One of the 20th century's most groundbreaking ensembles present two distinct concerts at Hamer Hall, performing the work of some of the foremost composers of the last hundred years.

On Opening Night we celebrate artists, audiences and Melbourne itself. Rain or shine, it all kicks off at 6pm and gracing the stage at Federation Square are various bands, musicians and singers whose cultural backgrounds and musical influences make for a remarkable global tour and celebration: ska, reggae, jazz, Latin-fusion, brass, percussion, choral, hip hop, traditional and contemporary music by musicians whose contribution to Australia's music scene is ever-expanding and not to be missed.

One of the world's most prestigious dance companies returns to Melbourne Festival with a bold new work that explores three very basic and yet profound themes: beauty, nature and existence.

Classic, modern and contemporary dance forms come together with awe-inspiring synergy as the radical physicality of Three is taken even further in this, the newest work from Batsheva Dance Company.

Dripping with sensuality, The Navigator is a highly charged, emotional work about desire and the journey towards connection and transformation. Director Barrie Kosky brings this provocative opera to life for the stage. Through a complex play of light and costume a world of echoes is created, one that is in juxtaposition with the searing music gloriously performed by The ELISION Ensemble.

One of the 20th century's most groundbreaking ensembles present two distinct concerts at Hamer Hall, performing the work of some of the foremost composers of the last hundred years.

Kitten's rollercoaster journey from the depths of despair to soaring hope makes for theatre at its most powerful. Love, grief, transformation and yearning manifest without as well as within. Bewitching and unsettling, Kitten is a three-act tale that is at once psychiatric fable, lyrical puzzle and metaphysical love song performed by an outstanding cast.

On the back of an enormously successful international tour with small metal objects one of Australia's most exciting companies returns to Melbourne Festival with the world premiere of an anticipated new work. Part concert, part theatre show, Food Court features the idiosyncratic vision of Back to Back Theatre and the music of The Necks, who improvise a driving score for each performance.

Melbourne Festival offers a second chance to catch one of the standout acts of 2007: experience the rawness, the rock, the heart, the soul, the sheer energy and humour of Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely.

DJ Spooky's newest large-scale multimedia performance work is an acoustic portrait of a rapidly changing continent. The Antarctic Suite transforms Spooky's first person encounter with the harsh, dynamic landscape into multimedia portraits with music composed from the different geographies that make up the land mass. Field recordings from a portable studio set up to capture the acoustic qualities of ice forms, reflect a changing environment under duress.

Fresh from their rocking shows at Becks Bar @ Meat Market, the magnificent Toshi Reagon and BIGLovely Trio come to Bendigo, Dandenong and Frankston.

As part of her long awaited return to Melbourne, Patti Smith performs two concerts at Hamer Hall and showcase her new album Twelve and the best from her extensive back catalogue. Experience her spellbinding presence, the raw, grinding energy of her music and behold a living rock legend and band performing live.

Dream of Life is a cinematic plunge into the creative spirit of Patti Smith, a breathing collage of her philosophy and artistry. Shot over a remarkable 11-year period by renowned fashion photographer Steven Sebring, Dream of Life is unprecedented in its lyricism and its intimate access to an icon.

A fascinating exhibition of photographs and objects inspired by Steven Sebring's time with Patti Smith during the filming of their extraordinary documentary Dream of Life.

Two friends come together for a rare and intimate evening of piano and poetry inspired by their passion for the work of seminal beat poet, the late Allen Ginsberg. A friend and mentor to both Patti Smith and Philip Glass, Ginsberg is one of the most influential poets of the twentieth century whose raw, raging verse epitomised the Beat movement in the 1950s. Smith and Glass shepherded Ginsberg through his last rites, and, as this event testifies, he remains a strong presence in their lives.

Both funny and melancholy, Desert Island Dances explores notions of absence and presence in a piece inspired by the popular BBC Radio program, Desert Island Discs. Wendy Houstoun asks 'Can we imagine or create a 'perfect' place?' If we can, what would it look like? What would we throw away? What would we keep?

