IT'S a festival that has, in some ways, been four centuries in the making. In honour of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda, the Bermuda Festival of the Performing Arts has been preparing for the 2009 event for the past several years in hopes of making the line-up of acts truly local.

According to Karen Pollard, the artistic director of the festival, a friend sparked the idea of having the event consist of mainly Bermudian acts.

"A friend approached me with the idea and it really set me to thinking because there is a huge amount of talent on the island," she said. "But the organisation didn't know how many professionally trained, Bermudian artists were abroad practicing their art so we put out an advertisement and began building a database in readiness for next year's festival."

The response the festival producers received was overwhelming and as a result, next year has become the largest festival since its beginning in 1978.

"We had a great response. So much so that we couldn't even include everyone that contacted us. And, what that has created is a much larger festival. We have literally hundreds of people participating," Ms Pollard said.

It is a new direction for the island's longest-running festival and will feature 19 different acts from dance and comedy troupes to orchestras, choirs and individual performers. The central theme to the festival, though, is collaboration: intertwining Bermudian talent with overseas artists.

"It's the size of the acts and the collaborations we are doing, combining overseas artists with local artists, that makes the festival so large," Ms Pollard explained. "A classic example is that we will have the Christ Church Cathedral Choir from Oxford coming and they will be performing a concert in collaboration with the Bermuda Institute Choir.

"So we will have 35 people from the UK and 40 or more from Bermuda Institute performing together on stage at the Ruth Seaton James Centre. So it's that kind of collaboration that makes next year's festival unlike any we've had to date."

The festival producers have also formed a special orchestra consisting of a majority of Bermudian musicians.

"Since we knew that there is a lot of talent on the island, Bermudians and residents, and we've produced the Bermuda Festival Chamber Orchestra especially for the festival of almost 40 people," Ms Pollard said.

"Largely the orchestra is local, aside from one or two people we had to bring in to fill an instrument chair that wasn't available on island. For a population this size, I think this tremendous achievement. And at a very high standard, these musicians are all very well trained. They are all artists in themselves and for them, it's a very exciting opportunity to perform and play challenging music."

Returning to the Bermuda Festival again next year for two concerts is the English Chamber Orchestra, one of the world's leading chamber orchestras. This time, however, music aficionados will be treated to a special addition when the world-renowned Russian conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy takes the baton to conduct the group for the first programme.

"Ashkenazy is one of the most famous conductors we've ever had in Bermuda," explains Ms Pollard. "He is an extremely famous musician. Anyone who has an interest in the music world will be astounded that he is coming."

The second concert, which will be conducted by Principal Guest Conductor Roy Goodman, will feature a solo tuba performance by one of Bermuda's finest musicians, Kenneth Amis. Mr. Amis, who currently lives in the United States, began playing the tuba in high school and composed his first piece of music, Suite for Bass Tuba, at age 15. He then went on to Boston University and the New England Conservatory where he received his undergraduate and Master's degree, respectively, in the field of musical composition.

He will also be performing with his ensemble the Empire Brass Quintet for two nights where they will play a musical piece that Amis composed himself. Entitled The Scent of Paradise, the work was commissioned by the Bermuda Festival to commemorate Bermuda's 400th anniversary.

Also in celebration, a dance and drama mosaic act entitled Women of Our Time - On Whose Shoulders We Stand, is a tribute to the significant women of Bermuda through the ages.

Written and directed by Ruth Thomas and choreographed by Conchita Ming, both Bermudians, the performance will showcase the history of women on the island from the 1600s to current times while blending the "rich, colourful, binding threads of the social, cultural and historical tapestry women by the women of Bermuda."

Commemorating Bermuda's history and talent are evident in almost every single act in nexts year's festival featuring locally based artists, including famed opera soprano Marcelle Clamens, the Bermuda Civic Ballet, Not the Um Um Players (comedy) and Concepts in Motion Dance Company.

Festival producers are also bringing home Bermudian artists from every corner of the earth, including Craig Lemont Walters, an opera and jazz singer based in Germany; European pop star Heather Nova and three young Bermudian rising stars who are practicing their art (piano, violin and vocals) abroad, among many other artists and musicians based all over the world.

The festival will culminate with four performances of William Shakespeare's play, The Tempest, which was lossely inspired by the loss of the Sea Venture off St. George's in 1609 - the shipwreck that led to the permanent settlement of Bermuda three years later.

Directed by Bermudian Joel Froomkin, the large-scale production is currently casting in New York and promises to have strong Bermudian imagery that will illuminate and enhance what is considered to be one of Shakespeare's finest works.

"The director is making the production very Bermudian," said Ms Pollard. "He (Mr. Froomkin) is using the local flora and fauna in the set design to make it very Bermudian in feel. It's going to be a terrific production."

The Bermuda Festival will be taking place from January 8 through February 28 at various venues throughout the island. Tickets can be purchased starting Monday, November 10 via the festival's website: www.bermudafestival.org