A spectacular Global Virtual Rainbow is to beam across the night sky next week when Derry will stage the first of its City of Culture legacy events.
“Hear My Song,” a celebration linking the success of the City of Culture year with Music City 2014, will take place on Friday of next week in the form of a free outdoor music and visual art event featuring live performances and the spectacular renowned Global Rainbow installation.
The first signature legacy event will take place at the Peace Garden on Foyle Street and feature rising stars Little Bear and the Clameens with additional acts to be announced in the coming days.
The evening will culminate in the lighting of the Global Rainbow which will beam across the Foyle for five evenings as a symbol of new hope for the city.
Derry City Council has commissioned New York and Berlin-based visual artist Yvette Mattern to bring her “rainbow,” an art installation using specially designed lazers to project a large-scale abstraction of a natural rainbow, to the city for the first time.
Speaking on her motivation for the piece, Yvette said she was inspired by seeing an unusual rainbow appearing over ‘Walden Pond’ in Massachusetts in 2007.
“My aim with the artwork is to connect all people in a beautifully quiet and engaging experience; creating a temporal dimension with a unique visual translation of hope and peace.
“Global Rainbow is a large scale, monumental outdoor laser projection consisting of seven parallel beams of high specification laser light, representing the spectrum of the traditional seven colours of the rainbow, and is designed to be projected across large open sites, particularly densely populated areas.”
She concluded: “Interestingly ‘Walden Pond’ was also the inspiration for the writer and transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau whose writings and ideas inspired Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.”
Following the event in Derry, the Global Rainbow will travel to Belgium, Ohio and then on to Canada.
“Hear the City Sing” – which is free – will begin with live music on the stage at Foyle St Car Park/Peace Garden from 7.30pm.
At approximately 9.00pm, the event will end with a visual crescendo as the Global Rainbow is illuminated over the city and will remain so for a five day period until 21 January.
In addition, live music performances will be offered in a number of local cafes, restaurants, hotels, bars and retail outlets from 7.00pm-8.00pm as part of a new initiative to create a Friday evening music culture in the city centre.
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