Sun 29.06.25

10am

Circle foyer

Duration 45 minutes

Be Hear Now

10.30am

In the foyer until 3pm

Halle Connect Family Trails

Come and join in the fun for free in the Bridgewater Hall foyer. Colour in characters from Musical Storyland and Stage and Screen, search for our weekend performers in the wordsearch, and test your musical knowledge in a game of musical dominoes. Whilst you’re here, why not follow Rolli’s treasure trail, and find out some of the secrets of the building?

10.30am

In the Choir Circle foyer until 3pm

Halle Archive listening station

10.30am

Main stage

Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Stefano Cabrera
Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures

Robert Ames conductor

British Sign Language interpreted performance

Duration 60 minutes

Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures bursts open with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as they play live accompaniment to two wonderfully animated adventures. Imagine the glorious, multicoloured world of Quentin Blake spring to life as 80 amazing musicians follow Jack, Nancy and Mrs Armitage every step of the way.

Young Jack and his sister Nancy dream of adventure – but they didn’t expect desert islands, talking parrots and exploding volcanoes. Mrs Armitage is taking a quiet bike ride with her dog Breakspear – but when you’re a brilliant inventor, things rarely stay quiet for long.

Everyone knows that Quentin Blake spins a fabulous tale, and with Stefano Cabrera’s delightful music they’ve never looked (or sounded) quite as fabulous as this!

Recommended Age Guidance 5+

You can book tickets for this event here. Please note, festival passes do not include this event.

Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures was commissioned by BBC Children’s and Education and produced by Eagle Eye Drama in a co-production with Creative Conspiracy and in association with animation studios Spicy Acorn, Tchack and Kong Studio. The series is directed by Gerrit Bekers working to Eagle Eye’s creative director for animation Massimo Fenati with an original score composed by Stefano Cabrera. 

The live performances are produced by esk in association with Eagle Eye Drama, the Barbican and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. 

10.45am

Stalls bar stage

Duration 30 minutes

Chetham’s School of Music piano recital

Solo Piano Performances from winners of the Chetham’s Middle School Piano Competition 2025

11.30am

Stalls bar stage

Duration 25 minutes

Chetham’s School of Music piano recital

Solo Piano Performances from winners of the Chetham’s Sixth Form Piano Competition 2025

11.30am

In the Circle foyer until 4pm

ENO Costume Rail

Come and try on the costumes from the English National Opera's collection, both adults and children welcome.

11.45am

The Barbirolli Room

Singing for Breathing and Wellbeing:

Mini Sessions by Simply Singing and ENO Breathe

Emma Wheeler Simply Singing workshop leader
Suzi Zumpe ENO Breathe workshop leader

Duration 45 minutes

Experience workshops led by Emma Wheeler and Suzi Zumpe, bringing participants together to connect with their breathing, learn new techniques for breath control and enjoy the experience of singing together in an inclusive and fun environment.

To guarantee a space at this performance, you can book your free ticket in advance. There will be some seating reserved for walk-up on the day.

11.45am

Circle foyer

Duration 60 minutes

Be Hear Now with ‘Live Music Now’

12pm

Outdoor stage

Cayuga Oboe Trio

Duration 45 minutes

The Cayuga Trio is an oboe trio who formed in 2024 at the Royal Northern College of Music to enjoy exploring oboe trio repertoire, of which there is a surprising amount. They were thrilled to become finalists at the RNCM Fewkes Prize in 2025 and look forward to sharing this niche ensemble type with wider audiences in the future. The Cayuga Trio appears by kind permission of the RNCM.

1pm

Main stage

The Hallé and Chorus of ENO: Opera Favourites

Verdi Overture La Forza Del Destino
Verdi Libiamo (Brindisi) (La traviata)
Mozart Placido è il Mar’(Voyager’s Chorus) (Idomeneo)
Puccini Humming Chorus (Madama Butterfly)
Puccini Che gelida manina, Mi chiamano Mimi, O soave fanciulla (La bohème)
Britten Choral Dances (Gloriana) *
Mascagni Easter Hymn (Cavelleria rusticana)
Puccini Nessun dorma (Turandot)

Alpesh Chauhan conductor
* Matthew Quinn conductor
Madeline Boreham soprano
Luis Gomes tenor

with surtitles (in English)

Duration 60 minutes

Operatic favourites with the Chorus of English National Opera and the Hallé.

