Ben Apfelbaum

SYDNEY FESTIVAL 2017 LAUNCH

The 2017 Festival features 150 events, almost half of which are free. The Festival’s program was recently unveiled by Wesley Enoch, the Festival’s new and first indigenous Artistic Director at the State Theatre on 26 October 2016.

Big ticket items include UK theatre company Cheek by Jowl’s production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, staged in Russian with the Pushkin Theatre Company, and, The Beach, an installation with one million recyclable balls at the Cutaway at the Barangaroo Reserve.

The Festival will also feature performances by Nick Cave and P.J. Harvey.

Wesley Enoch’s first Festival includes an extensive program of indigenous arts. A feature event will be Bayala -LETS SPEAK SYDNEY LANGUAGE which features classes led by Darug woman Jacinta Tobin and Gadigal man Joel Davidson.

The Festival First Night at the Domain will not be held but an increased number of free events will be held in the Festival Village in Hyde Park North.

Both Symphony Under The Stars and Opera Under The Stars will be held twice, once in the Domain and the second performance at Parramatta Park.

This Western Suburbs inclusion features Circus City, a program of shows, workshops and free events in Parramatta.

In Campbelltown there will be an exhibition of Deathrow paintings by convicted heroin smuggler Myuran Sukumaran who was executed in Indonesia in 2015.

The Sydney Festival runs from January 7 to 29, 2017.

All images by Ben Apfelbaum (c). 

http://Sydneyfestival.org.au

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.