theartsdesk in Setúbal: Youth and music under the jacarandas

THE ARTS DESK IN SETUBAL Youth and music under the jacaranda trees of a stunningly-situated Portuguese port city

A festival with a difference in a stunningly situated Portuguese port city

José Mourinho is Setúbal’s most famous son. Non-Portuguese readers are not expected to know the two other celebrities most feted by this extraordinary port city on the estuary of the River Sado, with miles of sandy beaches opposite where a school of dolphins resides and the lush national park of the Arrábida mountain range just to the west.

theartsdesk in Fes: A world music festival that's a beacon of tolerance

THE ARTS DESK in FES  Morocco's Festival of World Sacred Music is a beacon of tolerance

Forget Glastonbury, Morocco's Festival of World Sacred Music goes from strength to strength

You are or maybe wish you were at Glastonbury this weekend. Not me. I last went six years ago and it’s just too big for me. And you need about four different passes to get backstage should you have a good or a bad reason to get there. Too bureaucratic. However, I was, as ever, more than glad to be at the Fes Festival of World Sacred Music, which is more human in scale, sociable and, at times, transcendent. This year was the 20th edition. I have gone as many times as I possibly could.

Listed: The Best UK Summer Music Festivals For Families

LISTED: THE BEST UK SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVALS FOR FAMILIES Fun for small revelers as well as festival-hardy grown-ups

Family fun features as strongly as grown-up revels at many summer music festivals

While you give your tent an airing in anticipation of festival season, think about the imaginative adventures your teenyboppers might enjoy – from colourful creative activities to bushcraft workshops and babysitting services, there’s much on offer for burgeoning revelers as well as their party-hardy-folks to enjoy. 

1. Cornbury, July 4-6, Great Tew Park, Oxfordshire

Field Day, Victoria Park

FIELD DAY, VICTORIA PARK Fresh new voices and heady nostalgia

Fresh new voices and heady nostalgia at Field Day 2014

Decidedly diverse in its musical offerings as ever, this year’s Field Day, which for the first time was spread over two days with the Pixies as a fitting finale, was gifted with glorious sunshine and a chipper ambience. Fresh ferocious voices breaking out and established names reaching back to their roots made for a harmonious mix of boldness and greatness.

theartsdesk in Aarhus: SPOT Festival 2014

THEARTSDESK IN AARHUS: SPOT FESTIVAL The antidote to Eurovision

A thrill-packed, home-grown antidote to the Denmark-hosted Eurovision 2014

At last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, host country Denmark submitted “Cliché Love Song”, a weedy Bruno Mars-a-like designed to ensure they did not win for a second year running. It came ninth. While understandable that Danish national broadcaster DR would try to duck the expense of staging the extravaganza in Copenhagen again in 2015, they could have displayed some imagination by choosing an entrant that was certainly not a winner but had some worth.

theartsdesk in Estonia: Freedom and Music Thrive in the Shadow of Putin’s Russia

THEARTSDESK AT 7. FREEDOM AND MUSIC IN ESTONIA Arts in the shadow of Putin

Tallinn Music Week unites Pussy Riot and neighbouring Baltic states to confirm the power of song

“Art, real art, is a denial of the status quo. A tradition that values the role of the individual.” Speaking in Estonia’s capital for the opening of Tallinn Music Week, the Baltic country’s President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is referring to what’s just over his shoulder. Freedom is on his mind.

Listed: Celebrating Dylan Thomas

As the great Welsh poet turns 100, theartsdesk lists 10 must-see centenary events

It won’t have escaped the attention of anyone with an ear for poetry that Dylan Thomas turns 100 this year. He was born in a suburban house on a hill overlooking Swansea Bay a few months after the outbreak of war, and by his early 20s had been hailed a significant poetic voice by TS Eliot. By 39 he was dead, hastened to his grave by a lethal combination of alcohol, pneumonia and New York doctors.

theartsdesk in Sydney: Upside Down Under

THEARTSDESK IN SYDNEY: UPSIDE DOWN UNDER The Sydney Festival mixes post-colonial anxiety and fairground thrills

The Sydney Festival mixes post-colonial anxiety and fairground thrills

Sydney has a nervous tic. People think Australians are brash and bolshy but that's not true. There's a deep sense of ingrained anxiety here. That anxiety comes from being at the edge of the world, a long way from Europe and in an unfamiliar and unrelenting land. It has been expressed through the art of Australia for 200 years. Today the country and its biggest city are both more confident, so the anxiety expresses itself in subtler ways.

theartsdesk in Rennes: 35th Trans Musicales Festival

Best leave expectations at home for Brittany’s wayward festival

White noise saturates the air. At mind-melting volume, it shifts through the aural spectrum to settle on the bass end. A voice begins yelling angry-sounding gobbets. The words are unintelligible. The stage is in darkness. Gradually, it becomes possible to make out the source of this impassioned diatribe. It’s a non-descript, white, bespectacled young man in a T-shirt. This nerdy fellow stops for a moment. So does the accompanying noise. Then his guitar-toting accomplice piles on slab after slab of noise.