One of the most original conducting talents of today, Ivan Fischer, returns to the Royal Festival Hall with his Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he founded 25 years ago, on Wednesday 1 October, opening Southbank Centre’s 2008/09 Shell Classic International series. They will perform Schoenberg’s Verklarte Nacht and are joined by mezzosoprano Christianne Stotijn and tenor Robert Dean Smith for Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.

Saturday 27 September sees the launch of a major new series at Southbank Centre, International Voices. The series opens with three events featuring one of the world’s great baritones, Matthias Goerne, who gives a solo recital and two concerts with two of Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras.

Following two critically-acclaimed concerts last season, John Eliot Gardiner, the Monteverdi Choir and the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique return to the Royal Festival Hall with the concluding parts of the Brahms and his Antecedents series on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 October.

Southbank Centre, London Between 14–22 June, one of the most influential bands of the past 20 years take control of one of the UK’s most unique festivals. For eight days in June, SOUTHBANK CENTRE’s riverside venues and spaces will buzz with unmissable concerts, provocative films, hard-hitting talks, interactive sound and light installations and rocking soundsystems - all programmed by MASSIVE ATTACK, the first band to take the helm in this prestigious festival’s 15 year history.

A fully-staged production of The Wizard of Oz will be a major feature of Southbank Centre's programme this summer. Directed by Southbank Centre's Artistic Director, Jude Kelly, this much-loved classic will run from 23 July to 31 August, with a press night on Tuesday 29 July. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a major production of The Wizard of Oz has been staged in London.

From 11 to 18 May, Southbank Centre devotes a week to the many facets of choral singing and celebrates the human voice – from Beethoven to gospel; Vaughan Williams to jazz; and Welsh male voice choirs to beatboxing. Chorus is for those who love to either participate in or listen to choral music, with some of the finest professional and non-professional choirs from around the UK performing in Southbank Centre's concert halls and public spaces.

Grayson Perry was catapulted into the public consciousness in 2003 when he won the Turner Prize for his delicate coil pots adorned with drawings and text suggesting a range of subject matter. Perhaps less well-known is Perry’s work as a curator. Unpopular Culture highlights this aspect of Perry’s practice and offers his personal view of the Arts Council Collection: one of the foremost national collections of British post-war art, with over 7,500 works - on view from 10 May to 6 July 2008.

This Christmas - from Friday 19 December 2008 to Sunday 11 January 2009 - Southbank Centre presents LOST AND FOUND ORCHESTRA, the new show from the creators of STOMP (the hit show seen by over 12 million people in 42 countries since its beginnings in 1991).

No artist living in the second half of the 20th century has made a deeper impression on popular culture than Andy Warhol (1928-1987). Almost two decades on from The Hayward’s acclaimed exhibition Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (1989), the gallery presents a major exhibition - running from 8 October 2008 to 11 January 2009 - that brings a fresh perspective to the work of the celebrated Pop Art master, showing works from the 1950s through to the 1980s.

Plans for a six-month programme to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Hayward, starting in April this year, and a future programme of major monograph shows were unveiled today by Hayward Director, Ralph Rugoff.

The Hayward Project Space 1968 was the year that rocked the world. A time of unparalleled upheaval across the world, the remarkable events of 1968 created a legacy that was to shape a generation. To commemorate the revolutionary spirit of 1968, and to celebrate its own 40th birthday, The Hayward is presenting the first major May 68: Street Posters from the Paris Rebellion display in the UK of posters produced by students and workers in Paris during the strikes of May 1968.

The final masterpiece of composer Luigi Nono, Prometeo, receives its UK premiere at the Royal Festival Hall on 9 and 10 May. This most extraordinary work involves multiple orchestras, two conductors, narrators and groups of instrumental and vocal soloists placed around the Royal Festival Hall auditorium, whilst a live electronic studio, at the heart of the performing space, distributes the music as islands of sound in real time.