• Events to take place throughout Hay Festival Abu Dhabi from 25 – 28 February at Manarat Al Saadiyat
  • People under 25 years old or in full-time education programmes attend the festival for free
  • Hay Festival Abu Dhabi in partnership with Careem are offering 20% discount (up to AED 20) on all rides to and from Manarat Al Saadiyat for the duration of the Festival
  • Tickets available at www.hayfestival.org/abu-dhabi  

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: Hay Festival – the UK’s leading platform for creative minds – opens its inaugural edition in Abu Dhabi from 25-28 February 2020, featuring a series of music and dance performances with top talents across the Festival’s four-day takeover of Manarat Al Saadiyat.

The programme will see leading UK contemporary 2Faced Dance Company perform a work titled Power; the Algerian singer and châabi-folk icon, Souad Massi, performing her comeback album Oumniya ('My wish'); Lebanese indie band Mashrou’ Leila, one of the most celebrated pop bands from the Middle East, in concert; performance by duo Catrin Finch, a Welsh harpist, and Seckou Keita, a Senegalese kora player and renowned Lebanese composer, oudist and singer Marcel Khalifé with his son Bachar Mar-Khalifé in a musical tribute to the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, mixing Arab music traditions with jazz and electro. The Festival will close with a Silent Party, in collaboration with Rooftop Rhythms and participation from locally based DJs including DJ Dyme, DJ Aly, DJ Hiddy, DJ A.L.L.A.D, DJ Ranger and DJ S Spin.

Hay Festival Abu Dhabi’s music and dance performances programme:

Tuesday 25th February

Power by 2Faced Dance Company at Festival opening

Time: 1.30pm

Venue: Tolerance Majlis, Manarat Al Saadiyat

Price: Free for all

Hay Festival Abu Dhabi will open on Tuesday 25th February, 1:30 pm with a performance of Power by leading UK contemporary dance company 2Faced Dance Company. Celebrating the spirit of imagination, tolerance, dialogue and adventure that inspires the Festival, the performance is free to attend for all. 

Souad Massi - Oumniya ('My wish')

Time: 7:30pm

Venue: Etihad Garden Stage, Manarat Al Saadiyat

Price: AED 100; free for under 25 years old or in full time education

Algerian châabi-folk icon Souad Massi will perform her comeback album Oumniya ('My wish'). Massi will be singing and playing her Algerian mandole, and will be accompanied by Mokrane Adlani on an Arab-Andalusian violin, Rabah Kalfa playing the darbouka and Adriano Tenorio banging Latin drums. This album, her sixth, is inspired by her native Algeria, politics, love, freedom and emancipation. She weaves genres together, blending popular Algerian songs (châabi), the poetry of Aït Menguelet, champion of the Kabyle resistance, and touches of reggae and fado. Oumniya, which addresses the pain of betrayal, is the first of thirteen new songs, most of them sung in Arabic and written by Massi herself. 

Mashrou’ Leila

Time: 10pm

Venue: Atrium, Manarat Al Saadiyat

Price: AED 50; free for under 25 years old or in full time education

Lebanese indie band Mashrou’ Leila will perfomr at 10pm on Wednesday 25 February. Formed during a late-night jam session at the American University of Beirut in 2008, Mashrou’ Leila have become one of the most celebrated pop bands from the Middle East. Renowned for their electro-pop anthems, they return to the UAE with their distinct approach to storytelling and orchestration, drawn from their collective experiences of modern Arab youth identity. 

Wednesday 26th February

Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita Live at the Manarat

Time: 10pm

Venue: Etihad Garden Stage

Price: AED 100; free for under 25 years old or in full time education

Welsh harpist Catrin Finch, Official Harpist to the Prince of Wales from 2000 to 2004, and Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita come together for a duo performance mixing musical genres that transcend borders Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita have been hailed as the “most popular world music act of the decade” by Songlines Magazine's Tim Cumming. Together they create a musical marriage of culture that is breath-taking. Their multi-award-winning sound is a joyous, ethereal and hypnotic homage to their countries' diverse cultures. The result is something so extraordinary it can only be described as magical. Their collaborative album Soar won ‘Best Fusion’ Album in the Songlines Music Awards 2019.

Thursday 27th February

Marcel Khalifé and Bachar Mar-Khalifé - Mahmoud, Marcel and I

Time: 9:30pm

Venue: Etihad Garden Stage, Manarat Al Saadiyat

Price: AED 100; free for under 25 years old or in full time education 

Bachar Mar-Khalifé take to the stage with his father Marcel Khalifé, the renowned Lebanese composer, oudist and singer, in a musical tribute to their friend, the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. It was by singing Darwish's poetry at the beginning of his career that Marcel Khalifé gained international acclaim, in and beyond the Arab world.

