Arts: Hause music.

Byline: Joe Riley

WHEN asked if he was familiar with Stockhausen,Sir Thomas Beecham,both conductor and musical wag, famously replied: "Yes, I trod in some this morning."

The German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen - who used electronic gadgetry and tapes in producing his compositions - was a controversial figure right up to the time of his death last year, aged 79.

But it is no surprise to see a concert dedicated to his music at the heart of Liverpool's best arts festival.

Cornerstone, run by Liverpool Hope University, is now in its seventh year, having grown from a weekend featuring just four events into a programme comprising more than 60 attractions packed into 18 days.

The Stockhausen concert on December 5, the exact first anniversary of the composer's death (and ironically the 217th anniversary of Mozart's death), has a particular resonance for festival curator Stephen Pratt.

He is widely credited with the best ever radio interview with Stockhausen: "Everyone else wanted to talk about his methods. I just started talking to him about his music. Instead of the promised 10 minutes, I got more than half-an-hour," recalls Stephen, himself a composer who has just had a major work (Uneasy Vespers 11) premiered by the Liverpool Phil.

The Radio 3 discussion went some way to untangling and dismissing the widely held conception of Stockhausen's music as electronic gimmickry.

Even so, the Cornerstone concert, at Hope's Everton campus, doesn't over-gild the lily: Stephen Pratt offers four works in 90 minutes - sufficient to satisfy the faithful but not deter the curious.

Another featured composer still much misunderstood is represented in tonight's Capital of Culture Cornerstone special at St George's Hall concert room.

New York based Steve Reich's Double Sextet, which simultaneously combines live and pre-recorded material, gets its European premiere.

It's part of The Only Moving Thing, a concept programme from American ensemble Eighth Blackbird.

Also featured is a collaboration between US composers David Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe, and New York choreographer Susan Marshall.

A transatlantic theme runs through the entire festival programme.

The Jose Limon Dance Company,also from New York, are another highlight, as is a concert of music by Gershwin and Ives by the international pianist Joanna MacGregor, who is also a regular visiting professor at Hope.

Of particular interest is an exhibition of Liverpool/New York inspired paintings - some not seen before - by the late Adrian Henri.

Cornerstone Festival - until December 6.

MORE than 50,000 people have seen a Dave Kirby play (Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels - co-written with Nicky Allt - Lost Soul, Council Depot Blues) in 2008. This makes the Liverpool writer the most successful theatrical scribe of Capital of Culture year. Royal Court director Kevin Fearon says: "Dave gives the audiences of Liverpool what they want."