Howard Assembly Room, Opera North’s iconic Leeds city-centre venue, has appointed a new general manager and lead programmer ahead of the 2025 autumn events series.
Stepping into a brand new role at the organisation, Tony Green joins the core Opera North team, bringing with him a wealth of invaluable experience from his previous roles across live music, cultural events and e-commerce. Green will take on the creative programming of the space going forward, redefining the venue’s future via a bold, cross-genre approach inspired by underground club culture, global sounds and boundary-breaking art.
As a multi-hyphenate with a varied career spanning several decades, Green has dedicated his life to uniting people through music, culture and ideas. Bringing together his vast experiences across diverse roles such as DJ, record shop and record label owner, creative programmer, self-employed event promoter and operations director, Green’s key ambitions for the Howard Assembly Room are to enhance the customer experience and to make the space more visible and accessible to wider audiences in the region by working with a greater breadth of promoters, both in the local area and nationwide.
While Opera North and Howard Assembly Room are registered charities, the organisation is excited to embrace new ideas and more commercial thinking to bolster financial resilience and create a sustainable long-term future for the venue.
Alongside the news, Howard Assembly Room has also shared details of its impressive autumn events programme, which brings some of the finest names in music, comedy, film and multi-disciplinary arts to the performance space over the coming months.
Highlights from the series include an appearance from Mercury-nominated Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon who is set to perform in October following the release of her forthcoming sixth album ‘Michelangelo Dying’, multiple concerts from shape-shifting ensemble Manchester Collective who present both ‘Shaker Loops’ (a unique interpretation of the John Adams composition with spoken word artist Christ Bryan) and ‘Wintering’ (their new collaboration with vocal ensemble The Marian Consort), alongside further appearances from celebrated names including Penguin Cafe, Fergus McCreadie Trio, Sanskrit Wahane, Courtney Pine and more.
Meanwhile, November will see ice music pioneer Terje Isungset returning to the UK with his new quartet performing solely using one-of-a-kind instruments sculpted by award-winning ice carver Bill Covitz, while in December the venue will play host to ‘Pass The Spoon’; a contemporary cooking-themed opera from the surreal minds of composer David Fennessy, artist David Shrigley and director Nicholas Bone.
Full programme, tickets and more available here.