PRESS RELEASE – 9 October 2023
Visitors and shoppers can enjoy free music sets in Manchester city centre this week and here’s where to find them….
New global music conference and festival Beyond The Music lands in the city this Wednesday (11 October) and is looking to strike a chord with shoppers, visitors and tourists with a pop-up live music stage in Exchange Square and a series of special one-off pop-up performances in hotel lobbies across the city centre.
Exchange Square
Bringing Beyond The Music, beyond its main hub at Manchester Central, founding member and sponsor of the event, Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID) has organised the free-to-attend daytime music sets in Exchange Square this Friday (13 October).
Featuring seven performances, the line-up will celebrate Manchester as a classical music city with three professional orchestras including The Halle and BBC Philharmonic.
The classical music programme will sit alongside the traditional rock and electronic music acts at the festival and seeks to promote Manchester’s musical diversity.
The live music stage is being programmed by Manchester orchestra, The Untold Orchestra, which are focused on changing what an orchestra is, and who it’s for. From shows celebrating iconic artists such as Nina Simone, David Bowie and Drake, to creative projects with different artists and communities across Manchester, collaboration is at the centre of what they do.
Ahead of a busy winter of shows, workshops and their highly anticipated charity launch, The Untold Orchestra//Beyond the Music takeover highlights the original music and poetry of some of the orchestra’s members and collaborators in an afternoon demonstrating again, how much great music there is in Manchester.
Seven performances will take place throughout the day from 12pm – 7pm, kicking off with smaller ensembles and closing with a full band.
Line-up:
12pm Indie Pop Trio, Big Society
1pm Solo loop cello, Polly Virr
2pm R&B Duo, Mali Hayes
3pm Five poets performing spoken word, Esther Koch, Funmi Adeyo, Jack Coverdale & ReneéStormz
4pm Electronic pop & soul vocalist, Ellen Beth Abdi
5pm Vocalist, guitar and drums playing electronic pop & soul, Yemi Bolatiwa
6.15pm The Untold Orchestra – a seven piece band playing well known hits, featuring Jenna G and Will Jacquet
*Performances will be approximately 40 mins long.
Hotel Lobby Gigs
The Manchester Accommodation Business Improvement District (ABID), which works on behalf of city centre hotels and serviced apartments, has also commissioned a Dawn Chorus – a series of intimate classical performances in the foyers of six Manchester hotels close to the conference at the start of day two of the festival on Thursday (12 October).
Hotel visitors waking up at the Hyatt Regency, The Midland, Moxy, Yotel, Leonardo Hotel Manchester Central and Kimpton Clocktower will be treated to a series of very special shows performed by students from the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM).
The performances will take place between 8-10am at Hyatt Regency and The Midland and 9-11am at all other venues.
For more information or to organise filming or photography of the performances please contact Anoushka or Kat at ECHO PR – anoushka@echo-pr.co.uk / kat@echo-pr.co.uk / 07732 846650.
Notes to Editors
The Manchester Accommodation BID
The Manchester Accommodation BID is a ground-breaking initiative led by the city’s hotel and serviced apartment providers to help create new events and additional activities that will attract more people to visit and stay in Manchester and Salford. It contributes to the enhancement of overall guest experience and helps to expand the city’s visitor economy by:
- amplifying marketing campaigns that drive overnight stays
- securing large-scale events, conferences, and festivals in low-season months
- improving guest welcome and street cleanliness
The above activities are funded by the City Visitor Charge; a supplementary £1 Charge per room/unit per night* for guests, added to the final accommodation bill. The statutory Charge is collected from all paid accommodation establishments that fall into the Manchester Accommodation BID zone and has been applicable to all bookings from 1 April 2023.
CityCo is a delivery partner of the Accommodation BID, working on Events, City Welcome and Street Cleaning elements.
About Beyond The Music
Beyond The Music is a new global music conference and festival set to take place in Manchester, UK, from 11-14 October 2023.
As the music industry continues to shape and define global culture, it is also facing unprecedented and urgent challenges. In response, Beyond The Music aims to explore, define and tackle those issues to shape the future of the music industry and turn the challenges into opportunities to overhaul and advance.
Taking place in Manchester – the beating heart of the UK’s cultural enterprise and a city historically known for social change – Beyond The Music will create a global forum and live music festival, defining the music industry’s place in the new cultural economy by bringing together tech, AV, gaming, brands, and literature to build a creative alliance for the future.
Beyond The Music is a place to gather artists, entrepreneurs, creatives and music industry professionals over the course of three days with funders, businesses and organisations in order to maximise impact and take solutions to scale whilst putting the spotlight back on live and new music discovery alongside world class artists.
The first edition of Beyond The Music will take place on 11-14 October 2023 across venues in and around the city. The global annual event will seek to not only solve the issues being faced today but to produce innovative models for the future.
At the heart of the festival will be four days of live music by the most exciting new and established artists from around the world, alongside a series of conferences exploring The Past, The Present, The Future and The Summit, identifying everything from the entrepreneurs who have aided in defining Manchester’s music DNA to the new wave, the right to sustainability, ownership and equality within the industry, and how to find music’s place within the new cultural economy of tech, gaming, branding and film & TV.
Career-defining live music performances will see grassroots and developing talent perform to brand new audiences across 10 key venues Manchester’s Northern Quarter and city centre; with the Discovered series – a next generation focussed showcase – allowing artists from across the globe to submit their music for the opportunity to perform at the festival.
Beyond The Music is founded by promoter and social enterprise founder Oli Wilson, working alongside BTM Director Sarah Pearson, Founder of Wasted Youth Music, and Chair Rose Marley, CEO of Co-Operatives UK, and a committee that includes Michael Adex, CEO of NQ, and Jane Beese Director of Music at Factory International. With Beyond The Music, Oli Wilson intends to build upon the foundations laid by his father Tony Wilson, a broadcaster, journalist and creator of Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub, responsible for some of the world’s greatest music.
An impressive array of founding members have been brought together including Mayor Andy Burnham (GMCA), Bev Craig leader of Manchester City Council, John McGrath Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Factory International and Vaughan Allen from CityCo with a host of trade bodies, content creators and industry organisations all swiftly signing up as members, ensuring this is the place that all those organisations can come together cooperatively and implement true change.
Beyond The Music aims to unify on a global scale to deliver an international strategy for music through meaningful debate, necessary decision making, inspiring talks and unforgettable live music for all. For more information and updates join Beyond The Music HERE.