Some of Melbourne's best-known (and bravest) actors take up an extraordinary challenge!

ENGLAND is about a different kind of empire - one of transmigrations and transplantations. It's the story of one thing placed inside another: a heart inside another person's body, a culture inside another country's culture, theatre inside a gallery, a character inside an actor, a play inside its audience.

An exceptional concert work composed for ensemble, singers, spoken word and imagery featuring new music by celebrated American composer Philip Glass and inspired by Leonard Cohen's recently published book of the same name, Book of Longing is culmination of years of mutual admiration between two of the most celebrated musical artists of their generation.

Displaying true mastery and exploring the depth and rigor of traditional Hindustani classical music, Kartik Seshadri and Arup Chattopadhyay create a remarkable performance of expressive beauty, rich tonal sensibility and extraordinary rhythmic intricacy.

21:100:100 features 100 works by 100 sound artists produced in the 21st century. This exhibition is the first significant survey in Melbourne to explore and chronicle the extraordinary developments that have occurred in contemporary sound art.

Sound artist Alex Stahl joins forces with Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, the dynamic duo behind last year's Musicircus, to create an engagement with the soundworld of the common myna. Beyond the steel and stone across the river, listeners are invited to explore other bridges: mapping connections between free speech and free music, human and avian migrations, performer and audience, natural and constructed environments.

To coincide with the Australian premiere of his colossal multimedia work Terra Nova Sinfonia Antarctica, DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid takes to the Beck's Bar for a night of infectious beats and intelligent music as he mixes avant-garde jazz, compositional music and electronica with recordings from vast audio archives.

Two of Australia's foremost musical forces come together for an historic event that celebrates songs of tradition that are rooted in hope and resistance from the open heart of Australia's contemporary Indigenous music. Hidden Republic reveals the undiminished spirit in the music of Aboriginal Australia and songs which celebrate identity and understanding for all Australians.

A remarkable exhibition from this major New Zealand artist that explores ideas about photography and the way it is viewed.

Crooked Rib has been collaborating artistically since late 2007. From street art to painting, stencilling to digital technologies, Crooked Rib works with artist Amanda King to express what it means to be young, Muslim and living in Melbourne through this remarkable exhibition of their new works.

Internationally celebrated choreographer Deborah Hay trained with Merce Cunningham in the 60s and was a member of a group of the Judson Dance Theater that became one of the most radical and explosive 20th century art movements. If I Sing To You is a dance that is also a song, music, poetry and voice. It is held together through innumerable absurdly human moments choreographed and directed to engage the attention of its cast.

Utilising only a piano, a drum-machine, a pair of sunglasses and a hoodie, Kenny Mellman (he of Kiki & Herb fame) explores the connection between a gay Jewish piano-player and a black woman with a bad attitude who ruled the disco floors and the airwaves for many a year. Using Grace Jones' own interviews as text, Mellman presents a requiem for the loss of creativity in the nightlife world and a battle cry for resurrection.

This 1926 German Expressionist silent film classic was FW Murnau's last German film before emigrating to America and is considered by many to be his masterpiece. Phillip Johnston's original score for Faust was commissioned by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and premiered at the New York Film Festival.

An intimate concert of songs that lament, uplift, inspire and may even bring you to tears.

Playing original instruments, specialising in mostly Baroque music, the talent of the members, their expertise as soloists and ensemble musicians and the high level of performances have earned Interpreti Veneziani an indisputable reputation in Venice.

Melbourne shows completely SOLD OUT - tickets still available for one show only in Sale, Gippsland as part of Festival Around Victoria.

Playing original instruments, specialising in mostly Baroque music, the talent of the members, their expertise as soloists and ensemble musicians and the high level of performances have earned Interpreti Veneziani an indisputable reputation in Venice.

Melbourne shows completely SOLD OUT - tickets still available for one show only in Sale, Gippsland as part of Festival Around Victoria.

Playing original instruments, specialising in mostly Baroque music, the talent of the members, their expertise as soloists and ensemble musicians and the high level of performances have earned Interpreti Veneziani an indisputable reputation in Venice.

