Having first performed at the Opera House with his neon-explosion The Age of Adz, the 39-year-old artist has become a familiar face to Vivid LIVE – debuting the solar song cycle Planetarium in 2012 with long-term collaborators Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly.

Now set to open proceedings with an Australian exclusive four-night stand before returning to overseas obligations, Sufjan Stevens will draw from one of the most successful modern songbooks to encompass Christmas classics, regional history, freeways, the rodeo… and the profound intimacies of everyday life.

One small thing. Sufjan likes to keep it in the family. His first band Marzuki was named after his brother, a nationally recognised marathon runner. His step-father and namesake of his new album – Lowell Brams – runs Sufjan’s record label Asthmatic Kitty. He’s also released his own album entitled Music for Insomnia. Sufjan contributes.

Sufjan Stevens
22 – 25 May 2015
Sydney Opera House, Concert Hall
www.music.sufjan.com

The Hoodoo Gurus will perform an exclusive one-off show at the Powerhouse Museum and a new line up of cutting edge, innovative performances will be held across the city at new venues Goodgod Small Club, Oxford Art Factory and Freda’s, with the Seymour Centre, The Basement, The Argyle and Barrio Cellar part of the line-up again in 2015.

Part of the Vivid Music program, Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House features a 10-night run of exclusive Sydney-only performances and for the first time will also include two large scale outdoor events, internal light projections and an event for kids and families. Features include four exclusive performances from Morrissey, Daniel Johns in his international solo debut, Sufjan Stevens in his only Australian performances and FCX – 10 Years of Future Classics featuring Flume and Flight Facilities.

With a line-up of heavy-hitting speakers, Vivid Ideas introduces The Game Changers, a new talk series this year headlined by three global influencers: multi Emmy-winning writer Matthew Weiner, series creator and executive producer of Mad Men and former executive producer and writer on The Sopranos; Grammy-winning designer Stefan Sagmeister, whose clients include the Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and the Guggenheim Museum; and entrepreneur and publisher Tyler Brûlé, founder of the world-famous magazines Wallpaper and Monocle.

Vivid Sydney – Light, Music and Ideas Festival
22 May – 8 June 2015
Various Venues around Sydney
www.vividsydney.com

Gone now are most of the comforting folk music embellishments and in their place are foundations of electronically and synthetically created backing tracks. Opening track Futile Devices eases the listener into this new world with remnants of past sounds but from then on it’s a brave new world.

Lacking the sanctuary of warm acoustic backdrops, Sufjan weaves vocals into these eclectic mixes to surround the listener with a human element so not all is zeros and ones. Using this approach actually open the music up. The number of ideas at play (even from someone with as much creativity as Sufjan) is impressive. Weather it’s the mutant Some Where Over The Rainbow choir of Now That I’m Older, the scary monster parade of the title track or even the blips and bleeps of Bad Communication, there are a serious number of ideas at play here.

With new works by much loved artists that represent less than immediate accessibility becoming long term favourites, The Age Of Adz could well become the new standard for Sufjan. It’s been played around these parts insistently for a while now and the results just keep getting better.
Rob Hudson
www.sufjan.com