Belfast Cathedral at heart of Culture Night 2017

Wednesday September 20th 2017

St Anne’s Cathedral will be at the heart of Belfast Culture Night on Friday September 22, with a wide range of exciting performances and activities in and around the Cathedral.

Culture Night is Belfast’s largest, most inclusive cultural celebration. Now in its ninth year, Culture Night brings together over 250 free events across 100 locations in Belfast City Centre in a single day. The event attracts more than 80,000 visitors.

Events in the Cathedral get underway with Choral Evensong at 5.30pm; The Crypt will host a range of activities and it will be open from 1pm, while events in the Cathedral car park will run through the afternoon and evening, starting at 2pm.

The Cathedral will provide a stunning venue for some great music. Following Choral Evensong by the Cathedral Choir, Belfast School of Music’s CBSM Drum and Brass band will be playing a series of big hits from 6pm-7pm.

We welcome back the Ulster Youth Jazz Orchestra who present music ranging from the Beatles to Basie from 7pm-8pm, and then Belfast Operatic brings us a taste of musical theatre from 8pm-9pm.

The Cathedral Choir returns to the choir stalls for Sung Compline from 9pm-9.15pm. This ancient late night monastic chanted service has proved a huge hit on Culture Night, with around 900 people crowding into the Cathedral to enjoy this time for calm reflection in the midst of the hub bub that is Culture Night outside the Cathedral walls.

The final performance will be by 19-year-old Mollie Sterling who first sang in St Anne’s during the afternoon of Culture Night last year. Mollie represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 Mollie’s concert lasts from 9.15pm-10pm.

The car park will host a variety of art based attractions, including Drawn Together, a live self-portrait of the Culture Night masses, Mapping Your World, creating vibrant art to show how global Belfast is, and The Sights, an illustrated mural of the Belfast sights.

Refugees Welcome NI will be in the car park with their Messages of Solidarity stall, offering an opportunity to show support on a refugee welcome wall. Adding colour in the car park will be the AfroCarib Urban Fest, a diverse display of African and Caribbean culture.

Other activities include StreetSpace – Map your Streets, when Queen’s University gives you a chance to map your own North Street. Rewrite Their Story, presented by OutsideIn, offers the opportunity to get involved in changing social perceptions of homelessness.

And for those who enjoy a bit of bending, head to Don’t get Your Printers into a Twist, presented by Kaizen Print – a chance to contort into tricky positions with outdoor Twister.

The Cathedral Crypt will host dance related activities – Alien Underground, hosted by New Lodge Arts, a chance to dance into a UV Galaxy far far away from 6pm-9pm; and Free Your Feet, when Ecstatic Dance*IN invites to you dance where freedom rules – no shoes, no talking, no barriers. This is on from 7pm-8.15pm.

If you fancy some meditation and healing sounds, join Meditation and Dance from Seventh Heaven, hosted by Tessa and Kim in the Crypt from 1pm-9pm.