To mark the centenary of Messiaen's birth, From the Canyons to the Stars is a major Southbank Centre celebration (2 February - 10 December) of this truly inspirational composer (1908 – 1992).

The 2008 live literature programme at Southbank Centre starts with none other than Nobel Laureate, Doris Lessing at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 22 January. Looking further ahead, there is new fiction from Peter Carey (6 February), Kate Mosse (30 January) and Hanif Kureishi (18 March) and on 20 February we celebrate one of the most dominant figures of post-war English writing, J.G. Ballard, who discusses his remarkable life with Hari Kunzru.

'One of the most kick-ass live bands around' - The Observer Music Monthly Bellowhead is the newly appointed Band in Residence at Southbank Centre, and their residency kicks off on 18 December 2007 with Bellowhead's Christmas Revels, a characteristically joyous evening of musical mayhem.

Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) is one of the great figures of early 20th-century avant-garde art, and also one of its most versatile practitioners. Half a century after his death, The Hayward presents the first major exhibition in the UK of Rodchenko's photographs, featuring some 120 prints and photomontages, as well as poster and magazine designs.

The Hayward's new Project Space, offering a window onto the latest developments in contemporary art from across the globe, opens with Board Room, an installation by the Dutch artists' collective Atelier Van Lieshout on Monday 27 August 2007, 10am–4pm daily, late nights Friday and Saturday until 10pm.

To coincide with the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall, the spectacular fountain Appearing Rooms by Danish artist Jeppe Hein returns to Southbank Centre. A hugely popular installation last summer, the sculpture invites visitors of all ages to wonder at its labyrinth of water walls.

In Klaus Weber’s work The Big Giving a group of male and female figures are cast rising out of, or simultaneously sinking into volcanic-looking mounds of rock made from industrial steel waste. Their heads and hands protrude from the stone and streams of water gush from a different body part on each figure, spouting from mouths, eyes, ears and armpits.