© Dan Brady
Welcome from our General Director
A warm welcome to our summer diary – this year expanding on many fronts beyond our previous summers - and to the newly evolved version of our original 2002 name and logo .
At the heart of a rich season of festivals sits our contribution to the first ever Festival of the North East – June ’ s region-wide celebration of 1,400 years of North East culture heralding the arrival of the Lindisfarne Gospels on loan to Durham . We ’ re also delighted to welcome back the Hispanic and Lusophone ¡ VAMOS ! Festival , and no Sage Gateshead summer would be complete without our own teeming SummerTyne Americana weekend – while this year our Festival of Youth Orchestras has a new penumbra of associated courses in a season which also sees end-of-year celebrations from many of our own student ensembles .
In June we also complete our unforgettable double symphonic cycle ( all Brahms ’ and Schumann ’ s symphonies from Northern Sinfonia / Thomas Zehetmair ), before Northern Sinfonia move into Hall Two for their popular summer chamber festival ( this year
putting Beethoven in a kaleidoscope of different contexts ), and at the other end of the scale we reach year three ( Siegfried ) of Opera North ’ s lavishly praised voyage through Wagner ’ s mighty Ring Cycle .
Meanwhile our more informal series continue - Hall Two ’ s gloriously anarchic music-theatre afternoons for the very young ( Scorching Songs for Summer Days ), Jazz Café and our Sunday Lunchtime performances , and in mid-summer ( when our annual maintenance programme closes our halls ) our widest range yet of family things to do and enjoy in other parts of the building - while our new Concourse bar is already becoming a friendly new destination in its own right .
Our most spectacular innovation of the summer is to add to our regular Building Tours an entirely new opportunity – be one of the first to dare to walk the roof of Sage Gateshead and marvel at the most breathtaking view in NewcastleGateshead ! And at the heart of these three months in our halls , enjoy a regular stream of distinctive , rewarding musicians – vocal superstar Sinéad O ’ Connor , actor , comedian and blues musician Hugh Laurie , welcome returns of the Hallé orchestra and Québec ’ s vivid folk phenomenon Le Vent Du Nord , with the region ’ s own deliciously eclectic Lanterns on the Lake now graduating from Hall Two to Hall One .
Whatever in this packed diary brings you to Sage Gateshead or to Gateshead Old Town Hall this summer , I hope you have a rewarding visit .
Anthony Sargent General Director
www . thesagegateshead . org Tickets : 0191 443 4661