Liverpool celebrates Beatles' Sgt Pepper disc's 50th birthday

Fifty years ago The Beatles released one of their most celebrated albums, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

To pay homage to the band and the album, the group's home city of Liverpool commissioned 13 original new works of art, each inspired by a song from the album.

Celebrations for Sgt Pepper at 50: Heading for Home kicked off on June 1, the exact day 50 years ago when the epoch-defining album was released.

Over the next two weeks across the city, there will be a mixture of performances, installations, music, theatre and dance based on the band's 13 tracks on the album.

Paul McCartney said in a statement to mark the anniversary, "It's truly amazing to see our home town come together to celebrate this album in such style. It's touching to see, after all this time what Sgt. Pepper means to so many people".

The City of Liverpool still attracts hundreds and thousands of the group's fans every year.

Liverpool mayor Joe Anderson said: "Let's not forget that the Beatles is one of the most famous and iconic part of music history as a band, as poets, as people that performed. So it has shown the brand of Liverpool to the world, and I think that's something that we can be proud of."

Among those who have reimagined the songs include Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller who has a series of public art commissions around Liverpool on the themes of friendship and self-sacrifice inspired by With a Little Help from My Friends.

Meanwhile, Milapfest: The Beatles Ragafest will do their take on the song Within You, Without you with an Indian twist.

Pandit Ranajit Sengupta, a world-renowned Sarod player, a lute-like instrument, said the Beatles were a huge influence on him, "The group discovered many sounds which were not ever used before, and also especially, I like their music after they've visited India. The Indian influence, the idea of raga, and using it with western harmony, it is incredible, and that is one part of my research work as a musician that I found they were much ahead of their time."

American feminist Judy Chicago and the Avant-Garde composer John Cage also contributed to the celebrations.

Also at the festival are performances by Liverpool youth theatre company 20 Stories High. The group will stage a play, inspired by She's Leaving Home, in private homes in Toxteth for an audience of around 15 people.