Tusk North
Tusk North is a showcase for the creative partnership between curator Lee Etherington and the music department of Newcastle University
27 April 2022
TUSK NORTH, a 2-day festival took place 4-5 March 2022 at the Literature & Philosophical Society (The Lit & Phil), Newcastle upon Tyne.
Tusk Festival has been running annually in Newcastle/Gateshead since 2011, usually over the second weekend in October. Over the past six years, The Old Police House (TOPH, which we founded in 2012) has become an increasingly integrated partner organisation to Tusk, running its Tusk Fringe Parallel. The most complete manifestation of that partnership to date was 2020’s iteration of Tusk which was (necessarily) entirely online, running over 9 consecutive days of 12-hour continuous streams which would repeat daily so as to accommodate global timelines.
Tusk North, in March 2022, was he first iteration of a second, Spring Tusk iteration that was almost exclusively focused on the North and, crucially for the first time, integrating staff and students from Newcastle University, programmed as equal contributors, not as institutional. Crucially, for the first time, the festival featured performances drawn from all of the disciplines and research interests of the Internatiaonl Centre for Music Studies (not just the contemporary-experimental elements normally associated with Tusk’s agenda).