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Manchester Collective tour dates 2024

Manchester Collective is currently touring across 1 country and has 3 upcoming concerts.

Their next tour date is at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre in London, after that they'll be at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre again in London.

Currently touring across

Upcoming concerts (3) See nearest concert

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

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Manchester Collective

International Concert Series 

Friday 10 May 2024 7.30pm

Event Timings Auditorium Doors: TBC Concert Start: 7:30pm Interval: TBC

Timings will be updated closer to the concert date. Please check the website on the afternoon of the performance for up-to-date information. All timings are approximate and are subject to change.

International Concert Series

Tickets £15.00 to £37.00

Concessions  Senior citizens, under 26s and claimants – 10% discount on full ticket prices Valid for bookings made more than one month before the date of the concert

Student Tickets £5 (subject to availability)

(All ticket prices include £3 booking fee )

Flexible Booking

Access Requirements To book wheelchair seats or other access requirements please email  [email protected]  or call the Box Office on 0161 907 9000

Manchester Collective Ruth Gibson viola Sansara choir

Isobel Waller-Bridge  Rothko No.9 (world premiere) Edmund Finnis Blue Divided by Blue (world premiere) Katherine Balch Songs and interludes (world premiere) Missy Mazzoli  Vespers for Violin Arvo Pärt  Solfeggio Saariaho 7 Papillons – No.2 Morton Feldman  Rothko Chapel

The mighty Manchester Collective returns for a typically adventurous night of new music – including new pieces from three of today’s freshest and most original composers.

Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel is a towering work of American minimalism – a haunting homage both to the Texan chapel of the title and to artist Mark Rothko himself, who killed himself shortly before it opened. Little heard in UK concert halls, it’s the perfect platform for Manchester Collective, teaming up tonight with violist Ruth Gibson and the bewitching SANSARA choir.

Alongside it, three works written for the Collective by the ever-eclectic composer Isobel Waller-Bridge, American original Katherine Balch and regular collaborator Edmund Finnis. Expect the unexpected.

Travel & Dining

Travel & Parking

Purchase discounted parking (evening concerts only) along with your concert tickets.

Eating & Drinking

Make your concert experience extra special by upgrading to A-List in the Corporate Members’ Bar (selected concerts only) or booking pre-concert dining.

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The Royal Festival Hall’s Level 2 foyer spaces are currently being refurbished, as we work to bring you a brand new cafe, bar, shop and Ticket Office. Find out more

Saved events

Manchester collective: weather.

Manchester Collective bring Michael Gordon’s cult work Weather to life in collaboration with BBC field recordist Chris Watson and filmmaker Carlos Casas.

Four movements. Four countries. Four natural habitats, each shaped, scarred and transformed by extreme weather events.

Written in 1997, this prescient musical tour-de-force transports audiences from the rainforests of East Asia to the world’s oldest desert, from an Icelandic glacier to a wild sea, eight miles off the English coast.

Combining sound, visuals and immersive lighting, Weather takes on a new life in this electrifying performance by an unlikely band of artistic collaborators: Southbank Centre Resident Artist Manchester Collective; Chris Watson, the legendary field-recording artist known for his work with David Attenborough; and Spanish filmmaker and artist Carlos Casas.

• Manchester Collective
• Michael Gordon : Weather for string orchestra & electronics

Need to know

For ages 7+

Dates & times

• Standard entry From £10*
• Concessions 25%**

Book as early as you can to ensure the best choice of tickets. Ticket prices may be adjusted without notice to reflect demand.

** Limited availability. Read about concessions.

Tickets can only be sold through the Southbank Centre and our authorised agents, and can't be resold. You can return your tickets to the Southbank Centre for a credit voucher up to 48 hours before the event. Tickets resold on any third-party platforms will become invalid.

Get presale tickets

Members get the first chance to book our entire programme of events, including go-down-in-history gigs, concerts with world-class orchestras, and talks from cultural icons and political giants.

Multi-buy discount

Classical Music: Autumn/Winter 2022/23

As part of our classical music multi-buy offer, book multiple Autumn/Winter concerts in the same transaction to receive a discount:

• 3 – 4 events: 10% discount
• 5 – 7 events: 15% discount
• 8 – 10 events: 20% discount
• 11 – 14 events: 25% discount
• 15+ events: 30% discount

Discounts apply to selected events from September 2022 until January 2023 inclusive. Offer can't be combined with Spring/Summer multi-buy.

• Queen Elizabeth Hall

Our number one priority is the health and wellbeing of our visitors and staff. 

Check here for our current guidance

The Queen Elizabeth Hall is open daily from 10am.

