GREAT news - the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is playing at the Proms again this year. I went along two years ago and it remains one of my favourite experiences in my job of arts editor.

Details. . .

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko will perform at the BBC Proms on Thursday, 23 August 2012.

A BONANZA post today to mark the start of the new season...

 AS I mentioned in my previous blog post, I spent the weekend in Cyprus at an opera festival. There is no Liverpool connection whatsoever - yes I know, even though Scousers get everywhere - but as Pafos is so popular with British holidaymakers there's a chance some of you might be tempted to go out there next year.

No hang on, there is a slight link - Pafos is currently bidding to be Capital of Culture and it's Aphrodite Festival is a strong part of its bid. It's the 13th year of the opera festival and each time they build an outdoor auditorium next to the medieval castle in the harbour for just three performances.

LAST week, I had the honour of meeting some of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra's patrons for a feature in today's Daily Post. With funding cuts to the arts the Phil is having to rely more and more on the financial support of ordinary people. It was interesting to discover that those ordinary people also rely on the Phil. I noticed they used the word "we" a lot when describing the orchestra, which sums up how close to the organisation they feel.

You can find out more about becoming a patron here.

IT'S been a big week for the visual arts in Liverpool with two exhibitions opening at Tate Liverpool and another at the Walker Art Gallery. You can read my features on Magritte: The Pleasure Principle, Art In Revolution: Liverpool 1911 and Robert Therrien: Smoke Signals by clicking on the links.

I spent yesterday between both galleries gorging myself on beautiful art works, including Paul Gauguin's Sister of Charity, Vincent Van Gogh's Hayricks and Paul Sérusier's Breton Women in the Rain. But it was in front of Liverpool artist James Hamilton Hay's Falling Star that I, for a moment or two, considered a Thomas Crowne Affair style heist. My favourite Magritte's included The Night Owl, which I later found out inspired the poster for film The Exorcist, and The Key To The Fields - a broken window where the shattered panes of glass have retained the image that would have been behind it when it was whole.

I WAS lucky enough to go Paris with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra last weekend - they're on tour in Europe at the moment playing seven concerts in seven different cities over seven days. I've written a feature about their tour here if you want to find out more.

Their performance of Tchaikovsky's Manfred was astounding - I sat bolt upright despite my 4am start as they played it at the Theatre de Champs Elysees. It's being repeated at the Philharmonic Hall on Sunday and is on this recording if you can't make it to the concert but would still like to listen.

SERGEI RACHMANINOV had fallen out of favour by the time he premiered his fourth piano concerto - a fact that is almost impossible to accept in the face of last night's packed house.

Featuring on a triple bill with the Russian composer's passionate Symphony No.2 and Sergei Prokofiev's steely Le Pas d'acier, the piece was performed in the first of two sell-out concerts - tonight's second performance a late addition to the RLPO's season due to popular demand.

Pictures: Mark McNulty

Macedonian pianist Simon Trpceski returned to the Philharmonic Hall to reform the charismatic partnership with chief conductor Vasily Petrenko that won rave reviews at the orchestra's Proms concert last summer.

IN CASE you missed it in last Wednesday's paper, here is my list of 10 shows that shouldn't be missed in 2011. . .

1. AFTER bringing his spectacular Swan Lake to the Empire Theatre in 2010, Matthew Bourne returns with his 1940s version of Cinderella. This extraordinary production transforms the heroine from a dejected princess to a daughter ignored by her large step-family and the prince into an air force pilot searching for her in the Blitz.

The costumes are beautiful, resembling Erte paintings, and the stage sets ambitious with a steam train entering the stage in the final scene.

MATTHEW BOURNE'S Cinderella, Empire Theatre, April 26-30.

THE Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra has been out in Shanghai this week for Liverpool Day at the World Expo. Sadly they didn't request a certain Daily Post arts editor to go with them so I have had to content myself with these videos, which they have just released, and a bowl of chicken and sweetcorn soup.

HOW would you programme a concert aimed at showcasing Liverpool's musical talents to the world? Which bands would you include and, more difficult, which would you leave out?

It's an impossible task in a city like this one to encompass the depth and breath of its performers in a single evening's entertainment, but the Phil had a brave stab at it on Saturday night in a concert that will be repeated on "Liverpool Day" at the World Expo in Shanghai.

The result was a cornucopia of sounds and styles, with the RLPO as the glue binding them together in some sort of coherent whole.

THE RLPO are on their Spain tour this week. I've been reading trumpeter Brendan Ball's blog, which he's updating daily, and feeling envious of his midnight strolls around San Sebastian.