BEATLES SIR PAUL McCARTNEY & RINGO STARR RETURN TO THEIR HOME CITY FOR EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF CULTURE

THE City of Liverpool unveiled a spectacular programme of events for its year as European Capital of Culture in 2008.  Sir Paul McCartney returns to his native city to headline ‘The Liverpool Sound’ concert at Anfield Stadium on June 1 while fellow ex Beatle Ringo Starr and Eurythmic Dave Stewart will head up ‘Liverpool The Musical’ at the opening of the brand new Liverpool Echo Arena on 12 January 2008.

The programme revealed sees collaboration between the Liverpool Culture Company and major cultural institutions, artists, performers and venues throughout Liverpool, Merseyside, and beyond.

This announcement coincided with the launch of a ticket ballot (full details on separate press release), for a number of major events including the official opening event of the 2008 programme at the Liverpool Arena and The Liverpool Sound at Anfield Stadium.

The Liverpool Sound

This once-in-a-lifetime concert to celebrate Liverpool’s unrivalled status as the World’s Capital of pop, rock and contemporary music will be a global event. It will be a multi-artist concert in front of 35,000 people at the world famous Anfield Football Stadium headlined by Sir Paul McCartney and his band and will also feature, live on stage, global superstars of popular music, to be announced at a later date. Millions of viewers will also see this celebration of Liverpool on television and online as it will be broadcast live to a worldwide audience. This will be the first and last global concert ever to be staged at Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club, before it relocates. It is well documented that world famous artists and musicians cite the Liverpool music scene as an inspiration to them and their music, and now, that music has travelled around the world and will, in 2008 at The Liverpool Sound, come back home to be redefined in the place it was born.

Sir Paul McCartney said:- “I’m very excited about Liverpool being the European Capital of Culture in 2008. We have a fantastic series of events which are sure to get you excited too. I’m very proud of the city and I look forward to welcoming you all and showing you a good time. It’s going to be a great year!”

The Official Opening Event

Taking place over 3 days (11 January 2008 to 13 January 2008) the opening weekend will feature a series of public events and concerts. Overseeing the proceedings is dynamic duo Nigel Jamieson whose credits include the opening ceremony for the Sydney Olympics and the unforgettable closing ceremony in the Manchester Commonwealth Games, and Jayne Casey, one of the driving forces behind Liverpool’s world famous Cream and the city’s newly formed Independent District. The weekend will begin on Friday 11 January with a free open air show on St George’s Plateau animating familiar landmarks and including the most remarkable aerial spectacle and theatrical effects the city has ever seen.

Ringo Starr, Dave Stewart, Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, No Fakin DJ’s, Echo and the Bunnymen, Pete Wylie, Ian Brodie, Shack, and The Christians will be some of the stars celebrating the official opening of the Arena, on Saturday 12 January 2008, with an exclusive one off performance of ‘Liverpool The Musical’. This evening to remember, will be brought to life by probably the most unusual line up ever to set foot on one stage. With special guests plus a cast of poets, singers, aerialists, comedians, construction workers, gardeners, and sailors…

Along with specially commissioned film and rare archive footage, Liverpool The Musical will feature music composed by:- Elgar, John Newton, The Real Thing, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Beatles, The La’s, The Wombats, The Farm, The Zutons, Stravinsky, and Space, rearranged by The Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in collaboration with No Fakin DJs conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

On Sunday 13 January 2008 the celebration continues when many of the city’s major arts venues open their doors. The weekend will also pay homage to the Bluecoat ahead of its re opening after a £12.5 million refurbishment.

Free Events

Much of the 2008 programme is made up of FREE events. Building on Liverpool’s reputation for excellence in the visual art world, the year will include a city-wide public art programme commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company in association with Liverpool Biennial. For more than 12 months, public art will animate parks, plazas, pavilions and transport. Impossible to miss, this will work in tandem with a programme of local and international street theatre.