Join the Chorus of English National Opera (ENO) for their first exciting concert in Manchester, performing in collaboration with the Halle Orchestra. Opera greats Verdi, Puccini and Britten all take centre stage in this unmissable concert conducted by Alpesh Chauhan. Featuring famous chorus numbers, iconic orchestral music and favourite arias, from La traviata to Gloriana and La bohème among many others, sung by Madeline Boreham and Luis Gomes. 

You can attend this performance with a festival pass or a ticket for this performance.

1pm

Outdoor stage

Brasis Ensemble

Duration 45 minutes

Formed by musicians from Brazil, the Brasis Ensemble are the only double bass quartet in the UK. All four members have been students of Jiří Hudec at the RNCM, and regularly join leading professional orchestras as section freelancers. Their vision is to share the unknown and the unheard, exploring the double bass in its extremes, from the bottom of the bass lines to the lyrical, higher registers throughout virtuosic passages. The Brasis Ensemble appears by kind permission of the RNCM.

2pm

Stalls bar stage

Duration 25 minutes

Chetham’s School of Music piano recital

Solo Piano Performances from winners of the Chetham’s Years 7 and 8 Piano Competition 2025

2.30pm

The Barbirolli Room

AMC Gospel Choir

Duration 50 minutes

AMC Gospel Choir is one of the UK’s top live-performance Gospel Choirs and are based across the cities of Manchester and Birmingham.

AMC Gospel Choir is an exciting group of musicians full of the vibrancy and joyfulness of the true spirit of Gospel music. They create soundscapes that will tingle the body and warm the heart, presenting audiences with their harmonious vocal blend, inspiring solos and musical arrangements, all beautifully organised by the director and other gifted musicians within the choir.

Within this creative choir family, you’ll find renowned solo vocal artists and in-demand instrumentalists who all come together to create the rich, distinctive and colourful sound which is simply AMC! Always leaving a crowd shouting for “more” is their aim and they never miss the spot!

To guarantee a space at this performance, you can book your free ticket in advance. There will be some seating reserved for walk-up on the day.

3.15pm

Outdoor stage

Duration 30 minutes

Streetwise Opera: Nature

Branch out and reconnect…Centuries after Handel, Dvořák and Rimsky-Korsakov immortalised the beauty of the natural world, award-winning Streetwise Opera draws inspiration from their music to create a powerful new piece that confronts the urgent need to fight for our planet.Join us for a 15-minute performance that brings together people with lived experience of homelessness, sharing their personal responses to nature and offering fresh perspectives on our relationship with the planet. The resulting short opera reflects on the emotional impact of nature and challenges society’s attitude towards rebuilding our relationship with the natural world.

3.30pm

Main stage

Manchester Collective:
The Body Electric

David Lang Mystery Sonatas, mvt 1. Joy
J.S. Bach Prelude from Cello Suite No.1 in G Major
Zoe Martlew G-Lude
Missy Mazzoli Vespers
J.S. Bach Allemande and Sarabande from Cello Suite No.1 in G major
Julia Wolfe arr. Rakhi Singh LAD

Rakhi Singh violin (Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Manchester Collective)
Zoë Martlew cello

Duration 60 minutes

From the sublime to the electric, Manchester Collective explores the power of the soloist in a performance of stark contrasts.

Intimate, resonant sounds lull us into a false sense of security, before the violin and cello begin battling it out onstage. The pair end up drenched in delay, distortion and reverb; flitting between chaos, peace and order.

Gate-crashing the calm is Zoë Martlew’s ‘G-Lude’ for solo cello and electronics. A cathartic howl exploding from the quiet, it’s a celebration of the rough edges, complete with wild scrapes, screeches, thwacks and gasps. ‘G-Lude’ is a raucous homage to the Bach ‘Prelude’ also featured in this show.

Not content with letting the cello have the final say, Rakhi Singh’s arrangement of Julia Wolfe’s ‘LAD’, originally for nine bagpipes, is reinvented here for just one very loud violin – plugged into a crunchy guitar pedal.

Consider the mic dropped.

You can attend this performance with a festival pass or a ticket for this performance.

