Official Opening of The Stoller Hall: Manchester’s Newest Performance Space at Chetham’s School of Music

This weekend (Friday 21 – Sunday 23 April) The Earl of Wessex, Patron, Chetham’s School of Music, opens The Stoller Hall: Manchester’s newest performance space at Chetham’s School of Music. It offers a flexible, professional venue which is the ideal place for recitals, chamber concerts, jazz, folk, pop and spoken word events as well as recordings and conferences. The city of Manchester is a vibrant hub of culture with a plethora of music venues catering to a variety of genres: The Stoller Hall adds to this by filling the gap for a dedicated chamber music space, combining the intimacy of a small venue with impressive visual and acoustic design.

Situated in the New Building, which opened in 2012, a void was deliberately left in this new part of the school for a planned for concert hall, with the assumption that years of fundraising still lay ahead before that could become reality. The total cost of The Stoller Hall is £8.7m, and £7.5m of its overall cost has been generously donated by Sir Norman Stollerthrough the Stoller Charitable Trust: Chetham’s are delighted that this means the doors are opening just five years after the original conception, with additional support from the Garfield Weston Foundation. The remainder of the funds have been raised through various arms of the Encore Campaign: from donating a Round of Applause or the Name a Seat scheme to establishing a Wall Plaque or exploring Naming Opportunities.

The concert hall provides:

  • State-of-the-art 482-seat auditorium
  • Flexible acoustics, designed by industry experts Arup, for different types of performance
  • An extendable concert stage
  • High quality, brand new PA and lighting with in-house technical support
  • In-house Steinway D grand piano
  • Two large dressing rooms & two Green rooms with en-suite facilities
  • An intimate yet impressive setting providing a unique audience experience in the heart of Manchester

ENO and Grange Park Opera announce partnership

English National Opera (ENO) and Grange Park Opera (GPO) have today announced the formation of a three-year partnership, beginning in June 2018. Each year ENO’s award-winning Orchestra will play for productions presented by Grange Park Opera at West Horsley Place. West Horsley Place, the first opera house to be built in the UK in the 21st century, is the new home of Grange Park Opera and will open on 8 June 2017.

Described as ‘the finest opera orchestra in the country’ (The Stage), the ENO Orchestra is at the heart of the company’s artistic life. The repertoire that they perform is extremely diverse, ranging from baroque opera to world premieres. Their performances are regularly broadcast by BBC Radio 3 and have been screened live to cinemas worldwide as part of ENO Screen. In 2016 the ENO Orchestra and ENO Chorus were joint winners of the Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.