Orches­tral Manoeu­vres in the Dark’s Andy McCluskey will join Liv­er­pool indie rock­ers Red Rum Club and psy­che­del­ic pop queen Jane Weaver as they become mem­bers of Wel­come To Euro­topia, – a super­group made up of Liv­er­pool musi­cians and Ukrain­ian artists who will take to the stage at 9:30pm on the Pier Head on 5 May in an avant-pop con­cert. It will fol­low a mem­o­rable Euro­vi­sion Vil­lage open­ing per­for­mance from 2022 Euro­vi­sion win­ners, Kalush Orches­tra.

The band is led by city art scene musi­cians Natal­ie McCool and Steal­ing Sheep and will lead an incred­i­ble line-up of musi­cians. Oth­er Liv­er­pool musi­cians per­form­ing include She Drew The Gun’s Lou Roach, vocal har­mo­ny group Mic Lowry, Mick­ey Cal­lis­to, PODGE, Kel­ly Shimeya and Dialect. They will join forces with Ukrain­ian artists Helleroid, Krapka;KOMA and Iry­na Muha in an unmiss­able per­for­mance. The con­cert in the Euro­vi­sion Vil­lage will be FREE to attend.

Wel­come to Euro­topia is just one of 24 Euro­Fes­ti­val com­mis­sions which will take place across the city from 1–14 May. Some of the oth­er projects using the city’s rich musi­cal her­itage as inspi­ra­tion include:

● Elec­tron­i­ca meets per­form­ing arts in Xpre­sia – an under­ground coun­ter­cul­ture ‘fes­ti­val with­in a fes­ti­val’ – which will erupt across some of Liverpool’s best inde­pen­dent arts and music venues from 7–9 May. Born from the shared desire to bring Ukrain­ian and UK artists togeth­er in sol­i­dar­i­ty, the fes­ti­val will cel­e­brate alter­na­tive cul­ture, uni­ty and cre­ativ­i­ty through visu­al arts, elec­tron­ic music, DJs, live music, the­atre and cabaret and cre­ative tech­nol­o­gy. Artists and DJs in the fes­ti­val include Zbaras­ki, DJ SweetSpot, Nastya Muray­o­va and Love ‘n’ Joy. Tick­ets are free and avail­able here.

● Two cities. One world-chang­ing rave! Rave UKraine, a col­lab­o­ra­tion between pro­duc­er Jez Collins, UAME I Music Saves UA and Open Cul­ture will unite DJs and ravers across simul­ta­ne­ous live events in Liv­er­pool and Kyiv, send­ing a mes­sage of love, sup­port and sol­i­dar­i­ty to the peo­ple of Ukraine. Tap­ping into the unit­ing pow­er of music, the day­time raves will fea­ture head­line DJ sets from Hot Chip, DJ Paulette, Min­gulit­ka and the leg­endary James Lavelle and streamed across the world as ravers descend on the dance floor of CONTENT in Liv­er­pool and HVLV Bar ft Hang­out in Kyiv from 2pm on 7 May. Tick­ets avail­able to pur­chase here. All tick­ets and stream­ing prof­its will go to UAME I Music Saves UA, an ini­tia­tive organ­ised by the Ukrain­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Music Events to help those in need dur­ing the war in Ukraine

● Opera meets Europop on May 9 as the Eng­lish Nation­al Opera does Euro­vi­sion. The world-renowned ENO Cho­rus and Orches­tra, con­duct­ed by Stephen Bell, will be joined at 6pm by for­mer Euro­vi­sion con­tes­tants Rus­lana, Sonia and Lin­da Mar­tin as well as inter­na­tion­al opera stars includ­ing Rus­sell Wat­son, Ella Tay­lor, Ellie Neate, Zwakele Tsha­bal­ala, Them­ba Mvu­la and Collin Shay to per­form clas­si­cal arrange­ments of some of the Song Contest’s great­est hits. A FREE sen­so­ry over­load fea­tur­ing two of the most visu­al musi­cal spec­ta­cles. And singing along won’t just be per­mit­ted, it will be mandatory!

● Tak­ing place on 11 May at Liverpool’s Pier Head (Euro­vi­sion Vil­lage), Ukrain­ian Euro­vi­sion Song Con­test 2016 win­ner and singer song­writer Jamala will per­form a FREE glob­al pre­miere of QIRIM from 6pm. This extra­or­di­nary and poignant new album is based around Crimean Tatar folk songs and accom­pa­nied by the BBC Phil­har­mon­ic Orches­tra. Jamala invites the audi­ence on a jour­ney across the Ukrain­ian penin­su­la Crimea, shin­ing a spot­light on a cul­ture and lan­guage most peo­ple know lit­tle about.

Euro­Fes­ti­val will take place across Liv­er­pool and Mersey­side includ­ing pub­lic spaces and the city’s lead­ing art venues: Blue­coat, Chavasse Park, Liv­er­pool Angli­can Cathe­dral, Every­man The­atre, Uni­ty The­atre, Every­man Cin­e­ma, Open Eye Gallery, Exchange Flags, Liv­er­pool One, Con­tent, TATE, Invis­i­ble Wind Fac­to­ry, Muse­um of Liv­er­pool and Tow­er Grounds New Brighton.

Euro­Fes­ti­val has been made pos­si­ble thanks to sup­port from the Depart­ment for Cul­ture, Media and Sport, as well as The British Coun­cil, Spir­it of 2012 and Arts Coun­cil Eng­land. The con­tent part­ners are The Ukrain­ian Insti­tute, the BBC, Liv­er­pool ONE, The Liv­er­pool BID and Roy­al Liv­er­pool Albert Dock.

For full details about Euro­Fes­ti­val vis­it the offi­cial Vis­it Liv­er­pool website.