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Perth Festival

Ali Bodycoat.

Perth FestivalCommentsReliving The Embassy Ballroom glory days

Perth Festival artistic director Anna Reece had renowned jazz vocalist Ali Bodycoat hooked at the words ‘big band’ while explaining her four-year vision for the festival’s new city hub at Perth Town Hall.

Tanya MacNaughton

The Wild Between Stars WA Ballet dancers Dayana Hardy Acuna and Julio Blanes.

Perth FestivalPremiumStars align for choreographer’s Quarry season

While choreographer Loughlan Prior creates WA Ballet’s title work, The Wild Between Stars, for its annual Ballet at the Quarry season, it is not the first time he has been a guest in a WA Ballet rehearsal room.

Tanya MacNaughton

Lotterywest Films.

Perth Festival CommentsPerth’s favourite outdoor cinema revs up for summer

For many people, a quintessential summer experience in Perth involves sinking into a deckchair among the towering pines of UWA’s Somerville Auditorium to watch a carefully curated movie.

Ben O’Shea

STRUT co-directors Sofie Burgoyne and James O'Hara.

Perth FestivalPremiumSTRUT moves to a bigger beat

STRUT Dance’s free Perth Festival dance hub, Perth Moves, needed a bigger dancefloor for 2025, its relocation to Forrest Place just in time to present renowned choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Manifest.

Tanya MacNaughton

Perth Festival artistic director Anna Reece.

Perth FestivalPremiumDirecting a vision of truth telling and mischief making

The fact Perth Festival’s new artistic director Anna Reece is the first WA born artistic director in the festival’s 71-year history is a rather wild and surprising feat.

Tanya MacNaughton

Electric Fields.

Perth FestivalPremiumReece taking Perth on a festival adventure

New artistic director Anna Reece has announced the Perth Festival 2025 program, with East Perth Power Station its live music hub for the next four years.

Tanya MacNaughton

Dr Richard Walley.

FestivalPremiumLighting up our natural world

Epic and intimate, the best of both worlds will be presented at EverNow festival 2024, a program of three special free events to reconnect with country during Kambarang, the Noongar season of birth and renewal.

Tanya MacNaughton

Lior, Lou Bennett, Australian String Quartet violins Dale Barltrop and Francesca Hiew, viola Christopher Cartlidge and cello Michael Dahlenburg on stage with bass player John Keene, pianist Louisa Breen and percussionist Paul Tanner.

Perth FestivalPremiumNgapa William Cooper connects Jewish & Yorta Yorta heritage

Artists Lior Attar and Lou Bennett channel Jewish and Yorta Yorta heritage through the story of Ngapa William Cooper, scored by Nigel Westlake for Australian String Quartet at Perth Concert Hall on Sunday.

David Cusworth

Perth Festival artistic director Iain Grandage photobombs mother-and-daughter combo Mama Kin, left, and Banjo Lucia during the Festival finale, Under The Same Sun, at Supreme Court Gardens on Saturday.

Perth Festival GalaPremiumUnder The Same Sun sends off IG, with WASO & all stars

WA Symphony Orchestra and a galaxy of Perth Festival stars farewell artistic director and conductor Iain Grandage at Supreme Court Gardens.

David Cusworth

Brooklyn Rider’s Johnny Gandelsman, Michael Nicolas, Nicholas Cords and Colin Jacobsen light up the Concert Hall stage for Perth Festival on Friday.

Classical livePremiumRock-show razzamatazz for Brooklyn Rider at Perth Festival

Rock-show lighting beams over stage and audience before Brooklyn Rider string quartet take Perth Concert Hall stage, exploding in an earthy folkdance from their native America.

David Cusworth

Angelique Kidjo on stage at the Perth Concert Hall for the Perth Festival.

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Perth FestivalCommentsPremium
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Queen of African music shines bright at Concert Hall

World music superstar Angelique Kidjo celebrates Mother Nature and Talking Heads at Perth Festival tour de force

Simon Collins

Paul Kelly performing at the Perth Concert Hall for the Perth Festival on Tuesday, February 27.

