AARHUS, Denmark (VIP NEWS) — Aarhus City Festival has hired 50-year-old Rikke Øxner as the new director. She joins in October for this year`s festival week replacing Jens Folmer Jepsen, who has headed the Aarhus City Festival for nine seasons.
Rikke Øxner is a very experienced and recognized culture actor after 20 years in the Roskilde Festival, where she in the past several years has been part of the leadership and artistic director.
She still lives in Copenhagen, but moving shortly to Aarhus.
– I must have my base here and have the city under the skin and I can only do that if I live here, she says.
– Both Roskilde Festival and the Aarhus City Festival is about doing events in a defined area. At Roskilde Festival, we had a great field where we had to create something, and here we have an urban space that we need to put in play, she says.
She will not transform the festival week and shake all the traditions:
– I have no ambition to turn the city festival into a music festival, but I have many, many ideas, she says.
She will not concretize his vision before the upcoming festival week is held and she starts the new job.
Rikke Øxner has been hired on a four-year contract. Her first task will be to help to hire a new head of administration for the festival week.
Aarhus Festival was first held in September 1965. Last year the festival week 500,000 visitors.
