Sir Mark Elder was back on the scene of past triumphs last night as he returned to the Hallé at the Bridgewater Hall – and he has not lost his taste for the slightly unexpected.

Am I dreaming? Did I really see a living composer of contemporary music given a prolonged standing ovation for conducting his own works in the Bridgewater Hall, twice over?

Witch Fever are a rising four-piece, originally formed in Manchester. Their debut album, 2022’s Congregation, was a raw, sludge-punk howl that represented singer Amy Walpole’s livid rejection of the stridently patriarchal Charismatic Church of her upbringing.

Manchester Camerata have had a ten-year association with composer-conductor Jack Sheen. For this short programme, one of the free Walter Carroll Lunchtime Concert series at the Martin Harris Centre in the University of Manchester, he and they created a partial re-enactment of the January 1914 inaugural concert of the Société Musicale Indépendante in Paris. To works by Stravinsky, Delage and Ravel were added two UK premieres, by Sheen himself and by Isabella Gellis. 

Kahchun Wong’s second Bridgewater Hall concert of the new season was partly an introduction to the Hallé’s artist-in-residence for 2025-26, Anna Lapwood. The star organist brought a new piece by Max Richter for organ, choir and orchestra and a recent one by Olivia Belli for organ solo – both on the theme of space travel.

Over the past decade, Manchester Camerata has gained a reputation for continually innovating and redefining what an orchestra can do. But what does this really mean? For us, this means always questioning the status quo, asking what the impact is, and making our beautiful art form as accessible as possible.

Rachel Helleur-Simcock’s first appearance with the Hallé after appointment as leader of its cello section was auspicious – she became the soloist in their performance of Elgar’s Cello Concerto in the season’s opening concert at the Bridgewater Hall (Truls Mørk having had to withdraw).

The Royal Northern College of Music was in celebratory mood last night for the opening of its new season, in a joint promotion with Manchester Camerata that marked the 50^th anniversary of the start of the RNCM’s Junior Fellowship programme.

Concerts need to have themes, it seems, today, and the BBC Philharmonic’s publicity suggested two contrasting ideas for the opening of its 2025-26 season at the Bridgewater Hall. One was “Fountain of Youth” (the programme title and also that of Julia Wolfe’s nine-minute work that began its orchestral content) and the other “Grasping pain, embracing fate” (used as a kind of strapline).

Manchester Camerata is enhancing its reputation for pioneering with three performances featuring Nick Martin’s new Violin Concerto, which it has commissioned, two of them in art galleries rather than conventional music venues.