A COWBOY dressed in low-brimmed hat and poncho, with a six-gun slung at his side, stood outside Elmwood Hall yesterday where this year's Belfast Festival at Queen's was launched.
The Clint Eastwood lookalike was there to represent what the festival organisers regard as a great coup in attracting Italian maestro Ennio Morricone to perform on the opening night of the festival, Friday, October 17th.
The composer of instantly recognisable music from films such as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, The Untouchables, Once Upon a Time in America, The Missionand Cinema Paradisois part of an impressive line-up for this year's festival, which runs until November 1st.
In recent years, after mainstream backers such as Guinness pulled out as the principal sponsors, the festival has witnessed something of a dip in its fortunes.
But this year Ulster Bank has filled the void as the new prime sponsor, promising £1.3 million (€1.6 million) over three years, but with the requirement that the festival is now called the Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen's.
The organisers, while conceding that this is a rather unwieldy title, won't worry if Ulster Bank lives up to its promise - as its chief executive, Cormac McCarthy, pledged yesterday - to substantially beef up the festival's exposure and restore its place in the Irish arts scene.
Festival director Graeme Farrow said: "We're raising our game this year. We aim to provide the best total arts experience in Ireland."
The festival, which is said to be worth £9 million in revenue to the city and is expected to attract more than 50,000 people to more than 60 events over 16 days, will feature drama, dance, classical, opera, jazz, rock and folk music, comedy, visual arts, debates, talks and literary and other events.
Morricone has agreed to play an additional concert on Saturday, October 18th, and will conduct 200 musicians from the Roma Sinfonietta Orchestra and Belfast Philharmonic Choir at the Waterfront Hall.
Other highlights include Footsbarn Theatre performing Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dreamin Ormeau Park, a reworking of Sophocles's Antigoneby Belfast playwright Owen McCafferty, Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, presented by the Corn Exchange, a concert by Gilbert O'Sullivan and a talk by Cherie Blair.
Broadway singer Barbara Cook - who has appeared in such musicals as Oklahoma!, The King and I, Carouseland Show Boat- will perform with the Ulster Orchestra at the Waterfront Hall.