See the opening times for all our venues

Our address is: Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX. The nearest tube and train stations within 5-7 minutes walk are Waterloo (Northern, Bakerloo, Jubilee and Waterloo & City lines) and Embankment (District & Circle lines). There are also lots of bus routes with stops 2-5 minutes from our venues. For more information on getting here by road, rail or river.

Visit our Getting here page

Pre-booking online is recommended. Check our website on the day for returns. There’s no need to print your e-ticket – just show your phone to our Visitor Assistants on entry.

Some free events don't require a ticket. Found an event labelled FREE on our website with no way to book? Simply turn up on the day.

If you don't receive your e-ticket

Your e-ticket will be sent to you seven days before the event date from [email protected] . If you don't receive your e-ticket, and it's not in your junk or spam folder, please get in touch. 

More information

Find out all you need to know about tickets, including concessions, group bookings, returns, credit vouchers and more, via the link below.

Frequently asked questions

Get an overview of the seating layout of Queen Elizabeth Hall by downloading our seating plan.

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An accessible toilet is located in the foyer.

A Changing Places toilet is located on Level 1 Royal Festival Hall next to the JCB Glass Lift, for the exclusive use of disabled people who need personal assistance to use the toilet.

The facility includes a height-adjustable bench, tracking hoist system, a centrally-placed toilet, a height-adjustable basin and a shower. The phone outside the Changing Places toilet will connect you with a member of staff, who can provide you with the key. The facility is open daily 10am – 11pm.

The Queen Elizabeth Hall cloakroom is closed. You won’t be able to bring any bags over 40 x 25 x 25cm into the Queen Elizabeth Hall, so please leave large bags at home.

We're cash-free

Please note that we're unable to accept cash payments across our site. 

For step-free access from the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road off Belvedere Road to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating (excluding rows A to C) and wheelchair spaces in the Rear Stalls, plus Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer and the Purcell Room, please use the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance.

To reach this entrance, enter  the Royal Festival Hall via the Southbank Centre Square Doors. Take the JCB Glass Lift to Level 2 and exit to the Riverside Terrace. Turn right to find the Queen Elizabeth Hall main entrance.

You can also use the external lift near the Artists' Entrance on Southbank Centre Square to reach Mandela Walk, Level 2. 

For access to the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium seating rows A to C and wheelchair spaces in the Front Stalls, please enter via the Artists' Entrance in the Queen Elizabeth Hall Slip Road (Level 1).

Talk to a member of staff at the auditorium entrance if you have a disability that means you can’t queue, or you need extra time to take your seat. They can arrange priority entry for you as soon as the doors open.

Please bear with us while we update our access map to reflect the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall’s Level 2 foyer spaces. The step-free routes remain the same.

Download step-free access map

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Manchester Collective Manchester, UK

Radical human experiences. Known for their experimental programming and daring collaborations, Manchester Collective bring a combination of cutting edge contemporary music and classical masterpieces to a hungry, new audience. "THE FUTURE HAS ARRIVED" Bachtrack "BRILLIANT" The Observer ...   more

• manchestercollective.co.uk
• May 5 Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre London, UK
• Oct 12 Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre London, UK
• Nov 14 Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre London, UK

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Today’s Events

Wednesday–Monday: 10:00 am–6:00 pm

Tuesday: Closed

Today’s Availability

Manchester collective and abel selaocoe:  sirocco, buy a bundle, save 20%.

Purchase a bundle of 3, 4, or 5 Indoor Performance Series concerts and save 20%. This discount can be applied when tickets are purchased directly through our Pick 3, Pick 4, or Pick 5 bundles.

Please note: This discount cannot be combined with any other promo code or Member / Innovator discount.

Explore the Entire Series

From familiar faces to new artists to discover, our Indoor Performance Series showcases the beauty of the performing arts in the beauty of our Gardens.

It looks like this event has already occurred.

Date & Price

Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 7:30 pm

Exhibition Hall

Reserved Seating: $32

Gardens Preferred, Gardens Premium Members, and Innovators: $27

Ticket includes all-day Gardens Admission. Tickets limited. Sell out likely.

Longwood Debut

Known for their experimental programming and daring collaborations across genres and artforms, Manchester Collective is a new kind of arts organization, built for a fresh and diverse musical world. Making their Longwood debut, the Manchester Collective string quartet, South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, and Sidiki Dembele and Alan Keary of Selaocoe’s African-music trio Chesaba present Sirocco , a show of pure joy and energy. Guest-directed and narrated by Selaocoe, Sirocco celebrates the warmth and diversity of cultural traditions from around the world, from original African music to gorgeous Danish folk songs.

Sirocco is music for the people, by the people, covering everything from outrageous arrangements for solo cello to beloved classics. When this program toured across the UK and Europe, critics described it as a “deeply moving” and “once in a lifetime” experience.

