The Sage Gateshead

The Sage Gateshead is a centre for musical education, performance and conferences, located in Gateshead on the south bank of the River Tyne, in the north-east of England. It was opened in 2004.

The venue is part of the Gateshead Quays development, which also includes the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

Origins

The centre occupies a "curvy glass and stainless steel" building designed by Foster and Partners, Arup Acoustics, Mott MacDonald and Buro Happold with spectacular views of Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides, the Tyne Bridge, and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. The planning and construction process cost over £70 million, which was raised primarily through National Lottery grants. The contractor was Laing O'Rourke [ [http://www.mottmac.com/projects/?id=5581 Mott MacDonald website] ] . The centre has a range of patrons, notably The Sage Group plc who contributed a large amount of money to have the building in their name. Sage Plc have helped support the charitable activities of The Sage Gateshead since conception.

The venue opened over the weekend 17th-19th December 2004. Rather than open in traditional fashion with a gala concert, The Sage Gateshead offered free admission to an opening weekend showcasing a variety of performers in diverse styles, in keeping with its philosophy that no genre of music should be valued above another.

The organisation is very original in its approach towards music and the affect it has on the populaceFact|date=September 2008. Its ethos has helped people from the third world and locally, considering Gateshead is in the top 10 most poverty stricken areas in BritainFact|date=September 2008, its premise and construction plus activity have assisted Gateshead with employment, enjoyment and academiaFact|date=September 2008.

The Sage Gateshead is also available as a conference venue, and hosted the Labour Party's Spring conference in February 2005.

The Building

The Sage Gateshead contains three performance spaces of acoustic excellenceFact|date=September 2008, a 1,700-seater, a 400-seater and a smaller rehearsal and performance hall, Northern Rock Foundation Hall. The rest of the building was designed around these three spaces to allow for maximum attention to detail in their acoustic properties. Hall One was intended as an acoustically perfect space, modelled on the renowned Musikverein in Vienna. Its ceiling panels may be raised and lowered and curtains drawn across the ribbed wooden side walls, changing the sound profile of the room to suit any type of music. Hall Two is an intimate venue, also acoustically excellent and possibly the world's only ten-sided performance spaceFact|date=September 2008. Even the building's concourse was designed with attention to acoustic properties, allowing it to be used for informal music-making. Below the concourse level is the Music Education Centre, where workshops, community music courses and day-to-day instrumental teaching takes place.

The building is open to the public even when there are no performances taking place.

Along with the performance spaces, there are five bars, "Sir Michael Straker Café", a "brasserie", "The Barbour Room", a multi-purpose function room for parties, weddings, small conferences, musical performances, etc, which holds around 200 people. There is also a technologically well-equipped musical branch of Gateshead public library, stocking books, and current magazines covering all aspects of music, a CD library with listening posts, and computers with free internet access, subscriptions to music websites, and music software.

Opinion

As a new and highly visible cultural project, there is some depth of popular debate surrounding The Sage Gateshead. There is a broad base of local support for the centre, including cross-party backing from local government. Conversely, some feel that along with the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art it represents an invasion of highbrow culture that is irrelevant to the bulk of the population, and that money would be better spent in other areas, such as improving Gateshead's residential areas and High StreetFact|date=September 2008. However, the money made available to the project build via Lottery Grants would not have been given for such general improvements to the area.Fact|date=April 2007 The majority of local people from Gateshead and Newcastle feel as if The Sage Gateshead is very much part of their community and often attend classes and performances in the building as well as using it as a local facilityFact|date=September 2008.

The building itself has its admirers and detractors. While many people hold it to be a fine example of Norman Foster's design, others draw comparisons with a large slug. Gavin Stamp, writing as "Piloti" in Private Eye's Nooks and Corners column, suggested that the structure resembles a "shiny condom". Fact|date=April 2007

The Sage Gateshead was awarded the Local Authority Building of the Year in the 2005 British Construction Industry Awards and more recently the RIBA Award for Inclusive Design.

Accessibility

The Sage Gateshead is fully accessible and allows visitors the chance to see rehearsals, soundchecks and workshops in progress; activities that are usually hidden away from the public eye in other venues. Design features such as large windows and acoustic gaps which may at first go unnoticed give the visitor a sense of being involved in the day to day buzz that takes place.

See [http://www.directenquiries.com/moreinfo.aspx?tab=The+Sage+Gateshead&id=71593&level=2 Direct Enquiries accessibility information for The Sage Gateshead]

Gallery

Appearing artists

A number of influential artists have performed at the Sage, they include,"James Brown,George Clinton/Funkadelic,Nancy Sinatra,David Crosby and Graham Nash,Robert Plant,Morrisey,Van Morrison,Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, Gilberto GilMc Coy Tyner,"

References

External links

* [http://www.thesagegateshead.com The Sage Gateshead]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/4102567.stm Sage music centre to open doors] (BBC News)