Event type: Music

 

 

Formed in 1985 as the antidote to mindless pop, egocentric rock, and the indulgent, bluster of the music business, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain donned black tuxedos, and began giving ‘concerts’ in tiny rooms above old pubs.

Four decades (and 400,000,000 plucks) later they’re still thrilling audiences with their off-beat humour and four-stringed virtuosity from Tasmania to the Arctic Circle, Windsor Castle to Carnegie Hall.

There are no drums, pianos, backing tracks, guitars, or banjos, no pitch shifters or electronic trickery – just an astonishing revelation of the rich palette of orchestration afforded by ukuleles and a menagerie of voices in a collision of post-punk performance and old classics.

Come and celebrate the 40th anniversary of this much-loved institution, on a white-knuckle shopping-trolley dash through every kind of musical genre. From ABBA to ZZ Top, Tchaikovsky to Nirvana, Bluegrass to Broadway, all played on the ‘bonsai guitar”. 

Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Queen, The Rolling Stones, The Eagles, AC/DC, The Beatles, Dire Straits, Meat Loaf, ZZ Top, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Who, Boston, Toto, Van Halen, Fleetwood Mac and more

An amazing opportunity for rock fans, young and old, to celebrate three decades of the world’s greatest classic rock music with a stunning multi-million dollar sound and light show to match.

Note-for-note, anthem after anthem and riff after riff  – culminating in a show-stopping guitar duel, that is definitely not to be missed. 

The Wirral born artist has toured with legends Midge Ure and Joan Armatrading, Toby Lee and Xander And The Peace Pirates and has had her music featured on BBC 6 Music, BBC Introducing, BBC Radio Merseyside and BBC Radio Lancashire.

In addition, she has worked with former Iron Maiden frontman Blaze Bayley. Her vocals feature across the album trilogy Infinite Entanglement. Her well loved track ‘Already Won’ has also been replicated by the metal star on the long awaited album The Redemption of William Black – Infinite Entanglement part III.

Her sound is a combination of strong passionate vocals twinned with percussive, fingerstyle acoustic guitar to deliver her contemporary blues/folk sound. Liz has also released her debut album Beautiful Beasts to local and critical acclaim. 

Dylan LeBlanc is a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who often finds himself flirting with the edge, as it’s all he’s ever known. A verdict vagabond since he was a little boy tossed between Texas, Louisiana and Alabama, LeBlanc thrives on the precipice. It is that nomadic spirit that drew him not only to a life as a touring musician, but also to the beast that titles his newest record, Coyote.

Coyote is LeBlanc’s first self-produced release, boasting a cherry-picked lineup of acclaimed session players such as drummer Fred Eltringham (Ringo Starr, Sheryl Crow), pianist Jim “Moose” Brown (Bob Seger), and bass player Seth Kaufman (Lana Del Rey). Following 2019’s critically acclaimed Renegade, the record is both autobiographical and a concept album built around the character of Coyote, a man on the run.

Expect soaring love songs, boundless slide guitar, honest lyrics and dizzying arrangements – a set of tracks LeBlanc always wanted to make.

Featuring music from: The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and more!

With Robert Ames conductor, Elle Osili-Wood presenter

 

Prokofiev Suite, The Love for Three Oranges, Dobrinka Tabakova Accordion Concerto (UK premiere) Co-commission with Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Rachmaninov Symphony No.3

Featuring Andris Poga conductor, Ksenija Sidorova accordion

Thought you knew the accordion? Well, in the hands of Ksenija Sidorova, it takes on magical properties. Her previous visits to Liverpool have been sensational, and now she returns with a brand-new, bespoke showcase by the spectacularly imaginative British-Bulgarian composer, Dobrinka Tabakova. Andris Poga’s welcome return begins with Prokofiev’s cheeky musical fairytale and ends with the bittersweet beauty of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony – a song of exile by a master of melody. This will be a treat.

 

Spain’s Siglo de Oro, the Age of Gold, gave rise to some of the greatest sacred choral music of the Renaissance. The range of emotion covered by composers in the Spanish Renaissance is demonstrated beautifully in the selected works by Cristóbal de Morales and Sebastián de Vivanco that form the basis of this Choral Pilgrimage: Lead, Kindly Light.

These works are complemented by settings of words by two poems from Saint John Henry Newman: Sir James MacMillan’s Nothing in Vain, and the world premiere of Kerensa Briggs’ Lead, Kindly Light, specially commissioned for the Choral Pilgrimage.