Rick Rubin’s secret music festival in Tuscany hosted performances by James Blake, Arcade Fire and Jack Dorsey
Running from 21-22nd June, Festival of the Sun celebrated the summer solstice with music from James Blake, Gossip and Arcade Fire members.
Rick Rubin. Image: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Rarely do producers spiritually connect with music quite like Rick Rubin. Over the weekend, the producer celebrated such a connection between sound and nature, by hosting an intimate festival, under the Italian sunshine, to mark the start of the summer solstice.
With only 150 invitations sent out, Rubin’s Festival Of The Sun was an incredibly under-the-radar affair. Hosted in a medieval village in Tuscany, the festival primarily took place in the Collegiata di Santa Maria Assunta church.
Among the performers involved, electronic music artist James Blake made an appearance, while Beth Ditto performed alongside her band Gossip, and Arcade Fire‘s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne knocked out tracks.
There were also performances from DJ Cosmo Gonik, London-based cellist Lucinda Chua, and Michael Milosh’s one-man-band Rhye. Even Twitter founder Jack Dorsey performed, albeit a lecture titled ‘Tech and Freedom’. Movie director Andrew Dominik also held a screening of his 2019 Nick Cave documentary, This Much I Know to Be True.
Notable attendees also included Måneskin‘s Thomas Raggi and Ethan Torchio, as well as Italian rapper Ghali.
It’s no surprise Rubin was able to lure in such a diverse bunch of acts. Over his impressive career, the Def Jam records founder has worked with some of music’s finest, including heavy metal titans Metallica, nu-metal icons Linkin Park, hip-hop icons Jay-Z, Kanye West and Nas and even the dulcet tones of Adele. Most recently, Rubin produced indie darling Beabadoobee’s upcoming album This Is How Tomorrow Moves.
The majority of the festival was held inside the gorgeous church, but some acts took to a publicly accessible main stage outside. While the festival was exclusive, Variety reports that “access to the town’s main stage was open to the public free of charge.”
We’re unsure if Festival Of The Sun will remain a one-off, but Rubin has previously expressed interest in hosting festivals. In docu-series Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, Perry Farrell revealed that Rubin wanted to buy Lollapalooza in 2004. “I don’t know why, but Rick Rubin decided to make an offer to me to buy the name for like a million dollars,” he explained. “I won’t tell you exactly how I put it, but I said no.”
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