WASHINGTON DC (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) – Experimental and electronic music’s European Sonar festival will premier an American counterpart this September in Chicago.
The Barcelona-based Sonar festival will come to Chicago September 9 through 11 for the first of what it and the Department of Cultural Affairs hope will become an annual destination event.
Planning is still in the preliminary phase, with acts and performance venues yet to be determined, but Cultural Affairs public programs coordinator Brian Keigher said the hope is to create a permanent public home for electronic music according to the Chicago Tribune.
"There's really no proper electronic music festival in Chicago," said Keigher, who helped coordinate the house-oriented deejay series at Chicago's SummerDance festival in the mid-2000s. "(Sonar) is kind of the brand name of electronic music festivals in Europe. I'm not sure the first year out of the box it's going to be the big destination festival, but we're hoping so. We're now really just getting this moving and getting things locked in," according to the Chicago Tribune.
"Sonar Chicago will present a multidisciplinary lineup with an experimental slant that is consistent with the distinguishing feature of the Barcelona festival, and which on this occasion will focus on emerging talent and local scenes, in both North America and Catalonia," Sonar's announcement reads.
Sonar announced its collaboration with the cultural affairs department, the Tennessee-based AC Entertainment (which co-produces the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival) and the Spanish Institut Ramon Llull in producing the Chicago festival. Sonar promoted single-day events in New York and Washington D.C. in May 2009.
As it is in Spain, the program will be split into Sonar by Day and Sonar by Night. Keigher said the Chicago Cultural Center will host the daytime programming, which will be free and include films, panels, performances and interactive exhibits. The nighttime events would be concerts at various theaters; Keigher named the Congress Theater, Metro and Millennium Park's Pritzker Pavilion as possibilities. Concert ticket prices also have yet to be determined, but Keigher said the goal is to keep them low, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Sonar festival has been running in Barcelona since 1994 and this year’s line-up includes LCD Soundsystem, Roxy Music, Air, The Chemical Brothers, and Hot Chip. –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
