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Sydney Morning Herald MARCH 3, 2010 - by Garry Maddox
LOU REED AND LAURIE ANDERSON TAKE OVER VIVID SYDNEY
Veteran singer-songwriter Lou Reed and performance artist Laurie Anderson are taking over from Brian Eno as curators of the Vivid Sydney festival.
The city's second annual festival of music, light and ideas, which runs from May 27 to June 21, is expanding from the Opera House and Circular Quay to include light displays in Macquarie Street and Hyde Park and a Song Summit at Darling Harbour.
Reed and Anderson, a married couple who have been avant-garde performers since the 1960s, were announced as curators by the Premier, Kristina Keneally, at the Opera House today.
Reed, whose career spans The Velvet Underground, the iconic Transformer album and the Berlin song cycle that featured at the Sydney Festival three years ago, and Anderson, who is best known for the 1980s hit song O Superman and the concert film Home Of The Brave , spoke on a pre-recorded video.
"I like the idea that it's bringing people to Sydney that they wouldn't normally have a chance to see or hear," said Reed.
Anderson said the festival program "will be kind of like a big crazy menu, it will have the things we like in it but it will definitely be really eclectic."
The festival, which Events NSW claims attracted more than two hundred thousand people to the Rocks and Circular Quay last year, includes "immersive" light displays along the length of Macquarie Street, a free performance event at Campbells Cove based on a 1797 voyage from Calcutta to Australia with live performance and fire, and talks and performances under the Creative Sydney banner.
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