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The largest celebration of working people on the planet takes place in Liverpool next month (22nd - 30th April) as a 9 day festival of song, music, arts, theatre, poetry, cinema, photography, discussion, and walking tours takes place. The Working Class Life & Music Festival will feature 45 different events right across the city of Liverpool celebrating the lives and experiences of working people.
Organiser Alun Parry of Great Stories, the social enterprise that runs the festival, said:
“It is important, in these times especially, that we celebrate each other’s experiences and turn the spotlight onto what is great about
people. It is now officially the largest celebration of working people anywhere on the planet and I’m delighted that it’s right here in Liverpool. It’s another great claim to fame for our city.”
The festival will include shows at The Liverpool Philharmonic, Sefton Park Palm House, The Everyman Theatre, The Unity Theatre, BBC Radio Merseyside, FACT, National Museums Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, Crosby Plaza Cinema, Studio 2, News From Nowhere, and The Casa.
Folk legends Roy Bailey, Leon Rosselson and Dick Gaughan are all playing the festival, as are Michael Weston King and local folk songwriter Alun Parry. There will also be a superb Traditional Irish Music Session, and a Rub A Dub reggae special.
Independent musicians can attend the three day Liverpool Music Barcamp, featuring discussions and workshops on the music industry, while the Liverpool Socialist Singers are running an exciting flashmob workshop as well as performing in concert themselves.
National Museums Liverpool will be showcasing an exhibition at BBC Radio Merseyside’s performance space that offers a fascinating sneak peak into their oral history project 800 Lives, an innovative project that has collected the life stories of 800 Liverpool people. Merseyside Maritime Museum presents The Leaving Of Liverpool, where visitors meet the travellers as they tell their hopes and fears of travelling to the New World.
BBC Radio Merseyside are supporting the festival’s writing competition, run by local writer and broadcaster Cath Bore, and judged by a host of writing talents including the BBC’s Joan Bakewell.
Award winning performer Tayo Aluko, famous for his Call Mr Robeson
stageshow, presents From Africa To The White House, while Radio 4 poet Luke Wright brings his Cynical Ballads to the Unity, while Edgy bring their acclaimed Railway Cabaret to Metal. Meanwhile, photography fans will enjoy Bridgid Dineen’s Another Day In Liverpool photo exhibition at the Blackburne House Cafe
There will be a showing of Ken Loach’s Navigators at the Casa featuring a Q&A from the stars of the film, the charming social documentary My Fifties Liverpool at FACT, and a showing of Saturday Night Sunday Morning at the Crosby Plaza.
There are also a range of Philosophy In Pubs discussions specially themed for the festival, two lectures on Ragged Trousered Philanthropists author Robert Tressell, and a lecture on the Transport Strike of 1911.
There are two walking tours looking into Liverpool’s radical past. Radicals Rogues And Reformers is an Irish Heritage Tour, and the TUC’s The Radical Route is a walking history of Liverpool as a city of protest.
For full details about the Working Class Life & Music Festival 2011 visit www.workingclassmusic.org.uk
You can Book find out more about the Liverpool Music Barcamp here http://unconference.defnetmedia.com/
Singing Glowing Pumpkins, T-Shirts Printing and Electronic Jewellery the chance for a tour around the Liverpool maker space - Who could ask for more. 
Sound City are running some workshop this January on Music and the Media. They have a handful of saces available for digital and creative SMEs to take part in the Developing Digital and Creative Industry Business programme - read on to find out more.
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