Marcel Khalifé is a virtuoso of the oud. He studied and taught at Beirut Higher Conservatory of Music. He performed on the world’s greatest stages and with some of the world’s great orchestras. In 2005, he was named UNESCO Artist for Peace. With the Al Mayadine ensemble, which he founded in Lebanon in 1976, he combines Arabic and Western instruments, performing instrumental compositions and sung poetry. Darwish’s poems remain the most famous works in Khalifé’s repertoire. Mixing Arab music traditions with jazz and electro, Bachar Mar-Khalifé invites his illustrious father and an instrumental ensemble to revisit this unique collaboration between poet and musician.

Friday 28th February

The Silent Party

Time: 11pm - 2am

Venue: Atrium, Manarat Al Saadiyat

Price: AED 50; free for 21-25 years old or those in full time education

Hay Festival Abu Dhabi has teamed up with Abu Dhabi’s long-standing spoken word and performance collective, Rooftop Rhythms, to organise their grand finale, The Silent Party.  Silent party-goers will be able to choose the tempo they want to groove to, controlling the beats in their own wireless headphones and dancing to a wide-ranging selection of Reggae, Caribbean, Afrobeat and Arab fusion music from locally based DJs including DJ Dyme, DJ Aly, DJ Hiddy, DJ A.L.L.A.D, DJ Ranger and DJ S Spin.

Hay Festival Abu Dhabi in partnership with Careem are offering all Festival goers a 20% discount on eight Careem rides to and from the Festival in Manarat Al Saadiyat, with the code HAYFESTIVAL. This code is valid from 25 to 28 February 2020, with a maximum discount of AED 20 per trip. Terms & Conditions apply.

Hay Festival Abu Dhabi will feature a range of award-winning writers, journalists, historians, filmmakers and artists in an international programme spanning nearly 100 events over four days. The festival spotlights the latest ideas in the arts, sciences and current affairs, with over 20 nationalities and 7 languages represented. The programme reflects the diversity of communities in Abu Dhabi itself, including writers from all around the Middle East, North Africa, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, China, Nigeria and Europe.

In partnership with BBC Arabic, film screenings will reflect current social and political situations in the Arab world, while live performances of music and poetry will open and close the festival, and a welcoming free-to-enter festival site with a dedicated bookshop will extend the reach of the festival to a wide audience.

For tickets purchase, booking or for further information please visit hayfestival.org/abu-dhabi. People under 25 years old or in full-time education can attend the festival programming free of charge.

-Ends-

For further information please contact:
Brunswick Arts
hayfestival@brunswickgroup.com
UAE and GCC | +971 54 305 2882 / +971 56 401 9140
International | +447 834 502 582

For press accreditation and event tickets, please visit the following link: www.hayfestival.org/abu-dhabi 

About Hay Festival

www.hayfestival.org 

Hay Festival is an independent, mission-led and non-profit organisation that invites the finest writers and liveliest minds to create conversations about the world as it is and as it might be, inspiring people of all ages to shape the world of tomorrow. The Festival is a catalyst for change. It hosts agenda-setting conversations and performances that could not happen anywhere else and offers bespoke, site-specific programming that addresses contemporary themes and issues its audiences care about – including science, philosophy, religion, politics, gender, economics and the arts. Hay Festival explores local literary traditions, old and new, and supports the next generation of writers by publishing significant anthologies of new writing from around the world. Hay Festival welcomes people from all walks of life. Each edition firmly roots itself in the surrounding communities and brokers meaningful partnerships with local businesses and institutions. Hay Festival breaks down barriers and mixes people. Year on year, it returns in people’s lives and creates a space for conversations, connections and friendships to thrive. It offers outstanding activities dedicated to children of all age groups, families and young people. Since its first edition in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, in 1987, Hay Festival has programmed 125 sustainable Festivals globally, attracting more than 4.5 million people to events in 30 locations. Stephen Fry is its president.

Coming up…

  • Hay Festival Abu Dhabi, UAE (25-28 February 2020)
  • Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye, Wales (21-31 May 2020)
  • Hay Festival Europa28, Croatia (3-5 June 2020)
  • Hay Festival Querétaro, Mexico (September 2020)
  • Hay Forum Dallas, USA (September 2020)
  • Hay Festival Segovia, Spain (September 2020)
  • Hay Festival Arequipa, Peru (November 2020)
  • Hay Festival Hay-on-Wye Winter Weekend, Wales (27-29 November 2020)
  • Hay Festival Cartagena, Colombia (January 2021)
  • Hay Festival Medellín, Colombia (January 2021)
© Press Release 2020

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