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Thursday 16 April 2026 The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester ★★★★★ Intimate Mahler and spectacular Vaughan Williams with the Hallé Choir and Youth Choir on superb form The Hallé Orchestra, Hallé Choir, Hallé Youth Choir, Tarmo Peltokoski (conductor), Silja Aalto (soprano), Huw Montague Rendall (baritone). © Sharyn Bellemakers, The Hallé Last Thursday evening's concert, with The Hallé …
Sunday 22 March 2026 The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester ★★★★★ Viktoria Mullova shines as the soloist in Brahms' Violin Concerto, and the Hallé soloists excel in Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra Viktoria Mullova with the Hallé © Alex Burns/The Hallé Sunday's concert, repeated from last Thursday, was billed as 'Mullova Plays Brahms.' It's been over 40 years …
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Thursday 20 February 2026 The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester **** Exploring the Cosmos: The Hallé's Stellar Concert The Hallé orchestra, Choir and Youth Choir. Image credit Sharyn Bellemakers/The Hallé On Thursday evening, it was a pleasure to see a full stage (The Hallé orchestra under the baton of Kahchun Wong, on a specially extended stage), full …
Thursday 12 February 2026 The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester ***** The Hallé and Kahchun Wong shine in Beethoven's heroic symphony Cellist Jan Vogler with members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé For a second at the start of Thursday evening's Beethoven-themed concert, it felt as if the opening piece was his Coriolan Overture. In fact, …
Continue reading "The Hallé – Beethoven’s Eroica – Live Review"
Manchester was the place to be for superb performances in 2025 The Year in Classical Music Sometimes going abroad reminds you how good things are at home. In the spring of 2025, I went to the Shostakovich Festival in Leipzig, featuring world-class performers such as the Gewandhausorchester and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. So it was …
Sunday 30 November 2025 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester ***** Manchester's oldest orchestra become the city/region's newest cultural ambassadors Akiko Suwanai, Kahchun Wong and members of The Hallé. Credit: Alex Burns/The Hallé At the beginning of the second half of Sunday afternoon's concert, Kahchun Wong, Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor to the Hallé, announced that he and the …
Continue reading "The Hallé – Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – Live Review"
Saturday 1 November 2025 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester ***** Exploring Powerful Women in the Music of John Adams, with Astonishing Playing from Violinist Leila Josefowicz Leila Josefowicz and The Hallé © Sharyn Bellemakers Saturday evening’s concert at the Bridgewater Hall was the closing event of a three-day festival celebrating the work of the contemporary American composer …
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Sunday 29 June 2025 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester For a review of day one of the festival click here and for the opening night click here Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir. Image © Alex Burns Manchester Collective: The Body Electric The title of Sunday afternoon’s …
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Friday 27 June 2025 Bridgewater Hall, Manchester For a review of day one click here and for day two click here Jonny Greenwood performs Reich with the Hallé The first Manchester Classical music festival took place two years ago, in June 2023. The festival won the RPS (Royal Philharmonic Society) 'Series and Events' award in …
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A Memorable Year for Music: Highlights from Manchester and Beyond The BBC Philharmonic with Chief Conductor John Storgårds. Image © Chris Payne. Last year marked the 30th anniversary of the death of my father, John Charles Holmes, under whose benign and loving influence I developed a lifelong passion for music. He was the choirmaster and …
Continue reading "Review of the Year – 2024 – Classical Music"