Picasso ceramic plateFrom Picasso to the Black Panthers, and Rodin to that enchanting Persian storyteller Scheherazade, the rich mix of Marseille-Provence 2013 European City of Culture bubbles on into April.

booking.com logoClick here to book a hotel in Provence

Click here to read our March diary for Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture.

For the full programme (many, though by no means all, pages are now finally translated into English), see the website for Marseille-Provence 2013: European Capital of Culture.

Visitors to Marseille should also head for the new temporary Pavillon M on the place Villeneuve-Bargemon just off the Old Port, which is a primary source of information (the main Tourist Office at 11 la Canebière will be open as usual too).

4-28 April Visitors to the coastal village of Les Goudes on the southern edge of Marseille are serenaded by some 500 unconventional musical instruments dotted around the landscape.

Harmonic Field LogoPart of a magical musical "sound trail" called Champ harmonique (Harmonic Field), they include cellos on poles - the signature instrument of the organisation behind the idea, Lieux Publiques, and the composer Pierre Sauvageot.

But there are also some rather more unfamiliar noise/music- makers such as bicycle wheels, bamboo pipes, Balinese wind chimes and even suspended deckchairs or bits of crackling old plastic. The collective sound they make varies depending on the daily weather conditions. Some of these contraptions look like aliens from War of the Worlds and, set in the stark, almost extraterrestrial landscapes of Les Goudes, the effect is really dramatic.

What they have in common is that they all react to the wind - and Marseille certainly has plenty of that (the installation has also played its strange elemental music in many other wind-swept locations, including Britain's Lake District, the French Alps and the Dutch North Sea island of Terschelling).

This circuit is accessible to wheelchairs and volunteer guides are available for blind and visually-impaired visitors. Tel: (+33) 4 91 25 19 00. Admission free. Note: the narrow road to Les Goudes can get very congested with traffic and parking is limited. Try to come on foot, by bike or by public transport. Metro line 2, stop Castellane, bus 19 to the end of the route (Montredon), then bus 20.

The installation is open throughout the week, but organisers are present from Thursday to Sunday to introduce the instruments. On the evening of 25 April, the night of the full moon, the installation will be open after dark for special concert by the resident "musicians." Read more about Champ Harmonique, Marseille

5 April-15 October All around the spectacular landscapes of the Camargue, Arles and the Rhône delta, Les Grands Chemins d'Envies Rhônements are a series of contemporary art installations and hiking trails with - as the punning title of the event hints - an environmental theme.

6 April-1 September L'Ombre de l'Antique (The Shadow of Antiquity) explores the connections between the sculptor Auguste Rodin and classical Greek art.

The Thinker by Auguste RodinRodin never actually went to Greece, but collected some 2,500 original works or replicas from classical antiquity, and was profoundly influenced by them.

The exhibition will gather over 250 pieces by Greek sculptors and by Rodin himself in order to highlight these links and will travel on to the Musée Rodin in Paris in November. Pictured: The Thinker by Rodin. At the Musée Départementale Arles Antique.

7 April The ultra-modern Villa Méditerranée in Marseille is officially inaugurated and opens its doors to the public on 3 May. It will house a temporary show called 2031 en Méditerranée, nos futurs! (2031 in the Mediterranean, Our Futures!), which explores how we want the region to look in 20 years' time. Until 31 August.

There are also two permanent exhibitions, Plus Loin que l'Horizon (Further than the Horizon), about movements of trade and tourism, and Parcours des Méditerranées (Mediterranean Trails). Read our full guide to the Villa Méditerranée

27 April-13 October Aubagne, a centre of terracotta in its own right, is hosting a major show celebrating Pablo Picasso's Mediterranean-themed ceramics like the plate pictured top left.

After the Second World War until the end of his life, the artist experimented with this medium, employing themes with a Southern flavour: ancient myths, the sun, bullfighting, doves and olive trees and, as always, women.

Some 150 pieces are featured, many of them from private collections, principally the Picasso estate, and have never seen before on public display. Chapelle des Pénitents Noirs, Aubagne.

Angelin Preljocac self-portrait29-30 April and 1-9 October At the Grand Théâtre de Provence, the latest creation of the Aix-based choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, pictured, is inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, the legendary collection of Scheherazade's stories, as well as paintings on the subject. The production will also play in Marseille at the Théâtre de la Criée. 10-13 July.

29 April-26 September Les Baux de Provence is hosting a slightly unusual spin on MP2013's ubiquitous theme of painters in the Mediterranean. Instead of a show exploring their fascination with the landscapes, its exhibition, Les Capitales Méditerranéennes "de Signac à Buffet", looks at how painters have portrayed southern cities from Toulon to Arles. At the Musée Yves Brayer.

30 April-1 September The Musée de la Légion étrangère (Museum of the Foreign Legion) in Aubagne has been closed for renovation since March 2012. It re-opens to the public on Camerone Day (30 April), which marks the 150th anniversary of this solemn occasion with La Légion dans la peau (The Legion Under Their Skin), an intriguing-sounding display of photographs of legionnaires revealing their tattoos.

Ongoing Events

Until 7 April. Fans of the long-established Festival d'Aix will want to make a diary date for another top-flight celebration of classical music in the city: a brand-new Festival de Pâques (Easter Festival), which offers some 20 concerts in ten days.

