The Halle will perform a series of concerts at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall in March featuring Russian classics, Beethoven, and some of the biggest movie tracks of all time.

Russian Classics
Thursday 5 March, 7.30pm
Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet: Montagues and Capulets; Madrigals; Juliet as a Young Girl and Death of Tybalt
Tchaikovsky – Swan Lake: Suite
Khachaturian – Gayaneh: Sabre Dance
Khachaturian – Spartacus: Adagio
Shostakovich – The Golden Age: Polka
Glazunov – The Seasons: Autumn
Stravinsky – The Firebird: Infernal Dance, Berceuse and Finale
Conductor – Stephen Bell
These Russian classics, as popular and sensational on the concert platform as on the ballet stage, take all the prizes for sheer excitement. This is music that has found its way into all our hearts, often heard in films and on television, driven by vibrant dance rhythms and wonderful melodies.

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Beethoven 250 – Beyond the Score: Beethoven Symphony No.5
Wednesday 11 March, 2.15pm; Thursday 12 March, 7.30pm; Sunday 15 March, 4pm
Beethoven – Symphony No.5
Conductor: Gergely Madaras; Featuring: Gerard McBurney, creative director
Part of the Hallé/BBC Philharmonic’s Beethoven cycle, Beyond the Score offers concert-goers a ‘dramatic exploration’ of Beethoven’s iconic Fifth Symphony in a concept originally developed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  Gerard McBurney, composer, broadcaster, arranger and writer, and creator of the series says: ‘Through live actors, stunning visual projections and excerpts performed by the Hallé, the compelling story of Beethoven’s art unfolds, illuminating the world that shaped the music’s creation. After the interval the audience hears the complete symphony armed with their new understanding of its genesis.’ Gergely Madaras returns to conduct this special event.


Vaughan Williams Symphony No.9
Thursday 19 March, 7.30pm
Elgar – Enigma Variations
Butterworth orch. Roderick Williams – Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad
Vaughan Williams – Symphony No.9
Conductor: Sir Mark Elder; Featuring: Roderick Williams, baritone
In his Enigma Variations, Elgar’s first runaway success, he captured the personalities of his Worcestershire friends in fresh, inventive music. Butterworth, Vaughan Williams’s close friend, is a tantalising figure, for what might have he achieved had he not been killed during World War One? His legacy includes lean, direct settings of A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad, heard here in a new orchestration by Roderick Williams whose performances are characterised by a perceptive depth of musical intellect. Sir Mark completes his exploration of the Vaughan Williams symphonies with the visionary Ninth written shortly before the composer’s death. Partly inspired by Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, it ends enigmatically with the haunting sonority of three pulsing saxophones as if gazing into eternity.


A Night at the Oscars
Saturday 28 March, 7.30pm
The concert includes music and songs from:
The Greatest Showman; Titanic; Skyfall; Flashdance; The Lion King; Frozen; Beauty and the Beast; Top Gun; Gravity; Bohemian Rhapsody; E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial; Star Wars; Schindler’s List; Breakfast at Tiffany’s; Lawrence of Arabia; Out of Africa; Ben-Hur; and La La Land
Conductor: Stephen Bell; Featuring: Anna-Jane Casey, vocalist
Roll out the red carpet! Pour the champagne! Let the Hallé, conductor Stephen Bell and West End star Anna-Jane Casey whisk you away to Hollywood Boulevard for a night of glamour celebrating some of the silver screen’s most unforgettable tunes. From Beauty and the Beast to The Greatest Showman and La La Land to Star Wars, no-one deserves an Oscar more than the versatile, indispensable orchestra.

image of The Halle courtesy Russel Hart