With the Olympic and Paralympic Games fast approaching, Coventry is gearing up to take part in one of the biggest cultural events the Olympic Games have ever seen.
On 23rd June 2012, Coventry Cathedral will be filled with the sounds of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, St Michael’s Singers, a choir of local children and world renowned tenor, Ian Bostridge. The event will showcase James MacMillan’s ‘Gloria’, which has been written to commemorate the Cathedrals Golden Jubilee in 2012.
The event comes as part of Festival 2012, a country-wide event which will see the worlds of art, carnival, dance, film, music, food and many more, join together to celebrate the arrival of the Olympics at the end of the July.
David Moorcroft, Chair of the West Midlands Leadership Group for the 2012 Games, said that the event would be “enormous” and something which “everyone can get involved in”.
Aside from the Cathedral event, people from Coventry can also visit a series of Shakespeare plays being shown in Stratford-Upon-Avon, including ‘The Comedy of Errors’ and ‘Julius Caesar’. Tickets are priced at £12.50 each and can be bought now.
The plays are part of the World Shakespeare Festival, which has been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Seventy productions will be put together in total, running from April – November 2012.
Moorcroft says of the World Shakespeare Festival: “The Royal Shakespeare Company is partners with 2012 and it’s obviously great for our area and Stratford. Shakespeare will be interpreted in so many different ways and will make connections with young people and people all over the world”.
There are currently 326 events being scheduled to run throughout April all the way through to November. One of the big attractions is an Opera written by Damon Albarn. The opera, called Dr Dee, is about an influential political adviser, mathematician, magician and scientist during the reign of Elizabeth I, and is being performed at the London Coliseum between 25th June – 7th July.
Stonehenge is also being transformed into a magical place with dancing fire sculptures and cascades of candles, giving a fairy tale feel to one of the most mysterious places in the United Kingdom.
National, free events are also being run, including BBC Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend which is being held on 23rd and 24th June 2012 and will feature some of the top UK and international artists in music.
Festival 2012 begins on 21st June and will end on 9th September. Tickets for some events are available now, while others will be sold in January 2012.
Tickets for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra event will be sold from 4th January at the Cathedral Ticket Office.