The inaugural festival will feature artists such as Semyon Bychkov with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Valery Gergiev and his orchestra from the Mariinsky in Saint-Petersburg, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, chamber music ensembles, the prodigious young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov, Radu Lupu, Hélène Grimaud and Leif Ove Andsnes.

Each year a new piece will be commissioned from a composer. In 2013, Jörg Widmann will perform in the presence of Henri Dutilleux to whom the festival will be paying homage.

A Passion will be programmed every year; Bach's St John Passion will start the tradition in 2013. Concerts, rehearsals, master classes at the Conservatoire d'Aix, a resident violin-maker (Pierre Barthel), a conference (Alfred Brendel) and other educational concerts will punctuate this fortnight of music. Website for the Aix en Provence Easter Festival.

Logo, Owners Direct holiday property rental
Book a villa, gîte or apartment in Provence with Owners Direct

Until 7 April A new gallery space, the Tour Panorama at the Friche La Belle de Mai in Marseille's northern suburbs, hosts Ici, Ailleurs (Here, Elsewhere) a show of contemporary art including work by Gilles Barbier, Mounir Fatmi, Ange Leccia, Sarkis and Djamel Tatah.

Until 13 April Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse) is an exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix en Provence inspired by the Surrealists' famous "exquisite corpse" game, a sort of artistic version of Chinese Whispers. Two years in the making, the show consists of a work produced collectively with each artist reacting to the creation immediately preceding his or her own.

The remains of the Treasure of Marseille in DelphiThe participating painters, sculptors, photographers, video directors, choreographers and composers hail from around the Mediterranean and the Near East, from countries as diverse as Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Spain, France, Greece, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

Until 15 April In classical antiquity a "treasure" was a small, richly sculpted building intended to house precious objects. One of these was offered to the gods at Delphi by the inhabitants of Marseille in the sixth century BC, when the city was already a powerful port.

Exhibited for the first time outside Greece, 29 surviving fragments of Le Trésor des Marseillais (The Treasure of Marseille) are on view at the Vieille Charité, Marseille, while a 3D recreation helps visitors visualise the whole thing. Pictured: the remains of the actual treasure at Delphi.

The surrounding galleries house Vestiges, a series of panoramic images of archeological sites all around the Mediterranean by the Magnum photographer Josef Koudelka.

Until 5 May VitaNONNova, a series of large multidisciplinary installations at the Ateliers SNCF, Arles, will combine film, opera, literature and live performances to investigate the theme of urban ghettos, influenced by Bobby Seal, Fred Hampton and the Afro-American movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

The creators, Jean-Michel Bruyère and the avant-garde LFKs collective, made a splash last summer at the Festival d'Aix with an opera inspired by the Black Panther leader Huey P Newton.

Until 18 May Mediterranées (Mediterraneans) takes you on a virtual odyssey around eleven ports on the Mediterranean from Troy to Marseille.

It is held at the J1 Hangar, another new venue converted from a huge former ferry terminal at the heart of Marseille's bustling port area. It boasts a 6,000 square metre / 64,500 square foot visitor centre with a bar and restaurant overlooking the bay as well as a large gallery space.

Until 19 May Matta, Surrealism and History are the themes of a show at the Musée Cantini, Marseille, devoted to the Chilean-born artist Roberto Matta (1911-2002), who started out as a pure surrealist but became politicised by the cataclysmic events of the late 20th century.

Until 26 May In the Joliette district, near Marseille's port area, the Fonds Régional de l'Art Contemporain Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur, more snappily known as the FRAC PACA, is a new museum designed by Kengo Kuma and hosts contemporary art collections and an exhibition space.

Its inaugural show is called La Fabrique des possibles (The Possibility Factory), features art that questions scientific conventions and spotlights the work of Richard Baquié, among others. Read our full guide to the FRAC PACA

Tarzan and the Elephant by Roger BlachonUntil 16 June Another new building is unveiled in the shape of the Musée Regards de Provence, the new home of the Fondation Regards de Provence, an organisation which stages excellent shows celebrating provençal art from all eras: it has recently spotlighted Félix Ziem, Joseph Garibaldi, Roger Blachon and René Seyssaud, among others, at its previous venue. Pictured: Blachon's Tarzan and the Elephant.

Converted from a former station sanitaire, the Musée Regards de Provence is right on the seafront by the Cathedral and the MuCEM and the first exhibition there displays a wide variety of work from the Fondation's collection.

Until 13 October The conceptual artist Bernar Venet, who was born in Château Arnoux in Haute Provence, was invited to install a very large-scale work in the Jardin du Pharo, a park overlooking the Old Port of Marseille and surrounding the Palais du Pharo, itself recently the subject of renovation. Venet's piece, called Désordre (Disorder) consists of a huge interlocking cluster of his trademark monumental arches.

 Until 5 January 2014 A brand-new version of the hugely popular son et lumière show at the Quarries of Lights (formerly known as the Cathedral of Images) links into the overall Mediterranean theme of Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture.

Called Monet, Renoir... Chagall. Voyages en Méditerranée (Voyages to the Mediterranean), it explores how the luminous colours of the Mediterranean, from the Spanish border to the Italian Riviera, have attracted painters throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

Click here to read our May diary for Marseille-Provence 2013 European Capital of Culture.

RELATED ARTICLES

Main Menu