Culture Guides
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Seasonal Guides
With full-scale concerts still unable to take place, Manchester and the north’s ensembles, orchestras and musical institutions are doing all they can to make shifts towards the digital arena. Here we’ll be writing about music events and activities that you can access online, as well as socially-distanced concerts that you can watch in-person.
We are so grateful to National Lottery players, The National Lottery, DCMS and Arts Council England for supporting our freelance writers during this crisis. This means that, although venues remain shut and campaigns cancelled, our writers can be reengaged to help arts organisations and artists across the North of England share their online content with our culture-hungry readers.
Be sure to check out our full guide to the best online events from organisations in Manchester and the North too.
Stay well folks.
Here are our picks
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1. The Hallé Winter Season 2020/21
Courtesy of Joel Chester Fildes The Hallé Winter Season 2020/21 at The Bridgewater Hall, City Centre, Until 29 April 2021 - Book now
We are delighted to welcome the Hallé back to the stage for a Winter Season packed with world premieres, Manchester originals, the familiar and the new.
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2. Psappha: Music for Sitar (In Focus) at Hallé St Peter’s
Kabilan Raviraj In Focus: Music for Sitar at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats and online, 13 May 2021, free entry - Find Out More
Spotlighting an instrument that usually remains in the concert hall shadows, Psappha invites sitar virtuoso Jasdeep Singh Degun to lead a wonderfully varied programme at Hallé St Peter’s.
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3. Psappha: Black Milk livestreamed from Hallé St Peter’s
PhilipGatward Psappha: Black Milk at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats and online, 29 April 2021, free entry - Find Out More
Black Milk, the penultimate concert in Psappha’s 2020-21 season, features a world premiere by Mark-Anthony Turnage plus two Viennese chamber group classics.
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4. Psappha: Music for Accordion (In Focus) at Hallé St Peter’s
Alejandro Tamagno Psappha: Music for Accordion (In Focus) at Hallé St Peter’s, Ancoats, 27 May 2021, from £5 - Book now
Joining Psappha at Hallé St Peter’s, world-class accordionist Miloš Milivojević guides us through a variety of music written for this unexpectedly versatile instrument.
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5. The Bridgewater Hall
The Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley Street, Manchester, Greater Manchester, M2 3WS - Visit now
Home to the Hallé and the BBC Philharmonic orchestras, the Bridgewater Hall attracts some of the biggest names in classical music. Purpose-built to the tune of £42m, the hall was designed around its acoustic needs; it floats on 280 earthquake-proof isolations springs that mute all external noise, perfect for shielding around 250 performances a year from the trams outside.
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6. Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM)
RNCM -
7. The Stoller Hall
Image by Chris Horkan -
8. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
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9. Hallé St Peter’s
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10. Albert Hall
Image courtesy the Albert Hall. -
11. Manchester Cathedral
Manchester Cathedral. Illustration by Simone Ridyard.
More in Music
Psappha 2020/21 Concert Season
Psappha’s 2020–21 season explores the sharpest and smartest sounds in contemporary classical music, presented in concert and streamed online for free.
My First Protest Song with the People’s History Museum
My First Protest Song goes online. Round up the family and join Matt Hill for this live-streamed event full of toe-tapping tunes.
The Hallé – Movie Classics
Presented by the BBC’s Petroc Trelawny and conducted by Stephen Bell, the Hallé celebrates classical music on the silver screen.
The Hallé – Sibelius’s Third Symphony
The Hallé are joined by virtuoso pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason for Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, plus Sibelius’s magnificent Third Symphony.
The Hallé – Paul Lewis performs Mozart
The Hallé will be joined by Paul Lewis, one of the country’s most distinguished artists, for a dazzling programme in which he directs from the piano.
The Hallé – Shostakovich’s Dazzling First
The Hallé performs a varied programme of Grazyna Bacewicz, Aaron Copland and Dmitri Shostakovich under the baton of new Assistant Conductor, Delyana Lazarova.
Band on the Wall: Live-ish from fivefourstudios
This April, Band on the Wall are broadcasting full sets by emerging artists from Manchester, recorded at fivefourstudios, Salford.
The Hallé – Trail-blazing Hallé
The Hallé is joined by Stephen Hough for Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, before the world premiere of Huw Watkins’ Second Symphony.
MINDSCAPES: Soundpaths – Yonatan Collier with Brighter Sound
Experience Moston and Harpurhey in a brand-new way through an app on your phone.
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