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The Hallé has launched its Bridgewater Hall Autumn and Christmas 2021 seasons with an inspirational collection of masterpieces featuring stellar guest artists and composers.
The season opens with a trio of symphonies conducted by Sir Mark Elder – Sibelius’s uplifting Second, Elgar’s First and Brahms’s glorious Third.
Hallé Assistant Conductor, Delyana Lazarova then presents Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Symphony, followed by Gemma New conducting Walton’s Cello Concerto featuring cellist Laura van der Heijden.
The highlights continue with Natalya Romaniw singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs in a programme with Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony, Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto performed by Boris Giltburg, Handel’s Messiah, Mussorgsky’s Pictures from an Exhibition and Winton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto performed by its dedicatee, Nicola Benedetti.
Stephen Bell – Associate Director, Hallé Pops – makes a welcome return to the platform for a rousing Russian Extravaganza and The Hallé Goes to Nashville. Richard Balcombe also returns to the Hallé for The Music of Elton John: 50 Years of ‘Your Song’.
Christmas is back in spectacular style with concerts for all tastes and ages, including ‘Hallé Christmas Cracker’ traditional Carol Concerts, ‘80s Big Night Out’ and ‘The Magical Music of Harry Potter’. There is also plenty for families to enjoy with a Christmas Family Concert and The Snowman. The season ends in traditional style with Viennese New Year.
A number of concerts in the season will be filmed for future broadcast following the huge success of the Hallé’s Winter and Summer digital concerts.
You can book tickets for the Hallé’s Autumn/Winter Season here.
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Many of our concerts this season help tell the stories of composers and the music you will hear. Opening the season, Sir Mark offers the first of our ‘Stories behind the music’ concerts. What Vaughan Williams learnt from Ravel about orchestration was put to superb effect in the string sonorities of the Tallis Fantasia, his spiritual, moving first masterpiece.
Enjoy concerts ranging from classical and jazz through to world and popular music.
Establishing the mood of the concert’s first half, Wagner’s first act prelude to Lohengrin, evokes the descent of the Holy Grail from Heaven in a rapt and gradual crescendo. Its spirituality links perfectly with Offertorium, chosen to celebrate the 90th birthday of Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the greatest Russian composers of the post-Shostakovich generation. For Sir Mark it is an ‘exciting, dramatic and powerful work’, derived from the theme of J. S. Bach’s Musical Offering.
Russia’s extraordinary musical legacy is almost impossible to match. The grandeur and drama of these wonderful Russian melodies will stir you, taking all the prizes for sheer excitement.
To celebrate its first concert appearance since February 2020, the Hallé Choir takes pride of place in Stravinsky’s striking Symphony of Psalms. Begun ‘in a state of religious and musical ebullience,’ the composer wrote, it culminates with both ‘a vision of Elijah’s chariot’ and the serene alleluias of the heavenly host. Sir Mark opens the concert with a Haydn symphony whose beautiful character and intriguing title Tempora mutantur (‘Times change’) seem, he feels, ‘appropriate for this moment in time’.
In this American-themed programme, Hallé Assistant Conductor Delyana Lazarova is excited to be ‘bringing to life again the music of the inspiring composer Florence Price’.
New Zealand-born Gemma New, a first-time Hallé guest, has been making waves in the USA as a rising star. The season’s ‘Stories behind the music’ continue with Icarus, by the Russian/American Lera Auerbach. Enthralled from childhood by Ancient Greek mythology, this work’s character personified for her the tragic tale of Icarus’s ill-fated flight.
In October 1970, Elton John released ‘Your Song’, written with his long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin, which has since been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. 50 Years of ‘Your Song’ is a symphonic celebration of the subsequent years of music-making by the multi-award-winning singer, pianist and composer. Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, had more than 50 Top 40 hits, won five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards and is an Academy, Golden Globe and Tony Award winner.
Hallé Artist in Association, Ryan Wigglesworth, conducts a programme centred around his Piano Concerto, premiered at the 2019 BBC Proms by another ever welcome Hallé guest, Marc-André Hamelin, dubbed by the New York Times as ‘A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess’.
A concert curated around beginnings and endings with Richard Strauss centre-stage, contrasting his teenage Serenade with his swansong, Four Last Songs, composed aged 84. Couched in glowing autumnal hues by a vocal and orchestral master, they’ll be sung by Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw, last with the Hallé in Manchester in 2016 when she thrilled concert-goers in Beethoven’s Ninth.
Grab your Stetson and take a trip to Tennessee for this rhinestone-studded concert featuring fifty years of legendary Country & Western hits. A full symphony orchestra and rocking rhythm section, complete with pedal steel guitar, will be joined by four of Britain’s leading guest vocalists for timeless classics from the likes of Glenn Campbell, Dolly Parton, The Shires, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Shania Twain, Lady A and The Eagles. This is the very best of Country so saddle up and ride on over for an epic evening!
A classic Hallé programme, mixing familiar composers with lesser-known works, is framed by Czech music. Suk’s Fantastic Scherzo is a rarity, yet it is graced by the most beguiling of Bohemian waltzes. Remarkably, for such a popular composer, Rachmaninov’s final piano concerto hasn’t been played by the Hallé for over 20 years.
Perfect for winter, this concert celebrates the mystery and beauty of the far North. Two of the most famous pieces by Norwegian Edvard Grieg feature: his musical tableaux for Peer Gynt and his stunning Piano Concerto, with its beautiful central Adagio, which will be performed by BBC New Generation Artist and Terence Judd-Hallé Award recipient, pianist Elisabeth Brauß.
An essential part of every Hallé Christmas, Messiah is conducted here for the first time by Choral Director Matthew Hamilton with the choir he’s been training for seven years.
Cristian Macelaru conducts as Nicola Benedetti performs the critically acclaimed concerto Wynton Marsalis composed for her. Taking its ‘inspiration from her life as a travelling performer’ and incorporating diverse allusions to her Scottish and Marsalis’s AfricanAmerican heritages, it’s in four picturesque movements, including a soulful ‘Blues’ and final ‘Hootenanny’, described by the composer as ‘a raucous, stomping and whimsical barn-yard throw-down.’
Join the adventure packed with Christmas orchestral favourites, elvish magic, ice spells, and mischievous trolls who can’t juggle! The concert will include the themes from the films Elf and ET, Trepak from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, Sleigh Ride and many more!
Bring the whole family to the Hallé’s screening of Raymond Briggs’s classic animated film, The Snowman – an essential part of Christmas. The film is accompanied by the Hallé performing Howard Blake’s magical score live.
Welcome to the ’80s! A decade of power dressing, spiral perms, shoulder pads, YUPPIES and some of the best songs ever recorded. Join the Hallé party as they pull their leg warmers up and let their hair down with vocal superstars Alison Jiear and Oliver Tompsett.
Following on from the Hallé’s sell-out performance in February 2019, you are cordially invited to join us once again to celebrate the story of the world’s most famous wizard.
New Year would not be New Year without the Hallé’s traditional concert of Viennese waltzes, polkas, marches and operettas. This year’s glittering selection will be performed under the baton of conductor Stephen Bell with guest soprano Rebecca Bottone.
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