Stewart Collins describes the Festival as "a sort of arts and culture theme park. A three-and-a-half acre site, with four performance venues, art galleries, sculpture lawns, bars, restaurants, jazz, classical, opera, theatre, poetry and dance." Highlights include Dame Kiri Te Kanawa performing on a floating stage in the Thames on the Thursday night, and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley performing there on the Sunday night. As well as music, there'll be arts galore too. A feature of this year's event will be a glass art installation called 'Tentacles'.  | | The glass creations will be sold after the Festival. |
It is made up of up to 40 glass sculptures, which will be displayed in the Thames and lit up. Artist Emily Bellhouse explains..."The glass tentacles will be sitting on a platform just under the water, so they'll look like they're floating". And where did Emily get the inspiration from? "I love doing installations in unusual places - unexpected places. I love doing the impossible, floating pieces of solid glass." Artistic Director Stewart Collins saw the installation and knew it was right for Henley. "There are so many places where you can put beautiful art. I saw this at the sea and just thought how beautiful it was and how pretty it looked next to water." Henley Festival of Music & The Arts 7th-11th July 2004 Highlights include: Dame Kiri Te Kanawa Jose Cura Tony Hadley John Williams and friends Chloe Hanslip Georgie Fame The Reduced Shakespeare Company Men in Coats Dominic Holland Union Dance Nightly Firework Spectacular The Magnets I Fagiolini The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra Trinity College Swing Band Dancing in three venues |
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