Melbourne shows completely SOLD OUT - tickets still available for one show only in Sale, Gippsland as part of Festival Around Victoria.

An evening featuring phenomenal sound artists from Melbourne and beyond. This live performance at BMW Edge is a companion piece to the exhibition of sound works at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces. Curated by internationally acclaimed Australian artists Oren Ambarchi and Marco Fusinato, this concert takes the concept of 21:100:100 beyond the gallery walls, beyond the headphones and enables audiences to listen to the works in a live concert spectacle.

A wonderfully touching and idiosyncratic work that is part theatrical monologue, part PowerPoint presentation, part psychiatrist's couch and part variety show. Revolving around a Baby Boomer's stark epiphany, 7 Important Things is a deeply personal and offbeat autobiographical work from STO Union, the acclaimed Canadian company that presented its Recent Experiences as part of the 2002 Melbourne International Arts Festival.

The mastermind behind KEATING! The Musical shines a dazzling light into the dark nooks and draughty cracks of the Spiegeltent's past.

Over five nights Aaron Choulai invites a different guest soloist, whether Festival artist or acclaimed local musician, to perform a wealth of exciting new material with him. The tantalising aural curves of modern jazz in the intoxicating atmosphere of The Famous Spiegeltent make for a perfect end to a Festival evening.

Vocalist and improviser, Julie O'Hara has been active in jazz for almost twenty years, performing with Big Bands, gypsy swing, traditional jazz, R&B swing, bebop and vocalese. A prolific songwriter and performer, O'Hara draws from Latin, lounge, jazz and contemporary pop presenting a program of original compositions with a few twists.

Andrew Sterman and Mick Rossi are two of New York's most versatile musicians. Featured artists in the Philip Glass production Book of Longing, also a 2008 Festival presentation, the duo perform for one night only at The Famous Spiegeltent in an intimate concert of original compositions and improvisations, with perhaps a jazz standard in the mix.

Combining original live music from acclaimed female vocalist New Buffalo; incisive text from award-winning playwright Ross Mueller; and featuring a fusion of dance, theatre and visual design - Appetite promises to be a literal feast.

From Jane Birkin to Cat Power, David Byrne to Antony of Antony and the Johnsons, Italian photographer Rita Antonioli has captured a swath of iconic figures and alt heroes. This exhibition presents a selection of these and more from Antonioli's vast catalogue.

Black Jesus Experience is a ten piece Afro-Jazz-hip hop ensemble led by composer and multi instrumentalist Peter Harper. The band members include three singer song writers from Ethiopia, Nambia and Burundi, master musician and keyboard player Danny Atlaw from Ethiopia and a powerful rhythm and horn section from Australia.

The timeless essence of 1930s Paris comes alive as manouche outfit Blue Drag is joined by vocal sensation Chantal Mitvalsky for two irresistible Festival concerts.

Chamber Music Australia (CMA) returns to Melbourne Festival with two concerts celebrating contemporary music. Combining forces with the acclaimed Schönberg Ensemble from Amsterdam, CMA has gathered a selection of Melbourne's brightest musicians to present a remarkable and unique collaboration. 

Get a no-nonsense, fresh take on the Festival with this unique awards ceremony where the only opinions that matter are those of the kids!

Rather than commemorating a particular hero or an important historical event, these animated monuments turn instead to the people who live in, work in and come to explore Melbourne: the people that bring the city to life.

Saturday 25th October is the final night of the Festival - the Festival that was, the artists who made it and the conclusion of four incredible programs under the Artistic Directorship of Kristy Edmunds. Closing Night is the ultimate in Festival revelry, and this year will be no exception. Come to the Artist Lounge and join artists and staff in raising a glass to Kristy and the 2008 Festival.

Easily the tightest local Latin outfit, with members from Chilean, Spanish, Indian, Mauritian, Persian, Irish, Greek and Australian backgrounds, San Lazaro bring tough, hip hop, rock and reggae infused edge to the traditional Latin sound. This 10-piece Latin Mestizo band features a horn and percussion heavy salsa funk diaspora that has been blowing audiences away in Melbourne and across Australia concert after concert.