Pavilions are at the forefront of the public interventions programme, reflecting Liverpool’s cultural life and its varied communities, including the city centre’s surrounding neighbourhoods. Three specially commissioned and spectacular pavilions are planned, launching between March and May 2008.

In May 2006 the city of London stopped in its tracks and marvelled at the sight of a gigantic wooden elephant, and a little-girl giant in a green dress. A million people jammed the streets, astonished at the scale and beauty of the spectacular Sultan’s Elephant. Now Artichoke, the company that brought that event to London, is planning a magical new show, created specially for Liverpool 2008, commissioned by the Liverpool Culture Company. Will You Find It? will take place across Liverpool between 26 September 2008 to 28 September 2008. The precise details are a closely-guarded secret, but it will be a large scale, unforgettable piece of live theatre, played out against city landmarks. The public can register for updates on www.willyoufindit.co.uk.

In May, Liverpool Streets Ahead will bring a weekend of street entertainment, visual installations, circus and music of the highest calibre, brought to the city by the internationally renowned MIA.

In June up to 100 Superlambananas, specially designed by local artists, will animate the city for a free ten week public art event. Go Superlambananas! will involve businesses and communities from around the region.

Participation

Underpinning the whole year will be a participative programme working at different levels across the city’s many communities. This will range from huge public participation events in the streets and in the parks, through to a ground-breaking programme of work (Creative Communities), which is changing the way the city works and since 2003 has engaged more than 1.3 million people across the region (source: Impacts 08). In addition, The Open Culture project will wrap around the whole programme, with a resounding Liverpool accent.

New Commissions

The Liverpool Culture Company has made a series of UK and international commissions, key pieces of work across all genres, for 2008. The programme includes: Into the Little Hill, an opera based on the story of The Pied Piper in collaboration with the Festival d’Automne, Paris; Ghost Sonata an epic promenade by The People Show, directed by Josette Bushall-Mingo with music by Mike Figgis; and One Step Forward One Step Back, by Dreamthinkspeak, a site specific work created for Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral based on Dante’s Divine Comedy. The Liverpool Culture Company has also created a ‘Liverpool Commissions’ strand for Merseyside-based companies, including: AS Productions’ An Audience with Shankly using extensive documentary footage to create mixed media theatre based on the life on the Liverpool FC legend, and Chinese Dub, when local producer Zi Lan joins forces with Jah Wobble, Chinese musicians and the Pagoda’s Chinese Youth Orchestra.

Music

In 2008, Liverpool’s regular feast of music is enhanced and expanded, bringing artists from all over the world together with local musicians in special projects, new commissions and large scale concerts. Music will be coming home as Paul McCartney and friends introduce The Liverpool Sound concert at Anfield in June 2008. Liverpool’s links with its sister city Cologne are strengthened with a joint performance of Britten’s War Requiem, and to accompany the Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool there will be a series of concerts celebrating the music of Vienna, past and present. In April, a weekend of Viennese Balls will be held against the backdrop of magnificent St George’s Hall, with music provided by the RLPO. In the run-up to the weekend, a series of community workshops and rehearsals will take place. A national new composer competition with Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and Ensemble 10.10 will see two new works performed at The Cornerstone Festival in November 2008 alongside a newly commissioned work by Steve Reich performed by Eighth Blackbird.

Liverpool Music Week, in November 2008, will bring hundreds of bands and thousands of fans to Liverpool for more than 2 weeks of concerts.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's year will feature a total of 30 new commissions, including major works by Sir John Tavener, Karl Jenkins, Michael Nyman and Brett Dean, alongside works by Liverpool born composers Kenneth Hesketh, Emily Howard, Stephen Pratt, and BBC Young Musician and Composer of the Year 2007, Mark Simpson.

Vasily Petrenko, the Phil's dynamic young Russian principal conductor, widely acknowledged as one of the most exciting musicians of his generation, will be in Liverpool throughout the year, conducting the Orchestra at major events at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, in Liverpool's 2 cathedrals and at other venues in the city.

