Yorkshire and Lincolnshire: Centre stage?

Len Tingle Political Editor, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

A new venue for live music has just opened in Leeds. There is not much chance of it being used on the next world tour of the Rolling Stones, a visiting Philharmonic orchestra or even the city's massed choirs performing The Messiah.

"A much needed facility"

At 350 seats, the new auditorium for the Leeds School of Music is far too small for anything like that.

But, according to College Principal David Hoult, it is a much needed facility to hear professional musicians like the Fine Arts Brass Ensemble who played to a full house, and the Politics Show camera team, at the auditorium's first event.

Fine Arts Brass Ensemble

"It is a magnificent venue which is much needed."

"However, for the larger-scale productions you need a much larger stage area and at least 2000 seats", he tells political editor Len Tingle.

In fact, outside London, there are few venues able to cope with large scale productions of this kind.

Birmingham built a brand new Symphony Hall for its resident orchestra as part of the city's International Conference Centre in the 1980s.

Manchester has a home for its Halle Orchestra and Newcastle has St George's Hall.

No concert hall

Yorkshire and Lincolnshire has a couple of stadiums suitable for mass audience rock concerts but virtually nothing of any size able to cope with classical or modern large scale productions.

David Hoult, who is part of a group of local authority and educational organisations trying to raise the finance to build a large concert hall denies it would be an ultra-expensive extravagance pandering to elitist tastes.

"It would put our region at the centre stage of the arts in the country." he says.

"It is the sort of thing that the international business world looks for when it decides where a prestige investment should be located.

"It would be as much a business tool as part of the region's arts scene."

John Morris has a different view

Sing Live - no stages big enough in the region

He too wants a new concert hall for the region but his tastes tend to be more down to earth than David Hoult's.

From his base in Leeds, John runs an organisation called Sing Live UK.

It trains amateurs to take part in mass concerts of popular music.

He is taking two planeloads of people to perform in Florida at the beginning of December.

One of the performances is being recorded by the American TV network NBC for transmission on Christmas Day.

Mr Morris said;

The daft thing is we have no stages big enough in my own region to do this.

We have to stage our concerts in Newcastle or Manchester.

If Newcastle can have one, why can't we?

Back at the School of Music, David Hoult points to the biggest stumbling block - cash;

It is not just the tens of millions we would require to build a new regional concert venue here in Leeds, or Sheffield, York or Hull.

Public funding needed

None of the existing concert venues can stay afloat without more public aid.

The Halle does not pull in enough ticket payers or corporate sponsorship.

So does size matter when it comes to finding the right venue to listen to your favourite music live?

The Politics Show

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