SUMMER OF MUSIC
It has been gratifying to see the positive response to the Liverpool Music Month/Summer of Music launch from the music community and from audiences. Everybody here knows that there is always something special happening music wise in Liverpool and the wider city region – and this campaign gives us a platform to shout about it so that everyone else knows too so they can come and join the party.
There were a few reasons that this has all come together so well this year. Initially we were looking at doing something special to celebrate ten years of Liverpool being designated a UNESCO City of Music. It is right that we should be highlighting through the UNESCO title that we are a truly international city or The World In One City as the strapline line read during Capital of Culture. If you look at our annual festivals like Africa Oyé, MILAP, Liverpool Irish Festival and the Arabic Arts Festival you get a snapshot of what we are about. And of course we have many major international artists playing events like Oyé, or at Anfield Stadium and Sound City. Bootle’s Salt and Tar follows up Sir Tom Jones with Sir Nile Rogers (I’m not sure if he is a Knight but he is kind of pop royalty so he deserves it anyway, whatever that King chap in London may have to say about it).
In fact the whole idea of us doing Liverpool Music Month/Summer of Music came about because of one of Liverpool’s oldest and most significant international relationships – with the USA and New York in particular. I was lucky enough to be in New York a couple of years ago and met the brilliant Shira Gans from the Office of the New York Mayor. Shira told me about how she had created an event called New York Music Month which runs every year in June and this meeting led directly to what we are doing now. (We should acknowledge the role the brilliant Vanessa Reed played in this. At the time Vanessa was New York based heading up New Music USA and she made the intro to Shira. And to make the circle complete Vanessa is now back in Liverpool as Chief Exec of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra). It has just been confirmed that Shira will be attending Sound City herself so it will be good to hear more from her and see how she thinks Liverpool and our campaign compares to that of New York.
What we know already is that New York are really happy that we have taken on the idea from them and are giving it our own unique Liverpool twist. The reality is that no other UK city could have done this – we know we are special musically and always have been and this is the right time to get our swagger on and shout about it.
We are a global city and always have been, open to influences from everywhere and in turn influencing and playing a major role in shaping music history across the world. (As an example just look at how local lad EsDeeKid is taking over the world at the minute). The UNESCO status is a way of amplifying this and also provides opportunities for our artists to play in other countries. Just in the last few weeks alone three singer-songwriters from Liverpool are away in Bosnia and Herzegovina collaborating with songwriters from there and this will be reciprocated with a visit to Liverpool. Elsewhere local artists Koj and MT Jones have just returned from putting their names out on a world stage at SXSW in the US, an industry platform where international careers can be made. In May we have a number of LIMF Academy artists lighting up the stage at the Hamburg River Festival. These appearances are very much focused on showing the incredibly diverse talent we have as a city now rather than a mere nod to the historic music links through the Beatles’ Hamburg appearances.
We have developed particularly strong links with another German UNESCO Music City Hannover with a number of exchanges and collaborations having taken place over the last decade. Further afield London Ontario will be gracing us with the presence of one of their groups, the gloriously named Pro Wrestling – The Band playing at the Arts Bar on May 11th following on from last year’s appearance at Sound City and the Narrative by another London artist John Fellner.
Francisco Carasco from LUMA Creations has been very active facilitating collaborations with the three Chilean UNESCO Music Cities and representing Liverpool at a number of events and conferences in Chile.
Sound City itself has always been big on international links and this year is no different with international delegates arriving from Austin, Brisbane, Valparaiso, Toronto, New York and Seoul. Another UNESCO Music City Daegu will have one of their artists inaekkum playing at the festival as well as another 20 international artists.
One of the things that occurred to us while we were planning this was that there was a bloody big hole in the music calendar in 2026 where Glastonbury normally sits. Those nice people at the BBC told us that over 30% of Glasto ticketholders are scousers so we thought that would leave an awful lot of local people and the non-scouse Glasto attendees wandering around looking for their musical summer hit of brilliant music. Just imagine if those people realised they could see a load of exciting artists without having to travel for 8 hours, haul a tent with them, sleep in a tent, deal with horrible toilets, and walk for miles over muddy fields eh? For all those people the answer is simple – come to the greatest music city in the world and enjoy Liverpool Music Month and the Summer of Music.
As part of the programme, we’re also offering artists/musicians and music based organisations the opportunity to use Liverpool Music Month/Liverpool Summer of Music as a platform for their own work, whether through performance, workshops, talks, community activity or other music-related projects that reflect the rich breadth of music making across our region. This could be existing work adapted for Liverpool Music Month or brand-new activity, and we will be able to provide some commissioning budget to participating organisations to support the development of their projects.
If you’re interested find out more here.
By Kev McManus