Amongst a host of international artists and ensembles appearing during 2008 are the Phil's Artists Laureate 2008; Simon Rattle and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Rattle conducts the Berlin Philharmoniker (4 September) and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra featuring the world premiere of a new work by Brett Dean (2 October); Ashkenazy conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (26 & 27 November 2008) and the European Union Youth Orchestra (30 March 2008).

Fresh Festival at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (3-6 January) features cutting edge jazz, world and contemporary music with international artists alongside home-grown talent. The 2008 programme includes a performance by fusion pioneer and 7-time Grammy award-winner Wayne Shorter, a tenor and soprano saxophonist without equal, who will step into the acoustic realm in a special collaboration with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (5 January 2008).

Performing Arts

Merseyside Dance Initiative will host the UK’s premiere showcase for diverse and new dance performance, British Dance Edition 2008, featuring major dance companies. Highlights include: 2 gala triple bills at The Liverpool Empire starring Hofesh Schecter, Richard Alston and Russell Maliphant. Other companies appearing are Ballet Lorent, Candoco, New Art Club, Jasmin Vardimon, Vincent Dance Company and Probe. LEAP 08, MDI’s annual contemporary dance festival will follow with a UK premiere of a co-commissioned piece by Akram Khan with The National Ballet of China.

The programme also includes Homotopia’s Liverpool Is Burning, a bold, sensational and epic dance piece and celebration of ‘Voguing’ in collaboration with House of Suarez. A community and participatory site specific piece, Liverpool Is Burning blurs the boundaries of dance and live art fused with club culture.

The Everyman and Playhouse theatres’ programme in 2008 will include several new commissions, all infused with the unique spirit of the city while being created for the national and international stage. These productions include: 3 Sisters on Hope Street, a vibrant new take on Chekhov’s classic by Liverpool writer Diane Samuels, with Tracy-Ann Oberman, relocating the story from Russia to the Jewish community of Liverpool in 1948; Once Upon A Time At the Adelphi is a new musical comedy, taking an irreverent but affectionate look at one of Liverpool’s iconic buildings and its extraordinary history by writer and director Phil Willmott; Eric’s - The Musical sees another Liverpool icon coming under the spotlight from Liverpool writer Mark Davies Markham. Eric’s will celebrate this musical hothouse of the late seventies early eighties when The Clash, The Ramones and The Sex Pistols ignited a creative spark that fired a generation. The theatres will announce more new 2008 commissions together with the very best touring companies of international quality and renown during the next few months. On 31 December Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers returns to The Empire, celebrating 25 years since it first played the Liverpool Playhouse, after beginning life at the Mersey Youth Theatre. Unity plays to its strength in 2008 by building upon its excellent track record in encouraging local new writing and supporting new Liverpool companies. The year opens with premieres of four new shows from emerging and established Liverpool companies:- Big Wow, Ullaloom Theatre Company, Momentum, and Liverpool’s Rejects Revenge.

Visual Arts

The 5th edition of Liverpool Biennial (20 September – 20 November 2008) will be even more impressive in scale and ambition than its predecessors. Liverpool’s cumulative experience of curating exhibitions by commissioning ambitious and challenging new artworks by leading international artists for gallery and public spaces enables it to realise exhibitions of a scale and ambition not to be found elsewhere in the UK, and has made its Biennial an example to others worldwide and a magnet to art lovers and professionals.

In 2008 Tate Liverpool will bring a range of world-class art to the city, displaying masterpieces from the Tate Collection alongside modern classics by Gustav Klimt and Niki de Saint Phalle, and ending the year with the finest new commissions. The 2007 Turner Prize takes Tate Liverpool into 2008 on a high, and the Gallery will follow this with the 1st major UK exhibition of work by Niki de Saint Phalle, best known for her fountain works outside the Centre Pompidou. In May, Tate Liverpool unveils the 1st ever UK exhibition of work by Gustav Klimt, one of the world’s most influential and revered artists. In the autumn, the focus shifts to new work with the 5th Liverpool Biennial. In addition to this, Tate Liverpool celebrates its 20th anniversary in May 2008, with a weekend of wide-ranging events for all ages.

