The Hallé launches its Autumn / Winter 2021 season

The Hallé has launched its Autumn / Winter 2021 season with a packed programme at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, plus a new series of lunchtime chamber concerts at Hallé St Peter’s in Ancoats. Alongside Sir Mark Elder, the Hallé’s roster of conductors includes Delyana Lazarova, Gemma New, Christian Reif, Sofi Jeannin and Ryan Wigglesworth, and featured composers include Thea Musgrave, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arya Tsytlianok, Samuel Barber, Florence Price, Lera Auerbach, Ryan Wigglesworth, Dorothy Howell, Josef Suk, Hugo Alfven, Christine Hals and Wynton Marsalis.

Sir Mark Elder opens the season with three concerts where alongside symphonies by Elgar, Sibelius and Brahms, the orchestra will be performing music by Thea Musgrave and Sofia Gubaidulina. The Hallé’s assistant conductor Delyana Lazarova directs an American programme with Florence Price’s haunting Ethiopia’s Shadow in America (written in 1932, it was one of a group of Price's works which were lost until her manuscripts were rediscovered in 2009), plus Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto performed by violinist James Ehnes. 

Walton's Cello Concerto seems to have having something of a moment, having been performed at the Proms last week [see my review], at Hallé it will be performed by cellist Laura van der Heijden with Gemma New conducting, and the programme also includes Copland’s Symphony No.3 and Lera Auerbach’s Icarus. 

The orchestra's artist in association is conductor / composer Ryan Wigglesworth and he conducts his own Piano Concerto performed by Marc-André Hamelin as well as Schumann’s Second Symphony.  [We caught Wigglesworth himself performing the solo part in the concerto's slow movement with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, see my review]. Other highlights include Natalya Romaniw singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs, and Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto performed by its dedicatee, Nicola Benedetti.

The new lunchtime chamber music series at Hallé St Peter’s includes Benjamin Grosvenor performing the Schumann Piano Quintet alongside Hallé principal players, Brahms' Clarinet Trio with Elizabeth Brauss, Simon Turner and Sergio Castello-Lopez and a recital from Hallé Brass.  

Some of the concerts will be filmed for future broadcast following the huge success of the Halle’s Winter and Summer digital concerts which have been viewed and celebrated around the world.

Full details from the orchestra's website.