Event type: Concert

Inspired by one of the earliest texts of Chinese philosophy, Divine Intimacies explores how nearly a thousand years of musical thought can be translated into contemporary sound.

During the performance, visualisations of the I-Ching are generated in real time. These are based on shifting combinations of Yin and Yang that guide a series of structured improvisations between the musicians, shaping the music as it unfolds and allowing each performance to take a different path. Music by Kaija Saariaho, John Cage, and J.S. Bach appears alongside a medieval chant by Hildegard von Bingen, ancient Chinese ritual drumming, and works by Yang Yong and Toshio Hosokawa. Although separated by time, geography, and musical language, these works share a sensitivity to resonance, stillness, and the subtle forces that shape the natural world.

The musicians will be surrounded by a responsive LED installation created by artist Ke Peng, with visuals by Chang Meng. Light shifts in colour and pattern across the performance, forming a changing visual landscape around the musicians. 

Tangram is an artist collective specialising in multidisciplinary and cross-cultural productions. They are Associate Artists with the London Symphony Orchestra at LSO St Luke’s, where they have been praised for their “highly imaginative presentations” (I CARE IF YOU LISTEN), “deep-rooted originality” (Morning Star), “powerfully theatrical performance” (TEMPO), and “intoxicating overall mood of poetry, restraint and elegance” (The Stage).”

Part of the Yoko Ono Lennon Lunchtime Concert SeriesMore tickets for this concert will be released on Wednesday 23 September (four weeks before the concert). If it is currently showing as sold out, please check back on this page then. 

Hank Bee is the solo project of Liverpool-based, Northumbrian musician Hannah Brown. Drawing from the folk and country traditions of the north-east while embracing the intensity of alternative rock, her music offers lyrical candour wrapped in vivid guitar-led arrangements. Performing alongside her band, their live shows have become a local staple, blending reflective songwriting with epic, emotive performances. 

Featured on the likes of BBC6 Music, KEXP, and X Radio and long-listed for Greenman Rising 2026, Hank Bee is one of the UKs most promising emerging artists. Originally from Morpeth, Northumberland, Brown moved to Liverpool in 2016 and has become a familiar face in its music scene. Her writing is shaped by place, identity, and a fascination with the beauty and drudgery of the everyday.

Celebrating over 40 years as a live performer, Eddi Reader has effortlessly developed into one of popular music’s most thrilling and affecting performers. What sets Eddi apart is the depth and quality of the emotional performance and ability to not only move the listener, but connect her experience to that of her audience. No two performances are ever the same.

Though first brought into the limelight as front woman for Fairground Attraction, who’s #1 single, Perfect and parent album, First of a Million Kisses, both topped the charts in the U.K., Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, it was Eddi’s subsequent solo albums that signalled her ability to assimilate different musical styles and make them very much her own. Notably, The Songs of Robert Burns (2003) is a timeless interpretation showcasing the poems of Scotland’s national bard and gained her honorary degrees from Strathclyde University, Caledonia University, Stirling University, Edinburgh University and Paisley University as well as an MBE for outstanding contributions to the Arts.

With her work in song, from the traditional to the contemporary, Eddi Reader extinguishes the preordained boundaries of genre, bringing joyous life to all forms. Her rare blend of meltingly true vocals and towering romanticism combine with an astute and pragmatic nature to make her a unique and powerful figure in contemporary music. With 10 critically acclaimed solo albums, and awards in tow, Eddi continues to delight audiences worldwide. The past few years have proved to be some of her busiest yet, playing sell out shows as part of her ‘40 Years Live Tour’ in addition to appearing as special guest with the Jools Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra for an extensive UK tour.

Eddi has also explored the acting profession, through her acclaimed performances as Jolene Jowett in John Byrnes Your Cheatin Heart (BBC Scotland production starring Tilda Swinton). She also appeared as a 1937 jazz singer in Richard Linklaters movie: Orson And Me, starring Zac Ephron and in her contribution as Joy 3 in Michael Boyd’s production of Janice Galloway’s The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, (Radio Four and a Tron theatre production also starring Siobhan Redmond and Jenny Black).

With Support from Miwa Nagato-Apthorp.

Vox Lumiere shatters the boundaries between concert hall and cinema. Award-winning Vox Lumiere transforms Fritz Lang’s iconic 1927 silent masterpiece Metropolis into an explosive live experience with live band, thrilling original new music and powerhouse vocals.

It’s a rock concert, theatrical event, and cinematic journey rolled into one.

Jonathan Crossley (UK/ZA), hailed by Guitar Moderne as “the poster-boy for modern guitar” launches two new albums; Solace, featuring David Kollar (SK), Lukas Ligeti (AT/US) and guest Arve Henriksen, arrives on 7D Media, a post-King Crimson experimental hub. 

Kollar’s playing has been described as “fearless, texturally rich and uncompromising” while Ligeti is “one of the world’s most ingenious composers”. 

