The slogan ''marvellous music in amazing spaces'' for this year's Canberra International Music Festival could not have been more accurate for last night's launch at the Australian Gallery of Design on the shores of the choppy, muddied waters of Lake Burley Griffin.
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Keynote speaker, Nobel prize laureate Brian Schmidt, said he had had an interest in music and astronomy all his life. ''It's about art and science meeting and ensuring aesthetics. They both have in common controlling the mind and exciting the senses,'' he said.
Director Chris Latham has put together a program that touches on Canberra's role as a meeting place, its relationships with other countries, particularly Turkey, and its profile as a planned city with celebrated architecture.
Mr Latham said the program would explore the mutuality between the cultures of East and West through music. ''We are truly fortunate that Omar Faruk Tekbilek, a foremost musical ambassador for peace, will be with us, embodying the Turkish and Ottoman traditions. He will be joined by violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, the Wallfisch Band, Osmosis and the Song Company as we mount some of the greatest works of the Western tradition,'' he said.
''Composer in residence Peteris Vasks will highlight another bountiful cornucopia of premieres plus masterworks of our time. Canberra draws together our cultural and diplomatic forces and in this, the second instalment of our Canberra trilogy, focused on Canberra's international role, we wish to demonstrate that music makers are our natural diplomats.''
Festival patron Barbara Blackman said music was imbued with hope and the festival would take the city into the future.
Canberra International Music Festival, May 11- 20. For the full program, visit cimf.org.
