Daniel Avery’s played in Manchester countless times over the last decade, but never quite like this – in an empty Edwardian swimming pool, beneath monumental installation art.

This Pulitzer Prize-winning opera brings a dark contemporary parable about exploitation, coercion and the abuse of power, underpinned by a score that pits chamber music and medieval polyphony against cabaret electronica and punk.

Quiet introspection and cathartic eruptions – the mysterious kids in the corner of the Brixton Windmill scene bring their new album Somersaults to YES.

The UK’s biggest celebration of African music and culture returns to Sefton Park this summer with a line-up including Malian singer and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara.

A new live staging of Bronski Beat’s The Age of Consent revisits a landmark queer pop album through contemporary voices.

For a city with Sheffield’s musical pedigree, it’s surprising there hasn’t been a dedicated jazz festival until now. Kelham Jazz Festival arrives this March to change that, in a one-day celebration of live music and grassroots culture.

Pixies bring two nights of feral alternative rock to Aviva Studios this May, marking 40 years of the band.

Alisa Weilerstein joins Marin Alsop and the Philharmonia for a concert featuring Gabriela Ortiz’s 2026 GRAMMY-winning cello concerto, Dzonot.

In a world premiere at Aviva Studios, Sinéad O’Connor’s musical power and moral defiance is translated into dance by the Tony Award-winning Sonya Tayeh.

What are the North’s promoters, record labels, radio stations and magazines most excited about right now? SFTOC’s line-up is the answer to that question.

Musical ambassadors for their country, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine return to The Bridgewater Hall with a programme that pays homage to our nations’ bonds, alongside two Beethoven landmarks.

Connecting scenes, sounds and spaces across Manchester, Keep Walking brings a three-day, city-wide programme of gigs, club nights and workshops to some of the city’s most vital venues.

From cult hero to global collaborator, Thundercat is back with his first album in six years, and a headline show at Aviva Studios.

In these cheery, optimistic times, who’d have thought that musical brutalism would be having a moment? Manchester’s own Mandy, Indiana sit right in that current, returning with their second album and a live show in Leeds.

This summer, foundational British synth-pop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark return to Rochdale, the town where they recorded ‘Electricity’, the breakthrough single that helped set their trajectory.

Celebrating 10 years as one of the UK’s best underground clubs, The White Hotel is retooling some of the Blackpool’s most recognisable sites for one-off, site-specific performances.

Bar Italia, one of London’s most hyped bands of the last few years, are playing Manchester Academy 2 on 24 March 2026, returning off the back of their newest record, Some Like It Hot.