Over the weekend, legendary music producer Rick Rubin organized an under-the-radar music event called Festival of the Sun in Tuscany, where performers included James Blake , Win Butler and Régine Chassagne from Arcade Fire, Rhye, Beth Ditto and Italian rapper-pop star Jovanotti. Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey was also on hand at the multi-disciplinary Tuscan fest, where director Andrew Dominik introduced a screening of his Nick Cave doc “This Much I Know to Be True.” Billed as a celebration of the summer solstice, the June 21-22 event was held in Casole d’Elsa, a medieval village in the Sienese countryside where Rubin purchased a large farm in 2019.
According to Italian press reports, proceedings kicked off Saturday afternoon in the Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta church with mantras performed by Grammy-nominated Kirtan artist Krishna Das, who is known as yoga’s “rock star.” Then, Jovanotti – who is recovering from a thigh bone injury – took the stage, followed by James Blake and Beth Ditto with her indie rock band Gossip. Sunday’s events included a Jack Dorsey talk titled “Tech and Freedom,” followed by performances from DJ Cosmo Gonik; London-based singer/cellist Lucinda Chua; Rhye, the one-man-band of Canadian singer-songwriter Michael Milosh; Finnish model and musician Julia Johansen; and Armenian composer and pianist Marie Awadis.
In the festival’s grand finale, Win Butler reportedly performed Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is a Cag.
