Summer at The Banff Centre features more than 150 performances and exhibitions

In 1947, when Gwyneth Lloyd and Betty Farrally, founders of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, came to The Banff Centre to start a summer program in dance, they established a legacy that would lead to decades of superb dance training in Western Canada. Since then, the Centre has helped to shape the careers of Canadian dancers and choreographers, and has become an important showcase for original work in dance. This summer, the 2007 Banff Summer Arts Festival celebrates 60 years of dance at Banff with a week of performances and presentations looking back on this creative heritage. In advance of this gala program, the Festival stages new work by some of Canada’s most dynamic young choreographers in contemporary dance.

The Banff Centre’s annual celebration of fine and performing arts, the Banff Summer Arts Festival runs from May through August, showcasing more than 150 events in music, opera, theatre, dance, visual and literary arts, new media, and film, much of it original work created at the Centre.

“The Banff Summer Arts Festival is The Banff Centre’s annual feast of performing arts, fine arts, literary arts, mountain culture, and leadership exploration,” says John Murrell, executive artistic director for performing arts. “This is our opportunity to share in abundance, to dazzle the world with the diversity and depth, entertainment and experiment, beauty and meaning, which we are lucky enough to be able to claim as our mandate.”

In May, audiences can catch a performance of Olivier Messaien’s elegiac work Quartet for the End of Time, remade for the 21st century by New York’s king of klezmer, David Krakauer, and Montreal-based Yiddish hip hop star Socalled. They’re joined onstage by notable practitioners of cutting-edge classical music, including cellist Matt Haimovitz and Geoff Nuttall of the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The Messaien work is part of the Festival’s always-anticipated jazz program, which this year showcases the ten-piece Netherlands-based Instant Composers Pool, and composer and bandleader Maria Schneider.

Special guests in June and July include acclaimed concert pianist Menahem Pressler, founder of the Beaux Arts Trio and one of the most distinguished musicians in classical music today. He returns to The Banff Centre for a set of master classes and a performance as part of the Music for a Summer Evening series. In early July, Grammy Award-winning composer Osvaldo Golijov will be in Banff for a week of intense work on new music, culminating in an informal public talk and a star-studded performance featuring his eclectic and highly accessible compositions.

In June, novelist Joseph Boyden reads from Three Day Road, his remarkable novel about Cree snipers during World War One, as part of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. And in July, the Centre welcomes a selection of Canadian and international literary nonfiction writers for the popular reading series Literary Journalism Conversations.

The stage is set in August for the Banff premiere of the new opera Frobisher, with music by John Estacio and libretto by John Murrell. Developed over three years at The Banff Centre, this Calgary Opera and Banff Centre co-production tells a powerful story of love, loss, and adventure in Canada’s arctic, moving back and forth in time and setting between Elizabethan England and contemporary Canada.

This year, the Festival concludes with the 2007 Banff International String Quartet Competition, an exhilarating triennial event that attracts the best of the world’s young string musicians. The program features six days, ten quartets, a distinguished jury, an enthusiastic audience, and three concerts a day culminating in a highly competitive finals performance.

Other highlights for the 2007 Festival include new work by contemporary choreographers Wen Wei Wang, Santee Smith, and Crystal Pite; the Walter Phillips Gallery opening of the original exhibition Informal Architectures, an investigation into the intersection of art, architecture, and contemporary culture; chanteuse Patricia O’Callaghan’s return to the Festival with her new cabaret production, The Gypsy Wife, featuring original music by John Gzowski; Canada’s folk music legend Bruce Cockburn in concert in the Centre’s spectacular outdoor amphitheatre; and Calgary’s Old Trout Puppet Workshop with their award-winning Famous Puppet Death Scenes.

As part of the 2006 Banff Summer Arts Festival, the Banff Centre continues its successful Arts Lover program for audiences. Arts Lover Passes are $85 each, and allow the passholder free entry into most Arts Festival events. Purchase passes or individual event tickets by calling the Box Office at 1-800-413-8368 or (403) 762-6301, box_office@banffcentre.ca.

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High-resolution, downloadable photos of 2007 Banff Summer Arts Festival events.

Complete schedule of 2007 Banff Summer Arts Festival events.