Celebrating Please Please Me at 60

The Music Team members at Liverpool Hope University would be delighted for you to join us for a weekend of scholarly celebrations of the Beatles! This interdisciplinary, international Beatles symposium will be held on March 25-26, 2023 at the School of Creative and Performing Arts, located in the heart of Liverpool’s vibrant city centre.

This symposium is in honour of the 60th anniversary of the release of the Beatles' debut album, Please Please Me. The weekend will feature two full days of presentations of the latest research on the Beatles from panels of international scholars, who will explore the musical, cultural, historical, political, and social contexts of the Beatles’ and solo Beatles’ works.

As part of the symposium, on Saturday afternoon, National Television Award nominated filmmakers Roger Appleton and David Bedford of Brightmoon Media Company, based in Liverpool, will provide a lunchtime presentation on music documentary filmmaking. https://www.brightmoonmedia.co.uk/

The symposium will feature a keynote address on Saturday evening from Professor Kenneth Womack, one of the world’s leading authorities on the Beatles and their enduring cultural influence. https://kennethwomack.com/

On Sunday afternoon, Brightmoon Media Company will host a lunchtime panel of local Merseyside musicians who were active on the Liverpool scene in the 1960s alongside the Beatles.

The symposium will conclude with a screening of Looking for Lennon (Brightmoon Media Company), a film that celebrates over fifty years of music made on Merseyside.