The Winter Arts Market at Liverpool Cathedral

Merseyside’s biggest arts and crafts market, The Winter Arts Market is set to get even more exciting this year as organisers Open Culture are partnering with Merseyrail Sound Station to bring four of their most amazing artists to perform in Liverpool Cathedral’s glorious Lady Chapel on 2nd December.

With impressive songwriting skills that belie her youth, Merseyrail Sound Station finalist Molly Hughes will open the day. Her set will be followed by A Lovely War, who have been a fixture on the Liverpool live scene for a number of years now and winning over fans with their eccentric chamber pop.

Winner of this year’s Merseyrail Sound Station competition, Kingfast will perform a set of the unique, soulful pop – inspired by acts as diverse as Stevie Wonder, Bastille and Beyonce, which so impressed the judges at the final held at Liverpool Central Station in early November.

Katie Mac appeared at the 2016 Merseyrail Sound Station final and has caught the attention of gig-goers up and down the country with her big sounding folk songs.

Alongside the Merseyrail Sound Station artists, choral a cappella group Amici Cantores will perform pieces from across the centuries and genres, from Morley and Bennet to Mendelssohn and Vaughan-Williams and also living composers.

In the early afternoon, a group from Liverpool Walton Salvation Army Band will play a selection of festive songs and Christmas carols; all of the traditional favourites, including an arrangement of the Ukranian Carol of the Bells will be included specially arranged by their own former bandmaster. This is a popular tune which has been well used in many movie and advert soundtracks. The group will even be happy to take requests! There’ll also be pop-up performances from Liverpool Chamber Choir throughout the day.

Now in its ninth year, the Open Culture Winter Arts Market is the region’s best independent Christmas shopping experience, with more than 200 stalls featuring amazing ceramics, photography, illustration, clothing, homewares, unique Christmas decorations, greetings cards and decorative glassware.

Alongside the arts and crafts offer, the Winter Arts Market also features a vintage basement packed to the rafters with treasures galore including clothing, jewellery, homewares, books and vinyl from some of Liverpool’s best-known vintage sellers.

Next to the vintage basement shoppers will also find a dedicated food fair, featuring delicious food and drink including handcrafted chocolate, fruit liqueurs, port, blended teas, jams, cake and much more.

There’s also plenty for the little ones to do, as artist Liz Harry is on hand from 11am – 5pm to help create some cool-Yule decorations for your tree, jazzing up a whole blizzard of laser-cut snowflakes armed with paint, glue, stickers, pompoms, pens and all sorts of other crafty bits.

All that is enough to make even the most dedicated Christmas shopper hungry, so the Cathedral’s Welsford Café will be open all day serving a BBQ and other refreshments – including mulled wine!

The Winter Arts Market, which has taken place annually since 2009, is organised by Liverpool social enterprise Open Culture. The aim of the market, and its sister event the Summer Arts Market, is to provide local artists and crafters with a platform to sell their work directly to the public, and to provide the public with the opportunity to buy truly unique work while supporting independent businesses in the local creative economy.

 

For more details of the music lineup and a preview of some of this year’s exhibitors visit winterartsmarket.com

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