The Howard Assembly Room is no longer Opera North’s best kept secret. Now in its second jam-packed year, it has truly come of age and its slogan – “making connections between the classical and the contemporary” – was never more amply demonstrated than in the coming 2010/11 season.
Dominic Gray talks to Edward Seckerson about some intriguing cross-fertilisation between the main stage and this beautiful and dynamic space. He outlines the thinking behind
Back to the Woods: Songs and Stories from the Heart of Europe and
Don’t Breathe – a series of spooky events tied in to the main house staging of Britten’s
The Turn of the Screw – and he welcomes some diverse and illustrious “headliners” from Iron and Wine (Sam Beam) to the German star mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager, from the Mercury Prize nominated Basquiat Strings to the internationally acclaimed British pianist Paul Lewis whose recent Proms exposition of the Beethoven piano concertos proved so very special.
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