Manchester Collective

Known for their experimental programming and daring collaborations, Manchester Collective performs a combination of cutting-edge contemporary music, classical masterpieces, and staged work in venues ranging from concert halls to warehouses, nightclubs and festivals. The work of Manchester Collective has expanded at breakneck speed since their formation in 2016 by co-founders Adam Szabo (Chief Executive) and Rakhi Singh (Music Director). They now play across the UK and internationally, performing a combination of cutting-edge contemporary music, classical masterpieces, and staged work to a hungry new audience.

Crossing different genres and artforms, new music is of vital importance to the Collective; in recent years, they have commissioned major works by artists including Edmund Finnis, Hannah Peel, Lyra Pramuk, and Laurence Osborn. In 2021, they made their Royal Albert Hall debut as part of the BBC Proms Festival and are currently artists-in-residence at the Southbank Centre in London. Manchester Collective records for the Icelandic label Bedroom Community. Their second album Shades was released in March 2022.

Abel Selaocoe 

South African cellist Abel Selaocoe is a rapidly rising star who is redefining the parameters of the cello. He moves seamlessly across a plethora of genres and styles, from collaborations with world musicians and beatboxers, to concertos and solo performances. Selaocoe combines virtuosic performance with improvisation, singing, and body percussion, and is devoted to composing works and curating programs that highlight the links between Western and non-Western musical traditions, broadening the horizons of classical music to reach a more diverse audience.

In April 2022, following his hugely successful debut, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra announced Selaocoe as Artistic Partner for an initial three seasons from 2022–23. He was also Artist in Association with the BBC Singers and Artist in Residence at London's Southbank Centre for the 2022–23 season, including an exclusive performance of his debut album Where is Home? (Hae Ke Kae - Warner Classics).

In 2016, Selaocoe formed Chesaba, a trio specializing in music from the African continent, including many of his own compositions. He enjoys close collaborations with musicians from a medley of genres, including Bernhard Schimpelsberger, Tim Garland, Seckou Keita, Giovanni Sollima, Dudu Kouaté, Famoudou Don Moye, and Gwilym Simcock. He has a close partnership with Manchester Collective, with whom he devised the hugely successful Sirocco , which has been enjoyed both live and digitally by audiences since 2019, and The Oracle , which toured the UK in 2022.

Selaocoe completed his International Artist Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music in July 2018. In May 2021, he was announced as an inaugural Power Up Music Creator participant in PRS Foundation’s new initiative to address anti-Black racism and racial disparities in the music sector.  In July 2021, he received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation award for his compositional work. Selaocoe is an exclusive recording artist with Warner Classics.

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Experience popular music from the eight Harry Potter movies paired with the imaginatively colorful Pictures at an Exhibition classic.

Manchester Collective

Featuring Abel Selaocoe cello

Information

Venue: vancouver playhouse.

The Vancouver Recital Society presents the Manchester Collective with Abel Selaocoe

Radical artists. Unexpected sound worlds. The Manchester Collective describes itself as “a new kind of arts organisation, built for a fresh and diverse musical world. We create intimate and intense human experiences inspired by the music that we love, for everyone.” Known for experimental programming and daring collaborations, Manchester Collective brings a combination of cutting edge contemporary music and classical masterpieces to diverse audiences.

Sirocco is pure joy and energy – a great storm of music that celebrates the warmth and diversity of cultural traditions from across the globe. Guest directed and narrated by South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, a rapidly rising star who is redefining the parameters of the cello, this program covers everything from outrageous arrangements for solo cello to beloved classics, from a set of original African music to a collection of gorgeous Danish folk songs. When this program toured across the UK and Europe, critics described it as a “deeply moving” and “once in a lifetime experience.”

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Ezra Collective share fiery new single ‘Ajala’ and announce UK and European tour

The band are set to become the first UK Jazz act to headline London’s OVO Arena Wembley in November

Ezra Collective have shared their firey new single ‘Ajala’ and have announced a 2024 UK and European tour.

• READ MORE: Ezra Collective live in London: a landmark moment for the Mercury Prize winners

The blazing new track features rhythmic drums paired with a joyful saxophone and trumpet section and stellar keys and bass line. ‘Ajala’ interpolates the sounds of Afrobeats and Highlife with Jazz.

‘Ajala’ also serves as a nod to the nomadic spirit of the infamous Olabisi Ajala, the Ghanaian-Nigerian world adventurer who ambitiously took on touring the world on his scooter, covering 87 countries.

Speaking about the song in a press release, drummer Femi Koleoso said: “Ajala the Traveller is a journalist from Nigeria whose story is really beautiful. He decided that he wanted to travel the whole world on a moped and what ended up happening was his name became slang in Yoruba.”

