Malkovich to take part in Sydney Festival

John Malkovich and Emmylou Harris will be arriving from the US to take part in the 2011 Sydney Festival.

The actor and the country singer have both been confirmed as special guests at the annual event that pays tribute to actors, artists, dancers and filmmakers.

Director Lindy Hume told AAP that the January festival will be "bold, whimsical and slightly eccentric".

She said: "The Sydney Festival... is, just like Sydney, contemporary, bold, global, diverse and ambitious, but also... welcoming, whimsical and slightly eccentric, with big colourful bursts of existential angst and crazy, abandoned love.

"We hope that festival artists and audiences will find some deeper human truths in the many stories told in the 2011 Sydney Festival, whose intertwining narratives are part of a larger, shared story, the story of our city in summer."

Hip-hop act Arrested Development will also take part in the first night of the event.