After a £12.5 million re-fit, the Bluecoat, Liverpool city centre’s oldest building and one of the UK’s oldest art spaces, will become a base for the UK’s most talented emerging artists when it re-opens in 2008. The refurbished and extended space will provide a true legacy for the 08 celebrations by building on the tradition of supporting and showcasing the very best creative talent as it emerges, and providing studio space for young artists within a unique creative community. It will be a place to see the Turner Prize winners of tomorrow, as well as leading new composers, choreographers, musicians, designers, writers, craftspeople and artists of all kinds.

National Museums Liverpool presents two blockbuster exhibitions and an important new commission . From the Cavern to Creamfields, Billy Fury to the Zutons, The Beat Goes On (12 July 2008 to 1 November 2009) provides a journey through 40 years of Liverpool music. Meanwhile, Art in the Age of Steam (18 April 2008 to 10 August 2008) will explore the fear and excitement of early train travel as it captures the artist’s response to the advent of the steam locomotion, featuring artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Edward Hopper. Two years in the making Ben Johnson's Liverpool Cityscape (24 May 2008 to 2 November 2008) is painstakingly detailed, showing Liverpool’s famous skyline from a vantage point high above the River Mersey, looking towards the Three Graces.

FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) is devoting its 2008 programme to one concept; Human Futures. Internationally renowned artists – including Orlan, Al and Al, Zbigniew Oksiuta and Pipilotti Rist – will exhibit new commissions and existing work alongside events, workshops, discussions and debates designed to challenge our idea of the world around us and encourage us to develop a vision of the world we want to live in. The year begins with SK- Interfaces, the first exhibition of its kind in the UK, which includes the work of artists that use biology as a material for art. FACT’s pioneering web-casting project tenantspin, supported by Arena Housing, will take a leading role during 2008’s European Capital of Culture celebrations. Adding their voice to the debate on art and life in Liverpool, tenantspin become Cultural Commentators in the Community in January. Throughout the year, tenantspin’s development into north Liverpool continues with the launch of Electric Blanket, a new commission drawing communities and artists together through creative technologies.

Architecture

‘A Foundation’ has refurbished a Greenland Street site, three former industrial buildings in Liverpool at the heart of the old port area. By 2008, this will be one of the largest and most challenging spaces for contemporary art in the UK.

As part of the Liverpool Commissions, A Foundation has commissioned a new work by Runcorn-born artist Phil Collins, who will make a new film piece made in collaboration with the people of Liverpool.

Cities on the Edge

The main European project of Liverpool 2008 is Cities on the Edge, featuring 5 other cities with similar characteristics – Naples, Marseilles, Istanbul, Gdansk, Bremen. They are all ports, cities with great histories, cities which have battled with their capital cities over many centuries, cities famous for their creativity, humour, distinctiveness, love of football. They are also cities which are sometimes considered by their countrymen to be difficult and unruly. Throughout the year there will be a series of collaborations, exchanges, conferences, debates, performances and activities.

Details of the Cities on the Edge programme will be announced in mid October 2007.

The Closing

Portrait of a Nation is a campaign being run in 2007 and 2008 by the Liverpool Culture Company, 17 member cities of the Urban Cultural Network and the Heritage Lottery Fund.

It sees young people using a diverse range of mediums to explore their heritage and local identity and define how the past is central to a vibrant present and optimistic future.

A series of events in the 17 cities will showcase the young peoples' arts and heritage projects, revealing what is special to them about where they come from, their local cultures, communities and identities.

Their work will culminate in a spectacular festival at the end of 2008 to close Liverpool’s Capital of Culture celebrations.

Each city will be adopted by a Liverpool neighbourhood, as communities celebrate their own cultural identity alongside that of their hosts.

This update on the Liverpool 08 programme follows last November’s unveiling of the first 70 highlights for 2008.

Further announcements will continue to be made in the coming months.