One of Australia's most innovative dance companies moves through the confines of physical and psychological space in a highly anticipated, intelligent new work.

A magnetic and subtly electrifying solo performance from one of New York's most versatile artists. Wrapped in a weary, country twang with a raspy undertone, Cynthia Hopkins' delicate yet emotionally forceful voice has been compared to a wide range of vocalists including Billie Holiday, Natalie Merchant and Lotte Lenya; her lyrics evoking dark humor and sparkling intelligence in equal measure.

The 1919 Mexican silent film El Automovil Gris was the biggest hit of its day. This 21st century Mexican theatre production juxtaposes the classic film with live actors and brilliantly improvised piano music. This critically acclaimed work is complex and highly original, certainly, but it is also tremendous fun. A disarmingly charming production.

With that voice that swoops and hollers, sometimes sweet, sometimes stark, Harry James Angus debuts a selection of newly composed pieces for voice and guitar.

Displaying true mastery and exploring the depth of traditional Hindustani classical music, Kartik Seshadri and Arup Chattopadhyay come to Frankston Arts Centre with a remarkable performance of expressive beauty, rich tonal sensibility and extraordinary rhythmic intricacy.

From Venice to Sale comes a group of master musicians - Interpreti Veneziani who performs repertoire celebrating the work and influence of composers within the classical canon. Their dedication to this music is palpable, and the vitality of their concepts, unforgettable.

The genre-spanning Gloria Deluxe is a musical group fronted by composer, lyricist and performer Cynthia Hopkins. As timeless as it is immediately engaging, the unique sound of Gloria Deluxe creeps from dark country noir via wasted whiskey-toned folk to torch songs from a forgotten cabaret.

Helen Herbertson and Ben Cobham team up with long time collaborator Trevor Patrick and Nick Sommerville in this corporeal evocation of the mind's eye. Stripped back to movement, light and design essentials, Sunstruck exists in a landscape of isolation, absence and the dislocating slippage of memory, reality and the imagination.

In the raw energy and intimacy of Husky's performance, in the sometimes sweet, sometimes brutal nature of the songs, you will find yourself drawn into this world of strange characters and unfamiliar places, love and loss, joy and solitude.

Much-loved local artist and singer-songwriter Ileana Posas brings to the Festival a concert of original songs all backed by a handpicked group of some of the most impassioned Latin and jazz musicians in Melbourne, bonding together for the love of music.

By turns joyful, drunken and melancholic, experience the rousing music of Goran Bregovic and band in the intimate, laid back atmosphere of the Beck's Bar

In the third year of a groundbreaking residency with Musica Viva, the Jerusalem Quartet performs a powerful program featuring Richard Mills' new String Quartet no 3 (2008), Bedrich Smetana's autobiographical work From My Life and Maurice Ravel's rhapsodic String Quartet in F major, op 34, redolent with striking tonal effects and youthful energy - hallmarks of the Jerusalem Quartet.

One of the finest young singer-songwriters to come out of Melbourne in recent years, Jordie Lane makes his Festival debut in The Famous Spiegeltent.

Virtuoso ney player Kudsi Erguner brings his ensemble of vocalists, percussionists and traditional instrumentalists to BMW Edge to perform two distinct concerts each presenting a very different side to the music of Sufism.

Virtuoso ney player Kudsi Erguner brings his ensemble of vocalists, percussionists and traditional instrumentalists to BMW Edge to perform two distinct concerts each presenting a very different side to the music of Sufism.

Known for large-scale and outdoor live shows, this concert brings Lowrider inside and focuses on the simplicity and layering of the soulful sound that is at the core of their music. The captivating combination of solos, extended jams and bluesy vocals is erudite and solid.

Lynette Wallworth returns to Melbourne Festival with the Australian debut of her new work. An intimate interactive installation that responds to touch, Evolution of Fearlessness is a sequel to Wallworth's Unheard Voices: Invisible by Night. Together the two works deal with loss and its aftermath, survival and, beyond that, hope and strength.

