Culture Year kicks off with three-day music extravaganza

Jan 2 2008 by Phil Key, Liverpool Daily Post

THE first big festival celebrating Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture gets under way in the Hope Street area of Liverpool tomorrow.

The three-day Fresh Festival features 21 contemporary performances in a “fresh” start to the New Year.

It opens tomorrow at 8pm, in the Rodewald Suite of the Philharmonic Hall, where piano accord-ionist Karen Tweed will perform numbers from her album, May Monday.

It will continue until the early hours of Sunday when DJ Mike Chadwick goes on stage at The Magnet at 2am.

One intriguing con-cert will be by improv- ising musicians, The Bays. Their Philhar- monic Hall concert on Friday will find them working with The Her- itage Orchestra for their first attempt at orchestral improvisation.

American jazz leg- end, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, will bring his quartet to the Phil on Saturday to play with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.

Other stars lined up include British singer/ songwriter Julia Biel at the Hope Street Hotel tomorrow, trumpeter Neil Yates and band New Origins at the Rodewald Suite on Friday – and, on Satur- day, New Zealand com- poser and violist John Metcalfe at the Rodewald Suite and Liverpool singer Thomas Lang at the Philharmonic Hall.