Antony Hegarty To Curate This Year’s Meltdown Festival

Antony Hegarty is set to curate this year’s Meltdown festival at London’s Southbank Centre. The Antony & The Johnsons singer will follow in the footsteps of Jarvis Cocker, David Bowie and, most recently, The Kinks’ Ray Davies, by curating the 12-day festival in August. While no acts have been announced yet, Hegarty said he wanted to “create a kind of paradise”.

He added:

“I want to walk through that forest and hear that hardcore beauty and strength in art and music that makes sense to me. The weather is changing and everybody knows it. I want to participate. What is my relationship and responsibility to the world around me? Frontier expressions of emotion and beauty can be fantastic tools with which to enter that discussion”.

Hegarty is no stranger to the festival, having performed at Patti Smith’s Meltdown in 2005 and American Jazz composer Ornette Coleman’s in 2009. The Southbank’s artistic director, Jude Kelly, described Hegarty as “one of the most fascinating artists of our age”. She added:

“From the moment we heard his voice, or caught an early glimpse of him stealing the show on jaw-dropping guest spots, there was no doubt that Antony was a major talent. We can’t wait to see where Antony will take the festival and us in August 2012.”

Meltdown Festival runs from 1st to 12th August.