The evening also unveils St Augustine’s Remorse featuring Carlo Mombelli (ZA), whose work is “defiantly individual and visionary” and Johnny Hunter (UK) stepping in: cutting-edge international improvisation with deeply individual musical voices.

An evening of music shaped through collaboration, creativity and cultural exchange, bringing together musicians from Samyo, the UK’s National Youth Orchestra for Indian Music, and Tarang, the UK’s Indian Music Collective.Created during an intensive summer residency in Liverpool, the performance brings together Indian classical traditions with ensemble experimentation, improvisation and contemporary musical influences. Showcasing both established repertoire and newly developed collaborations, Re:Sound celebrates the creativity and artistry of musicians working across cultures and musical styles.Featuring a series of collaborations, small ensembles and creative partnerships, the evening highlights evolving artistic voices, fresh perspectives and dynamic musical connections.Supported by Arts Council England, Samyo and Tarang bring together young musicians and emerging artists from across the UK, creating opportunities for artistic development, collaboration and the exploration of new musical ideas.Expect an evening of vibrant musical conversations, changing ensemble combinations and creative exploration from a new generation of artists working between traditions, cultures and sound-worlds.

Promoted by Milap

Fairport Convention have been entertaining music lovers for over half a century, with 2026 being their 59th anniversary!

During that time the band that launched British folk-rock has seen many changes, but one thing has remained the same – Fairport’s passion for performance. 

This year’s autumn tour will present a mix of long-established Fairport favourites and some surprises from albums old and new. Fairport Convention have won a BBC Lifetime Achievement Award and Radio 2 listeners voted their ground-breaking album Liege & Lief ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’. Their story has been celebrated with television documentaries on BBC Four and Sky Arts. The band features founding member Simon Nicol on guitar and vocals, Dave Pegg on bass guitar and vocals, Ric Sanders on violin, Chris Leslie on bouzouki, mandolin, banjo, fiddle and vocals.

Part of the Yoko Ono Lennon Lunchtime Concert Series

More tickets for this concert will be released on Wednesday 16 September (four weeks before the concert). If it is currently showing as sold out, please check back on this page then. 

Celebrating the expressive power of the cello.

Britten’s Sonata in C, written for the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, is full of contrast, moving from playful energy to darker, more reflective moods. 

Originally written for a now-obsolete instrument, Schubert’s ‘Arpeggione’ Sonata has become one of the cello’s most loved works, generous with warm melodies and gentle lyricism.

Music which evokes energy, toil and labour, but which also tells of community; the beating heart of industrial heartlands.

Bringing together music for string quartet with archive recorded sound – and featuring new work from composer William Marsey and arranger William Newell – this concert from the Solem Quartet documents and celebrates the rich history of industry in the UK.

Industry has been central to the story of the UK – and the western world – since the nineteenth century. And tied to industry is community; communities who were forged in the heat and struggle of labour, and who so often celebrated their togetherness with music.

In this concert, we embark on a musical narrative. Part I begins in a time before industry: we hear sounds of nature, pastoral folk songs in the form of Ca’ the Yowes and The Water of the Tyne, and the rhythm of work in a Western Isles’ waulking song – all of which will, as industry takes over, drowned by the clamour of machinery.

The contained energy in the perpetual motion of Benjamin Britten’s Quartet No. 2 ‘Vivace’ lights a match, the ignition from which a revolution will follow, while the full-throttle nature of Julia Wolfe’s Dig Deep evokes the intensity and grit of tough industrial work.

“I think of music as a strategy for mustering enthusiasm and joy. It’s a way of setting the world in order, a method of carving up time in a way that, seemingly by magic, changes our frame of mind, energises us, and gives us courage and reassurance.” In her programme note for Enthusiasm Strategies, which begins Part 2, Missy Mazzoli neatly summarises why music, and music-making, persists, especially as an antidote to hardship.

“Enthusiasm and joy” can be found in the playing of Tom Clough, virtuoso Northumbrian pipe player and composer who worked as a miner in Newsham; and the warmth and comradery of community is heard through an archive recording of a Llangynwyd pub in 1976. Interacting with newly-arranged live accompaniment by Solem Quartet violinist Wiliam Newell, these historic recordings come to life.

Throughout the concert, William Marsey’s chorales, commissioned for this concert, offer respite and reflection through a contemporary lens on the recordings and programmatic music. Marsey’s Be Nice To See You gently reminds us of the composers’ roots in his hometown of Hartlepool, and his enduring connection to it, employing recorded quotidian conversations with the composers’ parents.

The concert ends with that post-industrial anthem from Manchester, a live recording of Joy Division’s ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ with a new musical framing, proving music’s unique power to unite industrial communities in defiance and celebration.  

 

Ten years since the project’s debut at Edge Hill station, we revisit Steve Reich’s poignant Different Trains with Bill Morrison’s film accompaniment. Celebrating other Liverpool works, we hear a premiere from Andrew Barney, and music by local composers Mark Simpson and Nneka Cummins, whose work finding gills won an Ivor Novello Award. Promoted by Liverpool Philharmonic