based Alex Poots, Director of Contemporary Arts at English
National Opera, was appointed as the Festival Director - he
has a respected and well-known reputation as a leading festival
programmer, including successful work for the Barbican, the
Tate Modern and Tate Britain Galleries in London.
TOM BLOXHAM
Tom Bloxham MBE was appointed as non-executive Chair and Belinda
Kidd as Executive Director of the Festival, Tom, joint founder
and innovative property developer of Urban Splash Group said
at the outset of the event:
RUTH MACKENZIE
Ruth Mackenzie OBE began work as General Director of the Manchester
International Festival in August 2006. Previously Ruth had been
Artistic Director at the Chichester Festival Theatre for 4 years,
before working on a consultancy basis for the Arts Council,
BBC, Tate and City University. She was awarded her OBE for services
to theatre in 1995.
JENNIFER CLEARY
Manchester
International Festival and the City’s Universities announced
the appointment of Dr Jennifer Cleary as the Higher Education
Festival Manager in February 2006. Dr Cleary has extensive experience
of managing projects between Higher Education institutions,
public sector research organisations and industry.
World
premieres in the 2007 Festival included: Monkey: Journey to
the West, a new opera directed by Chen Shi Zheng with music
by Damon Albarn and design by Jamie Hewlett, Il Tempo del
Postino, a group show by 15 of the world's leading contemporary
artists including Matthew Barney, Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon
and Pierre Huyghe, new theatre productions including a site-specific
work by Stewart Lee and Johnny Vegas, debates, food by Heston
Blumenthal and an international music series that featured
Lou Reed, Kanye West, PJ Harvey, The Gossip and The Whip.
The festival incorporated over 25 specially commissioned productions,
performances and projects, created by an extraordinary shortlist
of leading artists from across the spectrum of culture, the
arts and innovation – including Damon Albarn, Carlos
Acosta, William Orbit, Heston Blumenthal, and Johnny Vegas.
Acknowledging Manchester’s pivotal role in music, the
Festival programme will have a focus on new music – premiering
work by established and emerging international musicians,
such as PJ Harvey, Kanye West, Happy Mondays, Ojos de Brujo
and The Noisettes.
Manchester
is the beating cultural heart of Britain’ The Observer
July 2007.
‘Manchester
is drawing on a rich cultural tradition, from the Hallé
to Oasis’. The Daily Telegraph Jan 2007.
‘Anything
that celebrates adventure, newness, intellectualism, radicalism
has to be in Manchester. The whole city is about that and this
– the Festival – is the kind of thing that suits it’.
Paul Morley, BBC2 Newsnight Review – special live broadcast
from the Festival.
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