For the first time in living memory, over twenty ukulele-wielding individuals will bravely tread the illustrious boards of The Famous Spiegeltent in a show which encompasses the grand archetypes of the human experience.

Internationally acclaimed and immaculately dressed, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen take to the Festival's Beck's Bar with their wonderfully theatrical show.

UK performance makers Lone Twin team up with Melbourne-based junkyard theatre trio The Suitcase Royale for a series of public performances throughout the city. Lone Twin gather an eclectic sense of local events; part news, part hearsay, part factual narrative, part fictional construct then The Suitcase Royale impart the bulletins, suggesting the familiar cries of Melbourne's newsboys.

Some exceptional Australian musicians come together for a concert event that celebrates the work of composer Nigel Westlake. The repertoire features compositions from Westlake's significant musical partnership with Slava Grigoryan including Shadow Dances, the work premiered during the Olympic Arts Festival in 2000 andconcludes with the much-loved concert suite Westlake has created from his music for the IMAX film Antarctica, including the whimsical Penguin Ballet.

In his contemporary reworking of Romeo and Juliet, Lithuanian director Oskaras Koršunovas' sets the infamous conflict between the Capulets and Montagues in rival pizzerias. Koršunovas' deftly handles both the humour and dark tragedy of this famous work, moving artfully from the crude and hilarious to the delicate and sombre. Equally skilful, the performances move seamlessly from the rambunctiousness of a stage that teems with characters to the heartfelt exchanges of the ill-fated lovers. Koršunovas' Romeo and Juliet bursts with movement and colour.

Originally developed in 2006, Exercises in Happiness is a big-hearted performance installation involving audiences in activities designed around the possibility of happiness.

Matthew Sleeth's use of serial photographic images seeks to bring order to the chaos around us. Pattern Recognition features a photographic series drawn from contemporary life, including abandoned umbrellas, fire extinguishers, security cameras and Ground Zero. In the process of making these images, Sleeth draws attention to the history of photography's relationship to collecting, cataloguing and obsession.

A selection of Smith's beautiful, evocative photographic work drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007 is enhanced by an installation work created especially for Melbourne Festival.

Mixing musical styles from past and present, Pikelet's Festival debut combines traditional acoustic instruments with digital effects, synthesisers and live looping. Pikelet approaches harmony and melody refreshingly and idiosyncratically. While maintaining elements of traditional folk melodies and pop harmonies, Morris incorporates electronic technology and is able to produce a potent and beautiful sound entirely engineered by herself.

Ross McLennan is one of Australia's quietly acclaimed singer-songwriters. For his Festival debut, this home recording pop pundit and former Snout frontman presents songs from his acclaimed and accomplished release Sympathy for the New World as well as his impressive back catalogue.

Melbourne theatre company The Eleventh Hour premiered Endgame in 2006. A testament to both Beckett's enduring popularity and the company's reputation for stylish and imaginative adaptations of canonical plays, the season sold out immediately and the production went on to win four Green Room awards including Best Production, Direction, Design and Actor.

Top End star Shellie Morris makes her Famous Spiegeltent debut with her earthy, soul drenched voice and a disarming onstage warmth. Trained in classical opera with an extraordinary five-octave range, Shellie moved to Darwin in 1997 to trace her Aboriginal family heritage and began a career as a singer-songwriter recording earthy and honest acoustic songs with contemporary instrumentation.

Join Lisa Miller, Matt Walker and Triple J Unearthed winner Abbie Cardwell for this wonderful opportunity to learn more about the art of song writing. From acoustic-pop to blues to soul-folk-roots the genres will be covered well and truly by three indisputable world class songwriters.

With his roots in the Balkans and his head in the 21st century, Goran Bregovic brings his 37-piece Wedding and Funeral Choir and Orchestra to the State Theatre for a big-hearted spectacular. Comprising a gypsy brass band, classical string section, an accordionist, male choir, female vocalists, the raw sounds of rock-accented guitar and folk-style percussion, the sheer vibrancy on stage is intoxicating and the urge to dance, irresistible.

