Stoller Hall Manchester Opening Season Continues!
Chetham’s School of Music’s state of the art concert hall was officially opened on 23 April during an Opening Celebration Concert – the culmination of an action-packed weekend which started with a live BBC 3 In Tune broadcast of music and interviews from The Stoller Hall. 
Richard Morrison, writing in The Times said: “Whether in Walton’s Henry V music or Brahm’s Alto Rhapsody, the finesse of the Chetham’s School of Music pupils was astonishing.”
Five years ago the school opened its £31m block which included 50 music rooms but with a huge gap in the middle for a concert hall. When Oldham-based healthcare magnate Sir Norman Stoller donated £7.5m of the £8.7m cost, building got going again. As Richard Morrison says: “And the job has been finished well. That was proved when the Earl of Wessex (pictured with Chetham’s Head, Alun Jones) officially opened the hall and an orchestral concert demonstrated that, although comparatively compact, it has the acoustic flexibility to house fairly large ensembles as well as intimate recitals.
In fact two separate orchestral concerts were rolled into one. The second was fun: an ensemble of Chetham’s tutors and ex-pupils — all now top-rank professionals — exuberantly delivering Ginastera’s virtuosic Variaciones Concertantes under Mark Elder’s direction, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2 with the solo part played by another former pupil, Paul Lewis.
It was the first half, however, that showed what this institution achieves, because it was performed by present-day pupils under their director of music, Stephen Threlfall. Whether in Walton’s Henry V music (Shakespeare’s majestic cadences rolled out by Samuel West in full Agincourt mode) or Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody (showcasing the mezzo Kitty Whately, another Chetham’s alumna) the finesse of the playing was astonishing. This is “just a school orchestra”? Close your eyes and you couldn’t believe it.”
And there’s lots more to enjoy in the opening season including an invitation to join Paul McCreesh, Artistic Director of Gabrieli, in a massed rehearsal of choruses from Haydn’s Creation on Tuesday, 4 July at 7.30pm.
Or you can enjoy a Celebration of Richard Rodgers with Chetham’s Concert Orchestra on Thursday, 6 July at 7.30pm.