He continued: “‘Ajala travel’ is slang for someone that can’t sit still. It’s the way a lot of people would describe me, but for me it’s also what a great drum beat does, it’s what great music does to me, it means I can’t sit still and I just want to move. Ajala is all about that movement.”

Recommended

The track marks the band’s first release of the year and serves as the follow up to their 2023 Mercury Music Prize winning album ‘ Where I’m Meant To Be ‘.

Ezra Collective have also announced a 2024 UK and European tour, with the band becoming the first UK Jazz act to headline London’s OVO Arena Wembley in November. General ticket sales will commence on Friday May 3 at 10am. Check out a full list of dates below and visit here to purchase tickets .

Ezra Collective 2024 UK and European tour dates are: 

OCTOBER 15 – Berlin, Astra 16 – Hamburg, Docks 18 – Copenhagen, Amager Bio 19 – Stockholm, Vasateatern 20 – Oslo, Rockefeller 22 – Cologne, Gloria 24 – Amsterdam, Paradiso 26 – Lyon, Transbordeur 27 – Milan, Magazzini Generali 28 – Zurich, Kaufleuten 30 – Paris, Olympia 31 – Lille, Aéronef

NOVEMBER 1 – Brussels, AB 6 – Birmingham, Institute 7 – Leeds, Project House 8 – Glasgow, Barrowlands 10 – Manchester, Apollo 11 – Dublin, 3Olympia 13 – Bristol, Beacon 15 – London, OVO Arena Wembley

In other news, Ezra Collective are set to perform at this year’s Green Man festival as well as MEO Kalorama , Bilbao BBK , and All Points East .

• Related Topics
• Ezra Collective
• Live Music News

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A musical tour of Manchester: from the Hallé to the Happy Mondays

Every genre of music has made its mark on Manchester, including dialect ballads, classical, TV theme tunes and all the strands of post-punk. Welcome to the north-west sound

M yth distorts any city’s musical history, and in Manchester myth looms as large as the new Co-op Live , a £365m, 23,500-capacity mega-venue that opens today and will soon be staging big-name acts, including Take That. So, for every occasion a music fan mentions the hit-making boy band or, for that matter, 10cc or the Hollies, a thousand more bark back: Joy Division, the Fall, Happy Mondays. Not that 10cc were a small Manc band, but they peaked before punk and a wall went up at the end of the 1970s that relegated all that had passed prior to 4 June 1976 – the night the Sex Pistols performed at the Lesser Free Trade Hall – to prehistory, as in dinosaurs, fossils, folk musicians. New hagiographies about music impresario Tony Wilson (1950-2007) are no doubt at the printers as I write. But how about we spend half an hour mooching round the Rainy City aboard the free buses and trams in search of the underplayed, surprising and tangential – with a few Gen X/6 Music standards for when we’re stuck at the lights.

You might not think Coronation Street a promising departure point, but it gives us an in to Bowton’s Yard. It’s one of those ditties that may prompt unpleasant memories of the BBC TV series Sit Thi Deawn, but listen carefully and you’ll hear it is in fact a Victorian reality show made song. Written by Marsden-born, Stalybridge-based Samuel Laycock, it inspired Tony Warren when he was devising the characters for his Weatherfield/Salford-set soap opera. Granada Studios on Quay Street also played a leading role in disseminating the north-western sound, from regional accents to theme tunes to the Beatles’ first TV appearance , in October 1962.

Dialect ballads spoke truth to power after Peterloo – memorialised in 2019 by Jeremy Deller’s burial mound-like stone tump – and during the cotton famine . To spread the word, broadsides were run off at printers around the Oldham Street-Swan Street junction. Lancashire songs were central to the folk revival of the 1960s. Harry Boardman, a singer and collector from Failsworth, unearthed many anonymous songs of protest and historical record. Edward II has recorded a reggae version of the Great Flood, about the time the Medlock burst its banks in 1872. Jennifer Reid , from Middleton, performs The New Poor Law Bill a cappella on her album Gradely Manchester.

The most famous folk number, Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town , alludes to a “gasworks wall” or “gasworks croft”, depending on the version. The works were in Ordsall, bounded by West Egerton Street, Liverpool Street and Regent Road. Prior to their demolition in 2019, a prosaic infographic (not quite a “ muriel ”) was placed on the West Egerton Street wall. The Working Class Movement Library is a repository of MacColl’s work and life and has significant holdings of sheet music and song lyrics.

