Featuring boundary-pushing innovation, intimate recitals and more, Manchester’s upcoming classical concert schedule boasts a thrillingly diverse array of live performances from the nation’s most celebrated musicians.
Here are some of the best classical shows around the city this year.
RNCM’s Young Explorers series returns this June, bringing with it a show-stopping afternoon of live music inspired by the West End, led by Manchester’s own Untold Orchestra.
Young Explorers is the perfect way to introduce little ones to live orchestral music, promising a show packed with hits from an array of iconic shows, including Six, Beauty and the Beast, Wicked and more.
RNCM Artist of the Year is the institution’s highest individual award and celebrates outstanding artistry, creativity, and musical excellence. In this final, composition students unveil new chamber works and sound installations, giving audiences the chance to discover the remarkable emerging artists who are shaping the future of music.
The renowned Kantos Chamber Choir celebrates its 10th anniversary by joining forces with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) Chamber Choir and the University of Manchester Chamber Choir for a one-off show this June.
The evening’s programme will be crafted around powerful songs of protest, change and hope. In true Kantos style, brand-new pop arrangements will sit alongside seminal choral masterpieces; from Aaron Copland to Bob Dylan, and Arnold Schoenberg to Louis Armstrong.
Two musical powerhouses come together at The Bridgewater Hall this June, as Grammy-winning singer and composer Arooj Aftab joins forces with the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).
Known for her spellbinding blend of jazz, minimalism and South Asian classical traditions, the collaboration sees Arooj reimagine music from across her acclaimed catalogue with sweeping new orchestral arrangements.
A spectacular end to the Stockport Symphony Orchestra’s dance-inspired season, both halves of the concert open with rousing Finnish music, with the fantastic Jennifer Pike returning for the ever-popular Tchaikovsky concerto, which she first played with the SSO in 2018.
Two worlds collide in this uplifting symphonic celebration of ABBA’s greatest hits. Led by the inimitable conductor Stephen Bell, the Hallé Orchestra will be joined by vocal powerhouses Annie Skates, Emma Kershaw, David Combes and Oliver Griffiths for a night of sweeping ballads and disco anthems that defined a generation.
Manchester Collective return to Aviva Studios with an evening of contemporary experimental music, uniting three titans of sonic innovation whose work reshapes the boundaries of genre and form.
The innovative programme explores music as a visceral, grounding phenomenon that draws on the body as both instrument and creative source, from the vibrations of vocal cords to the pulse of a heartbeat.
Forming part of Didsbury Arts Festival 2026, Acclaimed harpist Eira Lynn Jones brings an hour of musical storytelling to the historic Old Parsonage just off Fletcher Moss Botanical Gardens.
Join Manchester Baroque as they reconstruct another original 18th-century concert programme, one that took place in Manchester back in 1745.
Whilst in Manchester’s Central Library, Manchester Baroque’s Artistic Director, Prof. Dr Pauline Nobes, came across a transcript of concert programmes and a centenary review of Manchester’s first subscription concert series. Her groundbreaking musical and historical research includes the reconstruction of these 16 concert programmes, originally performed between November 1744 and August 1745.
Singer, songwriter, producer and pianist Agnes Obel heads to Aviva Studios in July. With a blend of alternative, neo-classical, pop, jazz and electronic, Agnes’ music has featured on TV, cinema, gaming and fashion, including The Last of Us, True Detective, Big Little Lies and Dark Souls III.
A little further afield, but well worth the short train journey out of town, The Hallé return to Buxton International Festival this July.
The programme is shaped by romantic masterpieces, and includes the dazzling overture to Weber’s opera Oberon, Richard Strauss’s First Horn Concerto, written when he was just 18, and Brahms’s monumental Fourth Symphony, often hailed as his greatest work.
Kicking off the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra’s 26/27 season in suitably stupendous style, the beauty, terror and joy of nature are all represented, with the evening’s show culminating in Sibelius’ final movement, containing one of the greatest moments in all symphonic music.
A landmark collaboration with the V&A East Museum and Friday Night is Music Night comes to the BBC Philharmonic Studio at MediaCity, celebrating the impact of Black British music on British culture. The programme is still TBC, but this is certainly one to keep on your radar.
Experience Jonny Greenwood’s immersive work 605 Years of Reverb, a piece written by the Radiohead star to celebrate the unique legacy of organs in historic buildings. Organists James McVinnie and Eliza McCarthy team up to take on this immense piece, which draws upon influences from Indian music.
- Words:
- Wire Editor
- Published on:
- Mon 8 Jun 2026
Celebrated composer and pianist Poppy Ackroyd performs a special show at Hallé at St Michaels, on the eve of her intimate new album, Liminal. For the first time since 2019’s Feathers, the new record sees Poppy reunite piano and violin exclusively, with every sound on the album drawn from these instruments alone.