Local Arts News

(July 23-31) Homegrown talents come together with world stars for the 15th MJF, says Mike Butler.

(Fallowfield, July 24+25) When we tell you that the Manchester Mega Mela is coming this weekend, it should give you two good reasons to smile.

(Macclesfield, July 29 onwards) Unknown Pleasures is an exhibition that aims to give new insights into one of our greatest bands. Sarah Walters talks to organiser Jon Savage.

Classical musician and TV star Myleene Klass is presenting the Hallé Fireworks & Light Spectacular in Tatton Park at the end of July. She tells Sarah Whittle why she’s so excited to be hosting the event…

(July 17) There will no doubt be a few Mancunians wondering what’s been slipped into their midday espresso on Saturday afternoon when they see 100 Dorothys from The Wizard Of Oz marching by.

(Albert Square, July 18) In a diverse and culturally tolerant place such as Manchester, the rich mix of the city’s demographic is something everyone acknowledges but few take the time to extol.

(July 17 to September 12) Sarah Walters explains a unique chance to complete artists' shelved ideas.

(Advertorial) Manchester Strings is an ensemble of virtuoso musicians delivering music of the highest level. All its sixteen members, for the past decade, have been intensively trained at The Royal Northern College of Music, in order to bring vitality, poise and authenticity to the world.

Buxton Festival continues for two weeks more, with concerts, recitals and opera performances every day. Richard Rodney Bennett’s children’s opera, All The King’s Men, gets its first performance this afternoon, with participants from local schools.

(John Rylands Library, from July 15) The Gothic grandeur of Deansgate’s John Rylands Library has housed an extensive collection of artefacts from authoress Elizabeth Gaskell’s life and career for over 70 years, but in the bicentenary year of her birth they are enjoying a great revival in interest.

The Hallé Proms are here again: this year on three Saturdays in July, plus the Last Night (Sunday, August 1) and an extra in the form of Sir Mark Elder’s Summer Concert on Thursday, August 5.

The idea of dedicating a wing in an established public gallery to a collection of art by unrecognised or relatively unknown artists has been a fairly controversial decision.

(Martin Harris Centre, July 1) As a writer known for his obsession with the zeitgeist, Martin Amis seems a fine choice to lead a discussion on violence in literature.

A new opera has its premiere tonight (June 18) in Macclesfield – and it’s by a local composer. It has been written and directed by Nicholas Smith, a busy orchestral conductor and director of several Bollington Festivals in the past.

Iconic work by two of the UK's most established and genre-defining artists combine at a Didsbury gallery. Sarah Walters reports.

(The Lowry, from June 12) Everybody involved with Spencer Tunick’s Everyday People to celebrate the Lowry’s 10th anniversary expected it to be a success, but they were surprised to receive 5,000 applicants willing to bare all in front of Tunick’s camera lens.

Opera North is coming to town again, at The Lowry, and for many the most exciting show will be at the end. It’s a new production of Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, and in the title role is mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly.

(MMU, June 16) Even if Elizabeth Gaskell has been stolen by the ‘bonnet brigade’, actress Gabrielle Drake says she’s an incredibly complex character who could make even today’s women feel powerless.

The Manchester Mahler cycle comes to completion tomorrow night (June 5), as Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic tackle the Tenth Symphony. It’s the one Mahler left unfinished, but the completion by Deryck Cooke has won its place as the performing version.

A collective effort by two of the city’s biggest galleries gets under way on June 8 to access the current biodiversity of Whitworth Park.