Culture festival line-up revealed

The festival will take place in venues across the city

The line-up of performers for the 2009 Manchester International Festival has been announced.

The 17-day event includes an opera by musician Rufus Wainwright and performances from Bury-born Elbow, Mercury Music prize winners.

For the first time artists will be able to display their work at various venues across the city when the festival starts on 2 July.

But organisers said they needed to find another £200,000 in sponsorship.

Guy Garvey, lead singer with Elbow, said performing with the Halle orchestra would be a "great honour".

Guy Garvey said performing with the Halle orchestra would be a real thrill

"My grandfather used to bring me and my sister to see the Halle - they're the oldest professional orchestra in the country and the original Manchester band as well I suppose," he said.

"The idea of playing songs with them from our catalogue is amazing, just a really great honour, a real thrill for us.

"I feel very lucky to belong in the band and do all that we do, and the fact it's taken me all over the world meeting my music heroes."

Culture 'city's soul'

During the last festival in 2007, Kanye West, Happy Mondays, The Fall and PJ Harvey performed.

It also featured a Chinese opera created by former Blur frontman Damon Albarn, which included more than 40 acrobats, vocalists and martial arts experts.

Organiser Alex Poots said: "Manchester has a very, very strong claim to have its own international festival.

"It is celebrating artists from around the world and from Manchester.

"A city without culture is a city without a soul."

This year's festival will also see Stalybridge brass band, marching side by side with a steel band, the city's iconic Royal Exchange theatre transformed into a working bingo hall, an artwork of 21 upside down hanging trees and German electronic music wizards Kraftwerk playing at the Velodrome.