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Perth FestivalCommentsPremium
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Two hours, two dozen songs: Paul Kelly nails it again

Australia’s master songwriter explores theme of time across barnstorming performance at Perth Concert Hall.

Simon Collins

Mandurah-based artist, filmmaker and musician Alex Winner is taking part in the Perth Festival Lab this year.

Festival LabCommentsMandurah-based emerging artist provided space to thrive

Mandurah-based emerging artist Alex Winner has been introduced to a world of possibility as one of ten participants selected via video application for this year’s Perth Festival Lab.

Tanya MacNaughton

Rogue reviewer David Cusworth resorts to a selfie for Invisible Opera at Scarborough Beach.

Perth FestivalPremiumAudience turn actors for Invisible Opera

Audience become actors, hunters become the prey in Sophia Brous’ Invisible Opera at Scarborough Beach Amphitheatre for Perth Festival.

David Cusworth

Eucalyptus presents an Australian Gothic opera with overtones of European folklore.

World premiereEucalyptus opera channels Australian Gothic

Eucalyptus, a gothic folktale with music by Jonathan Mills and libretto by Meredith Oakes, opens as a tone poem and closes like a film score on its world premiere at Perth Concert Hall.

David Cusworth

American band Calexico, led by Joey Burns, played to a packed Rechabite main hall for the Perth Festival.

Perth FestivalPremiumBorder-hopping Tex-Mex band rock the Rechabite

Calexico blend united nations of influences, and musicians, on 20th anniversary tour of breakthrough album, Feast of Wire

Simon Collins

Geoff Sobelle in FOOD

Perth Fest PremiumThe strangest show you will see at Perth Festival this year

Geoff Sobelle’s FOOD serves up several unexpected courses of clowning, frivolity and freaky theatre.

Belle Taylor

Dancenorth Australia's Wayfinder.

Colour therapyPremiumWork finds a way to joy and connection

Dancenorth Australia’s Wayfinder an energy-filled kaleidoscopic fusion of dance, visual art and music at Perth Festival 2024.

Tanya MacNaughton

Stunt Double by The Farm.

Hit showPremiumProduction a bruising take on 1970s Aussie film set

Perth Festival’s Stunt Double is a wild ride of multiple moving parts with a cleverly choreographed and unforgettable car ride racing towards an incredibly poignant ending.

Tanya MacNaughton

Intricate melodies and rapid beats wowed the crowd as the jazz duo delivered their unique sound.

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Perth FestivalCommentsPremium
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Progressive jazz duo stun fans with genre-bending sound

French/American jazz duo Domi & JD Beck produce a sound that’s hard to define. Mostly, because it’s music that isn’t easy to make and also, because you’ve probably never heard anything like it.

Melinda Webster

Ludovico Einaudi plays his Underwater set on tour across Australia, wrapping at Perth Concert Hall on the weekend.

Festival fullhousePremiumEinaudi inundates Concert Hall with Underwater tour

Packed houses at the Concert Hall for Perth Festival vouchsafe the hold Italian composer-pianist Ludovico Einaudi has on a global audiences.

David Cusworth

Perth Festival and Writing WA have joined forces to put on an action-packed weekend for readers and writers.

Binge-worthy weekendCommentsPremiumJam-packed weekend to inspire Perth's readers and writers

Perth Festival and Writing WA have joined forces to put on Writers Weekend, an inspiring event for passionate readers and writers.

Gabrielle Waite

Courtney Barnett

Perth FestivalPremiumLike basketball icon Michael Jordan playing baseball

Acclaimed Aussie singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett goes instrumental for the first half of festival performances at the Rechabite

Simon Collins

Kylie Bracknell, Anna Gray and Joel Jackson in The Pool.

Just keep swimmingPremiumJump in for this slice of Australian life

Part of Perth Festival 2024, Black Swan State Theatre Company’s The Pool is making waves for all the right reasons and is simply splashtastic.

Tanya MacNaughton