Approached by Belgian Theatre Company Victoria to create a work performed entirely by children for an adult audience, acclaimed director Tim Etchells has developed a confronting work that explores the ways in which adults determine the worlds of their children.

Bring the kids to this giant-sized game of life and plunge into a brilliantly fun, oversized adventure. Who will win? The Big Game is a gigantic, fun, interactive performance and play space for families. Kids participate as tokens in a huge board game, rolling enormous dice, stepping on game tiles and meeting larger-than-life characters that take them from start to finish.

Camille O'Sullivan returns to Melbourne Festival to close the Beck's Bar in huge style with a moody new show of the dark, darker and darkest songs of Nick Cave, Jacques Brel, Tom Waits, David Bowie and more.

Jump aboard The GO Show bus for a fun and inspiring whirlwind tour of the West! Under the artistic direction of choreographer and director Rebecca Hilton, The GO Show teams high calibre artists and hundreds of participants in a whole host of workshops. The results of these collaborations are performed and presented alongside some of Footscray's most intriguing landmarks.

The Meaning of Moorabbin is Open For Inspection is staged as an open inspection. Using photography, film, video and design, this is an extraordinary theatre and installation work that plays with Australian notions of family and suburbia.

Featuring members of Headbelly Buzzard, The Mick Cameron Memorial String Band perform a tribute to the late Mick Cameron, guitar player, singer and co-founder of Australia's premier 'old time string band' over two unforgettable Festival nights.

Songs for swooning, songs for dancing! Minor keys with major rhythm! If Edith Piaf had been luckier in love, she would have been in a band like this!

Described by The New Yorker as "friendly, unpretentious, idealistic and highly skilled," this Grammy Award-winning ensemble brings its exciting new program to Melbourne.

Melbourne International Arts Festival presents Eve Sussman's acclaimed video-musical, The Rape of the Sabine Women. Filmed with a cast of hundreds, and shot on location in Athens and Hydra, Greece, and in Berlin, Germany, this improvised dramatisation pits mid-twentieth century ideals against the eternal themes of power, longing, and desire.

Melbourne electric violinist Xani Kolac is joined by drummer/percussionist Tom Gannon to perform the music of The Twoks. The show features original compositions for violin and drum kit as well as spontaneous improvisations and songs for violin and voice.

Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey have collaborated in creating music for fifteen years. In This Map is not to Scale, they amplify, extend and over-emphasise some of the musical ephemera they have created for dance, theatre and film. By adjusting the focus of the eyepiece and ear trumpet they create extended pieces from tiny moments, making works which feature the 'in-betweens, underneaths and rarely-mentioned' of their practice.

The company behind the groundbreaking 2007 Festival work Glow returns with a bold new dance-theatre work that gives a rare glimpse into the performers' world and takes the audience backstage. Melbourne's leading contemporary dance company Chunky Move has earned an enviable reputation for producing a distinct yet unpredictable brand of genre-defying dance performances and Two Faced Bastard promises to be another truly extraordinary experience.

Behind the scenes, the artists of the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival are actually not all out shopping. From school performances to community workshops, master classes to patron suppers, this is your chance to see a rare side to some extraordinary artists. The In Conversation series is also back in 2008, hosted by Festival Artistic Director, Kristy Edmunds. As those of you who've witnessed them before can attest, some of the most enlightening and inspiring discussions happen everyday of the Festival in The Famous Spiegeltent between 1 and 2pm.

Described by The Age as a "star in the making", singer-songwriter Megan Washington is best known as a collaborator (Paul Grabowsky) and bandmate (Ben Lee, Old Man River). For these Festival shows, the chanteuse debuts as a solo artist in her own right.

Raise a glass for a wry toast to the art of drinking! A foaming pint of movement and text reveal the state of bitter England, all from the mouth of a barmaid on a bender. As the night wears on and the drink takes hold, bar stool philosophy turns to bar floor desperation. Both disturbing and funny, Happy Hour is a piece about drinking and what happens in a bar.