The Hallé Orchestra was founded by Sir Charles Hallé, who was conductor for the first concert at the Free Trade Hall on 30 January 1858. The Hallé premiered Elgar’s Symphony No 1 and Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No 8. The latter, dedicated to the orchestra’s celebrated conductor John Barbirolli, took place at the Kings Hall , a converted tea house at Belle Vue (demolished to make way for a car auction centre) on 2 May 1956. The BBC recorded it a few days later. The third movement, a cavatina, is a swirl of lark-like ascents and descents.

Since 1996, the orchestra’s HQ has been the purpose-built, vibration-proof Bridgewater Hall , with former St Peter’s church in Ancoats, a hulking redbrick Romanesque building, used for rehearsals, recordings and intimate shows. Manchester has an opera house , originally known as the New theatre. Recent shows include The Full Monty and Peppa Pig’s Fun Day Out, but it may get weightier fare as the ENO relocates to Manchester over the next five years. The region’s greatest opera singer was, like so much Manchester talent, from way outside town. Tom Burke, a miner from Leigh, was known as the “ Lancashire Caruso ”. What used to be the city’s Hippodrome is now a Wetherspoons named after him.

The Manchester School includes Accrington-born Harrison Birtwistle, Salford’s Peter Maxwell Davies and German immigrant Alexander Goehr, who met at the Royal Manchester College of Music in the 1950s. They founded the New Music Manchester group with pianist John Ogdon, who had attended Manchester Grammar School, and trumpeter Elgar Howarth. Exponents of avant-garde experimentation, they shunned cotton-themed concertos and any kind of parochialism.

If Unesco dispensed rosettes for demolition, Manchester would have many. Most of the old taverns that hosted turns, popular dance salons and music hall venues have been razed, together with mills, warehouses and factories. Concert halls and fun palaces were removed to make way for multistorey car parks and office blocks. The Free Trade Hall , where locals including Gracie Fields, Van der Graaf Generator and James played, as well as Dylan (AKA “ Judas ” as he was called at a gig there in 1966 ), Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and Genesis, is now a hotel . Does a ribald, rollicking spirit live on from the boozy days of industrial Manchester? Certainly the refurbished Band on the Wall – which reopened in March – celebrates its location on the foundations of the George & Dragon and nearby Rising Sun pubs.

Every genre of popular music surfaced in Manchester between 1950 and the present, including big band, beat, rhythm and blues, soul, chart-oriented pop, punk, goth and all the strands of post-punk. There are not as many landmarks as songs, partly because, as mentioned, the wrecking ball is unsentimental and also, because pop stars have generally used their art to get away – lyrically first, and then physically. The Bee Gees, who claimed to have practised harmonising at their childhood home at 51 Keppel Road , Chorlton-cum-Hardy, never knowingly screamed a word about the town.

Northern soul, which arrived via Liverpool docks and Burtonwood airbase, drew large followings in Stoke, Wigan, Blackpool and, before any of those , Manchester. The Twisted Wheel on Brazennose Street and, later, Whitworth Street, had gigs by the Hollies and Freddie and the Dreamers, and less well-known bands such as Powerhouse 6 , but is best known for its legendary northern soul nights. The building has gone but Twisted Wheel “lives on”, according to a members-only Facebook page , at Area, 50 Sackville Street. The Ritz, on Whitworth St, survives as an O2 franchise. Originally opened as a dance hall (with a sprung floor) in 1927, it hosted a Dancing in the Dark evening in the 50s and 60s, fronted by Crumpsall’s Phil “King of the Ritz” Moss and his Band (which later became a stalwart on TV’s Come Dancing), and went on to transition through beat, northern soul, disco and mainstream rock scenes. The mobile phone firm also owns the famous art deco-style Apollo , long a fixture for bands on tour. Stockport’s MoR hitmakers 10cc were a classic art school, let’s-go-to-London-asap outfit, but they played here when they came home, as did Sad Café.

The Pistols concert in 1976 made the Lesser Free Trade Hall a holy-of-holies in Manc muso circles, but the Electric Circus , in Collyhurst (birthplace of pianist and crooner Les Dawson), earned its credentials through many seminal punk performances, including the first gig by Warsaw (Joy Division’s first name), and shows by Buzzcocks, John Cooper Clarke, the Fall, the Nosebleeds and Slaughter and the Dogs, among others. The fact it had previously been a cinema, Bernard Manning’s Top Hat club and a bingo hall should surely have made it one for the heritage buffs to list.

