Wrap-up of the 11th edition of the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival
What a Festival!
It’s official! This 11th edition of the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS
Festival presented by Hydro-Québec wins the Gold Medal,
having picked up the momentum set by last year’s 10th anniversary-and Montrealers
celebrated every moment!
We witnessed record attendance for all three programs, a 60% increase in on-site
sales, twice the shows, and an explosion of support from local fans and media!
Yes, the Festival has reached maximum speed, thanks to its public and private sponsors,
but mainly due to our incredible fans! »»»
The BMO Bank of Montreal Celebration of Light
After the immense success of last year’s 10th anniversary edition, two facts are
beyond question: the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival presented by
Hydro-Québec has firmly established itself as the city’s urban
winter event par excellence, and Montrealers can’t get enough this wonderful winter
stuff! And among the many reasons for this outburst of joy in the heart of winter,
look no further than the
BMO Bank of Montreal Celebration of Light, the perfect
antidote to the winter blahs!
For this 11th edition, February puts on a fresh face with a host
of new attractions, the most important being the newest expansion of the site itself
to include the
Place des Festivals: alongside
Old Montreal and the
Quays of the Old Port, the heart of the Celebration
of Light, this new playground greatly expands the parameters of the Festival… and
bigger is better, in every sense! While weekends reign as ever in Old Montreal and
on the Old Port (with different programming every day), the celebration continues
all week long on the Place des Festivals (excluding Sunday and Monday)!
In other words, more activities than ever and more opportunities for fun on a more
accessible site! This new vintage of the city’s free outdoor winter celebration
uncorks from Thursday, February 18 to Sunday, February 28.
Not even a year old, and already Party Central: expect the Place des Festivals
in the Quartier des spectacles to live up to its reputation as the ultimate HQ for
communal celebration this winter, especially with the addition of its brand-new
Espace L’Oréal, and an array of surprises set to electrify the
downtown core…
Next stop: the universe, with Yuga, le film in the Ambiosphère L’Oréal!
Step right up for the astonishing
Ambiosphère L’Oréal, an enormous 21 metre (70 ft.) white
sphere that can accommodate over 300 people at a time. Inside, a simple-looking
opaque, spherical white inner wall becomes the portal for a voyage into the universe
once six synchronized high-performance projectors whirr into action! Yuga, le
film, a world premiere presentation, is a special, spectacular 14-minute
animated presentation courtesy of Montreal’s Space & Dream, taking
the viewer on a completely immersive journey revealing nothing less than the history
of the universe!
This project, presented free of charge every day, every half hour, from noon
to 9 p.m. (and until 3 a.m. during the Nuit blanche) in partnership
with L’Oréal, is also made possible thanks to the support of the
Quartier des spectacles and Industry Canada. »»»
The High Lights Event returns…
in the Place des Festivals!
We’re thrilled to announce the return of the
High Lights Event presented by Hydro-Québec, featuring
an all-new show! Initially conceived to mark last year’s 10th anniversary edition
of the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival, this wild urban happening was such a massive
hit with Montrealers that we’ve brought it back for this 11th edition! After a blowout
success on the Musée Pointe-à-Callière square in 2009, the event moves onto the
expanded playground of the Place des Festivals this year.
Better yet, it’s been utterly transformed and re-dynamized into a wholly new creation
entitled Les Ombres, featuring almost 60 performers (including
singer Elsiane and DJ Dee) in a unique staging
concept laid out on an exclusive multi-level stage, with the Ambiosphère L’Oréal
at the base of the stage and featuring projections and pyrotechnic effects!
This multimedia spectacle, conceived once again this year by special events master
Olivier Dufour, promises to wow us with a full spectrum of sensory illuminations!
Watch out for dropping jaws! February 20, the first Saturday of the Festival,
from 9 p.m. After the spectacle, DJ Dee takes over to keep the party
hopping!
The Nuit is still young!
One look at the program will be enough to convince you that this year’s edition
is especially zany, crazy and free-spirited, the perfectly magical kickoff for all
other "Nuits Blanches" that follow, in cities the world over. This Saturday,
February 27, High Lighters can discover the city by night, plunging
into 180 activities—most of them free—spread indoors and outdoors
over three quartiers and one pole (sector). Feel like
dancing, clambering onstage, singing, swimming, laughing? Ready for stories, an
artistically re-imagined Montreal underground and a night of endless surprises?
