Musical concert performance of street ballads written around the time of the Peterloo Massacre, telling the story of the underlying circumstances, the events of the day, and the aftermath. Songs are performed by folk musicians Pete Coe, Brian Peters and Laura Smyth, with a variety of acoustic instruments.
Hurrah. The next Retro Silent Disco is on Friday 8th November. The day the Christmas Markets open in Manchester! Spend the early evening soaking up the festive atmosphere in Albert Square, then dance the night away in the fabulous Central Library. Don't worry, we won't be overdoing the Christmas songs that early in November. We're […]
Accordion/Viola/Electronics duo debuting brand new material from their upcoming album to be released in 2020. Widely regarded as two of the best players, innovators and performers in traditional folk amongst a precociously gifted generation, their finely-crafted arrangements wield a rare potency. Now, having toured with with some of the biggest and brightest acts in the […]
As part of Holocaust Memorial Day, Manchester Jewish Museum's song-writing group will present an initial performance of songs inspired by the moving stories of Jewish Refugees arriving in Cheetham in the 1930s and 1940s. We have been working with baritone singer Peter Brathwaite (originally from Cheetham) Israeli opera composer Na'ama Zisser and community composer and […]
THIS EVENT IS NOW CANCELLED A celebration of Manchester’s traditional Irish music with young musicians, plus a presentation exploring the collaboration of the Club Ceoil Archive in partnership with the British Library’s ‘Unlocking Our Sound Heritage’ Free – please drop in
See a free LIVE gig by Iranian maestro musician Seyed Ali Jaberi and the Hamdel Ensemble on Saturday 17 July with two COVID safe repeated concerts at 2pm or 3.30pm. Fans of world music get - at last - an opportunity to hear global music which is extremely limited due to the restrictions on international […]
In ‘All You Need Is Dynamite: Acid, the Angry Brigade, and the End of the Sixties’ - the latest in his Art Decades series of small format books - Dave Haslam explores the fading of Sixties dreams of peace and love, and the emergence of urban terrorist groups, particularly the Angry Brigade who carried out […]
#LikeChopin – The Mysterious Story of Chopin in Manchester In August 1848 Fryderyk Chopin travelled to Britain. During the visit he also gave a performance in Manchester. The concert took place at the Manchester’s Gentleman Concert Hall on Peter Street. The Hall was demolished in 1887 and The Midland Hotel was built on the […]
Join us in the oculus area on the ground floor for this short concert by the RNCM Chamber Choir, in celebration of International Women’s Day. Inspired by birdsong, ‘Songbird’ is an all female composer programme. The programme will include works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Sarah Quartel and Roxanna Panufnik. The RNCM Chamber Choir is an auditioned […]
Join us for an intimate performance by a Manchester International Roots Orchestra chamber ensemble in the Hentry Watson Music Library on the First Floor of Central Library. The Manchester International Roots Orchestra (MIRO) is a unique ensemble of musicians with roots from across the world including students from the RNCM. Our repertoire skilfully combines diverse musical influences […]
Join us for this closing event 'North West Mixtape' in which selections of archive audio from the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage project are celebrated. We've spent the last three years digitising, cataloguing and clearing the rights for over 4000 recordings from archives across the North West region. This event pairs an audio-visual showreel of key […]
Musick in Manchester 1744/45 recreates the first ever public concert series known to have been given in Manchester, prefiguring the remarkable musical tradition that accompanied Manchester’s development into one of Europe’s leading industrial cities. Remarkable, and until now underrepresented, the series includes sixteen concert programmes, which survive in a literary transcript by John Harland written […]
From dedicated performance spaces to stairwells, screens, nooks and domes, Central Library might directly inspire your next event or intervention. Contact us to arrange a tour.