Richard Boon and Howard Devoto launched the New Hormones label in 1977 at a then ramshackle, now listed former hat merchants’ warehouse at 50 Newton Street . The first release, the Spiral Scratch EP , was a punk watershed and a declaration that bands needed neither London nor major labels. In 1980, Boon and others started up The Beach Club (a reference to the Situationist slogan “Under the pavement, the beach!”) at Oozits on Newgate Street. In 1978, Factory Records began as a WFH DIY disruptive startup at Alan Erasmus’s first-floor flat at 86 Palatine Road (now blue plaqued), only moving to a proper HQ on Charles Street in 1990 – where it was officially incorporated with the catalogue number FAC 251 (the name of a venue for cover bands on the site, part owned by Peter Hook). The Factory was the name of a night at the Russell Club on Royce Road in Hulme that ran from 1978-80; two years later the Haçienda (FAC 51) opened in a former yacht builders’ shop and warehouse on Whitworth Street West, beside the Rochdale Canal. The site is now occupied by “ iconic ” apartments.

The last Factory catalogue number, FAC 501, was used for the plaque on Wilson’s coffin, and no number adorns designer Peter Saville’s headstone for his business partner in Southern Cemetery . Fabled producer Martin Hannett is also buried at the necropolis – said to be entered via the Smiths’ Cemetry Gates.

There’s no better terminus than a musical graveyard. Inevitably, dozens of Manchester music sites are missing from this hop, skip and jump, including Rochdale’s recording studios, Festival of the Tenth Summer venues and countless bedrooms, garages and rave locations. But most tell versions of the same story, just as some songs seem like Venn diagrams of influence; Oasis by Happy Mondays sounds like New Order with lyrics by Morrissey or Ian Curtis, on a bad day (“You went too far, and it’s gone all the wrong way”). If you want to aurally vacuum up every Manc motif in a single song, steam on in to Mike Garry and Joe Duddell’s St Anthony: An Ode to Anthony H Wilson (Andrew Weatherall Remix; lyrics here ), perhaps while walking from the thrusting Aviva Studios/Factory International behemoth to the Epping Walk Bridge to search hopelessly – à la 80s – for Hulme Crescents and the dead souls of yesteryear.

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10 Highlights From the Venice Biennale

A tour of the international exhibition, which opened last week and runs through November.

Photographs and Video by Jason Schmidt

The Venice Biennale, the art world’s most prestigious exhibition, opened last week to some fanfare, some criticism and a number of protests . Viewers generally look to the Biennale as a reflection of its time, and this one arrived at a fraught moment in history defined by political unrest and distrust for traditional systems of power. (And not for nothing, Indigenous and African artists, historically underrepresented in Venice, are notably more visible than in previous iterations of the show.) Here, a look at some of the standouts from the 2024 edition.

The Holy See Pavilion

The Vatican’s Holy See Pavilion organized an exhibition based on the theme of human rights, titled “Con i Miei Occhi (With My Eyes),” at the Giudecca Women’s Detention Home, an active prison for female inmates. The show includes works by the feminist art collective Claire Fontaine, the Brazilian textile artist Sonia Gomes, the American artist Corita Kent and the Italian conceptual artist Maurizio Cattelan (whose new fresco “Father,” depicting a pair of wounded feet, graces the building’s facade), all of which contemplate, in some way, the desire for freedom. Several inmates are giving guided tours and, on April 28, Pope Francis will stop by, making him the first Pontiff in history to visit the Biennale.

The Nigeria Pavilion

For the country’s second-ever pavilion in Venice, eight Nigerian artists installed site-specific works at the Palazzo Canal in a show organized by the London-based curator Aindrea Emelife. Their projects — including Yinka Shonibare’s replicas of the Benin Bronzes that were plundered by the British in the late 19th century, and a sculpture by Ndiki Dike commemorating protests against police in 2020 — look at the violence of colonial history, as well as charting a path out of it.

The Japan Pavilion

Sook-Kyung Lee, the director of the Whitworth gallery at Manchester University, organized this installation, titled “Compose,” by the Tokyo-based installation artist Yuko Mohri, known for working with ready-made materials and incorporating sound into her sculptures. Largely using objects sourced from grocery stores and flea markets around Venice, Mohri addresses issues of environmental collapse and sustainability. In one part of the show, called “Decomposition,” a series of hanging lights are connected to electrodes inserted into rotting pieces of fruit, whose moisture creates electric signals that power the bulbs. The fruit will eventually be composted.

The South Korea Pavilion

The artist Koo Jeong A is representing South Korea at the Biennale with an original commission called “Odorama Cities.” The artist, who is known for exploring smell, worked with a Seoul-based perfumer in an attempt to capture the scents of the Korean Peninsula. The installation includes a bronze sculpture that emits a variety of fragrances based on more than 600 responses, which the artist gathered from people who live in or have visited Korea, to the question, “What is your scent memory of Korea?”