We’re pleased to announce that, for a 2nd straight year, thanks to the special participation
of the STM,
the Metro will remain open all night long! Next, step right up
to board our famed free shuttle service—once again provided in
collaboration with the STM—serving six routes with a total of
65 stops, including an express route to link up all
the quartiers.
Every 10 minutes from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., High Lighters can board
the shuttles to make their way to any activity in its respective sector: the
Quartier Vieux Montréal et Quays of the Old Port (Old Montreal
and the Old Port), the
Quartier des spectacles et Centre-Ville (Quartier des Spectacles
and Downtown) and the former Quartier Plateau Mont Royal, now considerably expanded
and renamed the
Quartier Plateau Mont Royal et Mile-End. The
Pôle Maisonneuve sector will be accessible by metro.
Once again this year, the night unfolds in the city’s
basements with the return of
Art Souterrain, featuring 104 projects spread over 10 zones,
bringing a new artistic identity to the underground halls you walk through everyday.
Four kilometres of underground corridors between Complexe Les Ailes and Place des
Arts will be transformed into living art galleries with a diverse array of photos,
videos, installations and performances. »»»
40 dazzling performances to come!
We all know—especially here in Quebec—that summer is THE season of festivals. Until
now, summer heat seemed an essential ingredient for staging a major event. For ten
years, the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival has fought against this received wisdom
with such vigour that we take note of a strange annual wave of “global warming,”
particularly during the last ten days of February…
In order to spotlight this state of affairs, this year’s Festival program welcomes
a major new addition: the Caliente! series—a recurrent new series sure to become
one of the Festival’s trademarks—dedicated to hot’n’spicy rhythms, and this year
including artists with a distinct Portuguese accent. »»»
Welcome, Portugal!
Prepare your palates for the largest delegation ever welcomed by the festival !
This fabulous country, with its incredibly fertile terrain and a wide agricultural
and viticultural diversity, holds an abundance of treasures of which its inhabitants
can be justly proud.
The complex and divine perfumes of the land, between vineyards and the sea, are
the legacy of the reckless navigators who were the first to bring back the spices
that would transform the cuisine of the entire world.
And while the name ‘Portugal’ may conjure up images of sunshine and pretty painted
fishing boats, the Festival and its
Finest Tables can’t wait to reveal the true country, and
the closely-guarded secrets of our 39
Portuguese guest chefs and vintners, the largest delegation ever
welcomed by the Festival!
As a major player in the renewal of Lisbon gastronomy, Fausto Airoldi,
president of the SAQ Wine and Dine Experience presented by Air France, is heading
to Montreal with a dynamic delegation of 20 chefs and 18 wine producers, united
beneath the banner Portugal’s Finest Wines.
These most appealing ambassadors have worked in some of the finest maisons
on five continents. Lively, creative, competitive, their talents testify to the
modernity and renewed vigour of Portuguese gastronomy and viticulture.
This year’s featured city
is American: New Orleans. After all, the Big Easy shares a passion
for fish, seafood and shellfish with Portugal, and is likewise a place we happen
to love! While most everyone is familiar with the city’s French Quarter, its jazzy
atmosphere and wildly festive spirit, few are aware of the entire array of Spanish,
creole, cajun and French influences in its gastronomy. Six chefs are heading here
to reveal the culinary delights of the legendary Crescent City.
The Eastern Townships,
our featured Quebec region, showcases its wine and food products
at Marché
Jean-Talon; meanwhile, four of its finest chefs will showcase their
creativity and the bounty of this region they believe in so passionately.
And the epicurean delights continue with the gastronomically exquisite
Honorary President’s Dinners in the Ferreira Café;
the Portuguese Convivial, a blowout of an evening;
Presenting: Quebec Chefs
and Cheeses, a competition showcasing our local chefs and cheeses;
and the Festival
Lunch Menus, where the cuisine of the world is served at one prix
fixe.
High Lights fans are also invited to a number of large-scale food and wine events
in Complexe Desjardins:The Festival
of Québec Cheeses at the outset of the Festival, where Quebec master
cheesemakers gather along with representatives of
the Portugal’s Finest Wines; and finally the
Crossroads of Flavour, a genuine gourmet village showcasing
the best products Quebec has to offer.
The Festival is yours, enjoy it!