A new festival hosted by The National and called Homecoming, in association with MusicNOW is slated for Smale Riverfront Park on April 28 and 29, 2018. The popular and successful Indie Rock band (whose members hail from Cincinnati) will curate the lineup of some 20 artists who will appear on two festival stages, and will itself perform two completely different shows over two evenings.
The event is being produced by AC Entertainment, the Knoxville-based company whose avant-garde Big Ears Festival was at least partly inspired by MusicNOW. The National’s Bryce Dessner, also a Classical composer, has been a regular Big Ears performer and has also been a guest curator there.
Today’s announcement of Homecoming states that “the festival will also feature special guests, city-wide exhibitions, surprises and more starting the evening of Friday, (April) 27.” Homecoming will be the ticketed counterpart to the free MusicNOW, which will occur during the same weekend. They will have two separate lineups, with some crossover collaborations.
“I look forward to coming home to Cincinnati every spring for the MusicNOW festival which has become a huge part of my artistic life these last 13 (!) years," Dessner said in a statement to CityBeat. "I am unbelievable excited to invite my bandmates and fellow Cincinnatians from The National this year to join me in creating a new outdoor event called Homecoming that will feature performances from many of our favorite artists in the world (in addition to two distinct sets of our own). Homecoming and MusicNOW will join forces this year in what promises to be the largest and most expansive festival we have ever done, with music, dance, visual art and collaborations spilling out all over the city April 27-29."
One related art event will be the presentation of Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s multi-channel video The Visitors at Cincinnati Art Museum March 30-June 7. It features nine large video screens that simultaneously show musicians in different parts of an old house playing the same simple folk song, until they slowly come together. Kjartansson has also worked with The National; his six-hour video of the band repeatedly performing “Sorrow” was featured during a previous MusicNOW (read more here)
Also lined up are a Cincinnati Ballet premiere with Eighth Blackbird, New York City Ballet’s Justin Peck and Dessner; and a special photography exhibition.
Full Homecoming, in association with MusicNOW and actual MusicNOW lineups will be announced in the New Year, but passes go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. at NTLhomecoming.com.
Today’s announcement also corresponds with the release of a trippy, glitchy new video (watch below) for the title song off The National’s Sleep Well Beast, which was recently nominated for a Grammy for Best Alternative Album. The band talked about the nominations and the Homecoming event with Billboard, which premiered the music video earlier today.