The Israel Pavilion

The new-media artist and filmmaker Ruth Patir, working with the curators Tamar Margalit and Mira Lapidot, closed her already installed exhibition “M/otherland” at the Israel Pavilion on the day it was set to open in protest of the war in Gaza. Visitors to the show, which considers the idea of fertility, are greeted with a sign posted at the entrance that reads: “The artist and curators of the Israeli pavilion will open the exhibition when a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached.”

The Fondazione Prada

At the Fondazione Prada’s venue, the 18th-century palazzo Ca’ Corner della Regina, the Swiss artist Christoph Büchel, perhaps best known for building a functional mosque at the 2015 Venice Biennale, has installed an immersive show called “Monte di Pietà” that explores the themes of debt and finance. (The show is named after a centuries-old money lender that used to operate in the same building.) In addition to a room showing CCTV footage seemingly from active war zones in Gaza and Kyiv, a collection of lab-grown diamonds and a stripper pole, the sprawling exhibition includes a fictitious bankrupt pawnshop.

The U.S. Pavilion

In his show “The Space in Which to Place Me,” the New York-based painter and sculptor Jeffrey Gibson, representing the United States, draws on themes of identity and Indigenous histories that he’s explored for much of his three-decade-long career. Included in the pavilion are sculptures, works on paper, videos and multimedia paintings that celebrate the artist’s Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage. There’s also a dance program featuring members of the Colorado Inter-Tribal Dancers and Oklahoma Fancy Dancers. Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States with a solo show at the Biennale.

The Australia Pavilion

For his exhibition “Kith and Kin,” the Aboriginal artist Archie Moore has covered the walls of the Australia Pavilion with a meticulous chalk drawing of a First Nation family tree that calls upon some 65,000 years of the artist’s family history. In the center of the room, floating in a moat of water, are stacks of government documents that detail the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody. The work won the Golden Lion, the prize for the best national participation at the Biennale.

The Canada Pavilion

The Paris-based, Canadian-born artist Kapwani Kiwanga, who makes intricate installations concerned with the African diaspora and questioning the traditional canon, used small glass spheres called conterie , or Venetian seed beads, as the primary material for her installation “Trinket” at the Canada Pavilion. She strung together thousands of them, in a variety of colors, to create a dramatic, cumulative effect, turning the seemingly insignificant objects into something vast and dramatic.

The artist Ryan Gander’s installation at Palazzo Grassi.

Humans are, in fact, time travelers — the very ability you have been coveting in literature and science for centuries. You just do it cognitively, not physically. However, the ability to imagine a past and a future and various scenarios for yourselves also comes with consequences. The penalty is being able to imagine your own demise. You are all going to die, and none of you really know when.

The Palazzo Grassi

At the 18th-century Palazzo Grassi, also the site of a retrospective by the painter Julie Mehretu, the multimedia artist Ryan Gander has installed an animatronic work subtle enough to miss if you aren’t paying close attention. Positioned just above the floor, it comprises a moving life-size model of a mouse, which seems to poke through the wall of the Venetian Classical-style building and philosophize about the inevitability of death and the struggle to find meaning in life.

Inside the Venice Biennale

The 2024 venice biennale features work by more than 330 participating artists from some 90 countries scattered throughout the city..

 Hits of the Venice Biennale:  These 8 highlights drew the big crowds so far, including a  sonorous symphony made by fruit, an underwater spectacle and a modern-day Tintoretto.

Bangkok Takes Its Place on the Stage:  Bangkok, called the Venice of the East by European missionaries  and sailors who fell under the city’s spell centuries ago, will celebrate its fourth biennale this fall

Dissent, Diplomacy and Drama:  A look at pivotal years of the art festival , including when Mussolini brought Hitler to the show.

Did America Cheat to Win in 1964?:  A new documentary takes a hard look  at the persistent rumors around Robert Rauschenberg’s win in Venice in the midst of the Cold War.

An Unpopular Rebellion:  Poland’s right-wing government tapped the artist Ignacy Czwartos  for the Venice Biennale before it was voted out of office. The new government canceled his show, but he is staging it anyway.

Turning a Prison Into a Gallery:  For its offering at this year’s Venice Biennale, the Holy See chose an unusual venue : the Giudecca women’s prison.

Manchester United 4 Sheffield United 2: Vital Fernandes, more errors and a low block – The Briefing

Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United delivered another chaotic but ultimately victorious performance, beating the Premier League ’s bottom team Sheffield United 4-2 at Old Trafford.

Sheffield United took the lead when Andre Onana ’s attempted pass across his box to Diogo Dalot was intercepted by Jayden Bogle who scored the opener.

Harry Maguire headed in Alejandro Garnacho ’s low cross to equalise and, in the process, netted the 1,085th goal scored by all teams in the Premier League this season — a new divisional record.

