Perth Festival Announces Its 2014 Program

The full program for the 62nd Perth Festival has been unveiled tonight, with a plethora of music and arts set to entertain the masses at the event.

On the music side of things, Ohio indie rockers The National were already confirmed a few months back, but on hand to perform will also be hip hop pioneers Public Enemy. They will make a stop-over in Perth while they're out here to headline Golden Plains Music Festival.

Souls will be soothed and moved by Booker T Jones plus funk legend Roy Ayers. He will be joined on stage by R&B/jazz fused Grammy winner Robert Glasper. Rounding out a few of the other musical highlights will be Canadian ensemble Austra, Americana masters Okkervil River, British post-punk legends Wire, traditional Irish folkers Altan and US songstress Madeleine Peyroux.

ARIA winning locals The Panics will be apart of something quite spectacular during the festival. The Perth rockers will compose and perform a live score for the world premiere of film Girt By Sea, which is hosted by Lotterywest Festival Films. In another musical collaboration of a different kind, world-renowned soprano Dawn Upshaw will join the Australian Chamber Orchestra to perform Maria Schneider's Winter Morning Walks.

For you arts lovers, True Blood's Denis O'Hare will rivet audiences with his one-man performance of An Iliad. The piece was co-adapted by Lisa Peterson and O'Hare. Peterson, who is also the director, says, “We call it An Iliad because for us it's not The Iliad, it's only one view.”

Other theatre performances to look out for include Krapp's Last Tape, which will see famous US experimental director Robert Wilson return to Perth after The Threepenny Opera to take on the Samuel Beckett's black comedy. Also, the experiemental theatre piece Not by Bread Alone. This production allows the audience gets to make bread on stage with 11 deaf-blind actors.

On the dance side of the equation, must-see picks include the tragic opera, Otello, which will be performed by the West Australian Opera and The Beijing Dance Company presents Haze. Visual arts enthusiasts should probably seek out Sacrilege - Can you believe it involves an inflatible Stonehenge?  It was created by Turner-Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller and commisisioned for the London Olympics.

And if you see one film at this year's festival, you should probably make it 12 Years a Slave, a a massive critical hit by British director Steve McQueen.

Perth Festival will take place throughout the city from Friday 7 February until Saturday 1 March. For more info on tickets and the program, head to the official event website.