I think it would be great fun to be a festival director in Australia, bringing together so many ideas and international performers. I have put together my own festival program and eagerly await offers from any regional towns with a spare $22 million, which would be keen to invest in this amazing opportunity. 

My festival opens with Organic featuring replicas of six grand organs from around the world in an open field, which will be used to play a specially commissioned work by Elena Kats-Chernin. At the conclusion, fireworks will erupt from the 64-foot pipes. Equally incendiary, a visit by the Flamme Quintet from Mexico, the world’s only fire-breathing wind quintet. Their performance of Stravinsky’s Firebird will set the town on fire, almost literally. 

Photo © Aranxa Esteve/Unsplash

In a more intimate mode we have Cirque du Müllerin, an acrobatic retelling of Schubert’s song cycle. In the original, the miller’s girl is unseen, but in this version, she will be very much on display. Ukrainian aerial artist Ekaterina Movova will astound as she gyrates on silks suspended from the ceiling of a disused paint factory (if we can find one). Below her, Icelandic...