Harry Maguire's goal against Sheffield United was the 1,085th goal scored in the Premier League this season, setting the record for the most goals scored in a 20-team #PL campaign. #MUNSHU | #MUFC pic.twitter.com/daN3MOGRun — The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) April 24, 2024

Ben Brereton Diaz put Sheffield United back ahead only for Bruno Fernandes to equalise from the penalty spot when referee Michael Salisbury blew for a foul just before Dalot bundled the ball home.

And Fernandes smashed home from 30 yards in the 81st minute to win the game before Rasmus Hojlund added a fourth to leave United sixth, three points clear of Newcastle United who lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace this evening.

Here, The Athletic ’s Mark Critchley examines the main talking points…

Where would United be without Bruno Fernandes?

It is now seven goals in his last six league appearances for Bruno Fernandes, with at least one in all of his last four.

The United captain can sometimes be viewed as a symbol of this side — and not in a good way. He is often characterised as a rash, impulsive player who tries to do everything too quickly, then moans and complains when things do not go his way .

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But that is an ungenerous view, overlooking not just his importance to everything United do but also his willingness to take responsibility and carry Ten Hag’s side when it needs him.

He has done just that in recent weeks, uplifting several mediocre performances — perhaps no more so than tonight with a coolly-taken penalty and a superb second.

This recent run of form, where Fernandes has dragged his team-mates along with him during games, is precisely why he was given the armband by Ten Hag last summer and his captain has been repaying that faith.

How did United concede this time?

This was a closer run thing than it needed to be because of two defensive lapses of the sort we have seen all season from United: one an individual error, the other a collective breakdown.

Which individual was at fault for the first? It is hard to make an argument against most of the blame lying with Andre Onana, who has dug United out of several holes in recent weeks but landed them in one this time with a loose pass across his box.

At the same time, Diogo Dalot was not especially quick at reading the intention behind Onana’s pass and then was slow to recover the loose ball, allowing Jayden Bogle to pounce.

Sheffield United’s second came from a common thread running throughout United’s season, one that simply will not go away: conceding from cutbacks. Since conceding their very first goals of the campaign at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium back in August, the problem has reared its head over and over again.

The amount of disruption that injuries have caused — particularly in defence — cannot have helped the understanding, but when Gustavo Hamer dragged three United players with him before turning to play Ben Osborn down the left, you knew what was coming. It is a persistent issue that Ten Hag has shown little sign of fixing.

Why do United struggle against low blocks?

Think of your typical Manchester United performance over the last few months and it has not usually involved having to break down a low block.

Ten Hag’s side have become used to turning games into helter-skelter back-and-forth affairs with plenty of space for both sides to play into, but this was the second of three games in a week where the opposition wouldn’t play ball.

For a team out of practice with having to be patient and probe gaps, United still racked up the shot count on Sunday against Coventry City — with 28 in 120 minutes — and again this evening with 25.

Even if they were not all brilliantly clear-cut opportunities, United created enough to break down the door and force their way to three points.

United have been playing most of this season on one setting: quick, direct counter-attacking. But they need another to become a more rounded, complete side. This was a reminder they can still bludgeon their way to a win.

What did Erik ten Hag say?

On Fernandes: “He showed his leadership in this game, but also with his energy, his transition both ways is very important and he always tries to encourage the team. He is doing very well and we are very pleased with his performances and his attitude.”

On whether they controlled the game: “We were totally in control. I have seen a different game, sorry. I think we have two giveaways, two times behind losing the game, so talk about two negatives, one focus and one ill-disciplined, but for the rest I think we were totally in control. The team showed resilience, and it is not easy when you are losing the game against a compact team, as Sheffield tonight was, but we outplayed them and were calm. We let them run, we had many connections from one side to the other side, defending we did well and created a lot of chances.”

What next for Manchester United?

Saturday, April 27: Burnley (H), Premier League, 3pm BST, 10am ET

Burnley make the short trip to Old Trafford with the scent of Premier League survival in their nostrils, having lost just once in seven league games to move within three points of fourth-bottom Nottingham Forest with four matches each to play.

United won the reverse fixture 1-0 in September and have been beaten by their northern neighbours from Turf Moor only once in 17 meetings over the past 14 years.

Recommended reading

• Erik ten Hag thinks Manchester United are unlucky – he’s only partly right
• Donny van de Beek: What now for United’s forgotten playmaker?
• United and Disney in talks over multi-million-dollar documentaries deal
• Sir Jim Ratcliffe says Manchester United fans have to be “a bit patient”

 (Photo: Ash Donelon/Manchester United via Getty Images)

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Mark Critchley is a football writer for The Athletic, covering Manchester United and Manchester City. Mark joined after five years as The Independent's northern football correspondent. Follow Mark on Twitter @ mjcritchley