3.45pm

Stalls bar stage

Duration 30 minutes

Hallé Archive Talk

4pm

Outdoor stage

English National Opera Perfect Pitch

Duration 45 minutes

ENO and Walk the Plank are partnering on a collaboration with community choirs, football teams and fans across Greater Manchester on Perfect Pitch: bringing people together to explore the joy of fandom and the power of the voice. For Manchester Day on 26th July, we’re creating a massed choir to perform - as part of this exciting collaboration, all are invited to join us at Manchester Classical to sing operatic choruses, blended with football chants, led by ENO Chorus Director, Matthew Quinn. After this event you'll also have the opportunity to join our massed choir on Manchester Day!

5pm

The Barbirolli Room

RNCM Community Chorus

‘The Realities of Urban Living’ world premiere by RNCM student composers Elena Adams and Amit Manna
 Lovely Day Bill Withers arr. Robert T Gibson
You'll Never Walk Alone (with Climb Every Mountain) arr. Mark Hayes
Scarborough Fair Trad. British arr. David Cane
Wild Mountain Time Trad. British arr. David Cane
One Day Like This Guy Garvey arr. Paul Ayres
The Day Will Come Kate Pearson
Summertime Gershwin (Duet)

David Cane Musical Director
James Gillett accompanist
Esthea Darrel-Asherel and Keith Thompson duet

Duration 45 minutes

Join the Chorus for an uplifting concert of songs that inspire us, from opera classics to pop ballads to a brand-new operetta written by RNCM Students Elena Adams and Amit Manna, reflecting on community and city living.

The RNCM Community Chorus is a mixed ability choir open to anyone 18+ living in Manchester, for more information on how to join please contact creativeengagement@rncm.ac.uk

To guarantee a space at this performance, you can book your free ticket in advance. There will be some seating reserved for walk-up on the day.

5.30pm

Outdoor stage

Open Music Archive in the Hallé Archive: Church Andrews

Duration 45 minutes

A new project responding to vinyl and shellac records from the Hallé archive, from the last 100 years, to make new music and build an archive for the future. 

Open Music Archive digitised hundreds of discs and processed them to release thousands of orchestral sounds, to build an out-of-copyright archive for future use and re-use. For this live performance, they invite composer and sound artist Church Andrews (aka Kirk Barley) to make a new live set made entirely from the Hallé archive material and percussion performances by long-term collaborator Matt Davies, recorded at Hallé St Peter’s for the project.

This performance is part of an ongoing Open Music Archive experiment in archival art practice, a multi-part artwork, that proposes the Hallé in musical conversation with its archival self. 

5.45pm

Circle foyer

Pre-concert talk - Iain Farrington and Elizabeth Alker

Duration 30 minutes

Ahead of tonight’s final concert, Elizabeth Alker talks to composer Iain Farrington about his new piece 'Street Party' commissioned by BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with Manchester Classical.

6.30pm

Main stage

Finale

John Adams Short Ride in a Fast Machine
Iain Farrington Street Party (world premiere)
Borodin Polovtsian Dances
Respighi Pines of Rome

Alpesh Chauhan conductor
Musicians from the Hallé, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, RNCM, The Chorus of ENO and Hallé Choir

British Sign Language interpreted performance

with surtitles

Iain Farrington’s Street Party is commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, in partnership with Manchester Classical

Musicians from Manchester’s ensembles assemble under the baton of Alpesh Chauhan for a spectacular concert of fanfares and flourishes to celebrate the finale of a spectacular weekend of music.

The concert begins with John Adams’ joyfully exuberant fanfare for orchestra, Short Ride in a Fast Machine, followed by Iain Farrington’s Street Party, a joyful and riotous orchestral and choral celebration in a colourful, carnival atmosphere. It captures the energy, rhythm and fun of outdoor parties and showcases the virtuosity of the individual orchestral players with jazz-inspired solos and technical brilliance. The choral forces remain for Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, the exciting climax to the second act of Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor. The concert comes to a thrilling conclusion with Respighi’s Pines of Rome, the second of three tone poems Respighi wrote to recall the glory of the Roman Empire. Ending with spectacular brass fanfares, the piece will raise the roof of The Bridgewater Hall in a vibrant celebration of Manchester’s dynamic classical music scene.

You can attend this performance with a festival pass or a ticket for this performance.