Confirmed Events Include

Everybody Loves a Winner
Neil Bartlett, Simon Deacon & Struan Leslie
You have got to ask yourself, haven’t you, love? Hope - does it have a number? Transforming the iconic Royal Exchange into a working bingo hall for the occasion, Everybody Loves a Winner tracks a group of twenty players through their night out.

Prima Donna
Rufus Wainwright
Paris. Bastille Day. 1970. Régine Saint Laurent, once the world’s most revered operatic soprano, is preparing for her return to the stage after six years of silence. But in doing so, Régine is forced to confront the ghosts of her past.

JS Bach / Zaha Hadid Architects
Piotr Anderszewski, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Alina Ibragimova
The solo works of Johann Sebastian Bach are beautiful and audacious, striking and sensual. The same can be said for the remarkable creations of Zaha Hadid, one of the most artistic and forward-thinking architects of her generation.

Kraftwerk
Special guest Steve Reich
The Festival is proud to present two true pioneers of modern music: German electronic wizards Kraftwerk and dynamic American composer Steve Reich, joining forces for this unique show at the stunning Manchester Velodrome.

Flailing Trees
Gustav Metzger
Walking or driving the same streets every day, many of us take our surroundings for granted. Artist Gustav Metzger will be challenging this sense of security with Flailing Trees, an arresting and poignant new piece of public art that will stand in the Manchester Peace Garden

End of the Road
Young@HeartNo Theater
While others their age have been collecting free bus passes, the Massachusetts based Young@Heart Chorus have been busy racking up air miles touring their remarkable collaborations with No Theater. Made up entirely of amateur singers of a certain age (the youngest 73)

The Manchester Report
Manchester was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, which boosted fossil fuel use and kick-started climate change. It’s only fitting then that the city should also be at the heart of attempts to solve this uniquely challenging problem.

Procession
Jeremy Deller
Celebrate the launch weekend of MIF by lining the Deansgate mile to witness a free and uniquely Mancunian procession, created by Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller.

De La Soul
20 Years High and Rising
Since the late 1980s, hip hop trio De La Soul have been proving to audiences worldwide that three really is the magic number. Now, for their only full-scale UK shows of the year, they’re going back to the Daisy Age.

Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed
The Yellow Pony and Other Songs and Stories
Performing for the first time together in the UK, American artists Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed share classic and recent works in this intimate evening of music, stories, songs and poems.

Same Teens
Mystery Jets
The Festival is pleased to welcome Same Teens, who will be creating and presenting a pair of extra-special shows in the Pavilion Theatre. Solely for 15 to 19 year olds, the gigs will be headlined by Mystery Jets, with an array of support bands and DJ sets

Amadou & Mariam and The Beating Wing Orchestra
Exodus Live Special
The Beating Wing Orchestra (BWO) returns to the Festival for a unique collaboration with Malian superstars Amadou & Mariam. Formed in Manchester from musicians of refugee and other migrant backgrounds coming from countries as diverse as Kurdistan and Cameroon, Bangladesh and Brazil

The Durutti Column
A Paean to Wilson
In 1978, Vini Reilly’s Durutti Column were the first band signed by Tony Wilson to his fledgling Factory label. Now, three decades after Reilly’s first Factory releases and nearly two years after Wilson’s death, the Festival are proud to premiere A Paean to Wilson

Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation/Manchester International Festival
Abu Dhabi Music & Arts Foundation (ADMAF) and MIF are launching a new partnership which will explore the art of storytelling from United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Egypt and the UK. This will start in the 2009 Festival with a free storytelling event for schools

True Faith
A Celebration of Manchester-Made Talent
Created for the intimate surroundings of the Festival’s Pavilion Theatre, True Faith is a celebration of established and emerging cultural talent, all of it made in Manchester. An Audience with… offers an opportunity to get up close and personal with Elbow’s Guy Garvey

Procession: An Exhibition
To accompany Jeremy Deller’s Procession, held on MIF’s first weekend, Cornerhouse will be staging a major exhibition, documenting both the Procession itself and the ideas that informed its creation. A specially commissioned film of Procession will play as part of the show

Manchester Jazz Festival
The Real Book North West Band
Passing the cultural baton to the manchester jazz festival which starts on 24 July, MIF welcomes this quintet of top local players for a special lunchtime concert. The group will be performing works from the Real Book North West, a celebration of the region’s best jazz composers

Festival Feast
To close the 2009 Festival, MIF will be offering 2,000 people the chance to taste the city as they’ve never tasted it before. Several internationally renowned culinary experts will be working with chefs drawn from Manchester’s diverse range of communities

Antony and the Johnsons
Manchester Camerata, Paul Normandale
A genuine one-of-a-kind performer, Antony Hegarty shot to fame in 2005, when I Am A Bird Now beat a host of big names to win the prestigious Mercury Music Prize.

Carlos Acosta
BBC Philharmonic
At MIF 2007, Carlos Acosta thrilled packed houses at The Lowry with a series of breathtaking performances. Two years later, the greatest male ballet dancer of his generation returns to the city, joined by the BBC Philharmonic and a number of other awe-inspiring dancers

Elbow and The Hallé
Orchestrated and conducted by Joe Duddell
From the release of 2001 debut Asleep in the Back to 2008’s Mercury Prize, and South Bank Show Award, winning fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid, Elbow’s journey has been a remarkable one. For the Festival, Manchester’s favourite sons return to their cherished home town

Marina Abramović Presents…
Following the iconoclastic Il Tempo del Postino in 2007, MIF returns to the crossroads of visual art and performance, inviting world-renowned artist Marina Abramović to curate an epic group show featuring some of the most innovative live artists working today.

It Felt Like a Kiss
Punchdrunk, Adam Curtis, Damon Albarn
It Felt Like a Kiss tells the story of America’s rise to power in the golden age of pop, and the unforeseen consequences it had on the world and in our minds. Beginning in 1959, the show spotlights the dreams and desires that America inspired during the ’60s