A WORLD class concert hall in the North-East has been awarded £1.8 million to help secure its future amid the ongoing Covid crisis.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden pledged the cash to the Sage Gateshead as part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund.

On the south bank of the River Tyne, the venue comprises three performance spaces and a leading music education centre.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, each year Sage Gateshead welcomed over 2 million visitors, held more than 400 classical and contemporary concerts, and over 190,000 people of all ages participated in over 10,000 music classes and workshops.

Last year Sage Gateshead brought £13.5 million into the economy of the North East and brought live orchestral music to almost 18,000 school children.

Managing director Abigail Pogson said: “We are extremely grateful to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for supporting us with £1.8 million in emergency funding from the Culture Recovery Fund. This will help ensure Sage Gateshead’s survival to next spring and is an investment in our region’s economic and social recovery, to which arts and culture are vital.

“We have lost £10 million of income as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and we have done everything we can to cut costs and to raise funds. The size of the grant reflects the scale of the challenge we face. We have to raise a further £700,000 this year through our own efforts to ensure that we can continue to deliver high quality live music and life-enhancing education and participation to communities across the North East.”

On Friday night the Sage Gateshead reopened for a seven-week series of live performances, the first live music performances in the venue since it closed its doors in March.

The concerts aim to present the very best of Sage Gateshead, featuring Royal Northern Sinfonia on Fridays and a series of contemporary musicians from a range of genres on Saturdays.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said: “As part of our unprecedented £1.57 billion rescue fund, today we're saving British cultural icons with large grants of up to £3 million, from Shakespeare's Globe to the Sheffield Crucible.

“These places and organisations are irreplaceable parts of our heritage and what make us the cultural superpower we are.

“This vital funding will secure their future and protect jobs right away."

Sir Nicholas Serota, chairman of Arts Council England, said: “The Culture Recovery Fund has already helped hundreds of organisations, of all types and sizes, in villages, towns and cities across the country.

“It has provided a lifeline that will allow these organisations to continue to play an integral role in their communities and produce new artistic work that will entertain and inspire us all.

“This latest funding, which are the largest grants to date, will support some of the country’s most loved and admired cultural spaces – from great regional theatres and museums to historic venues in the capital – which are critical to the development of a new generation of talent and in providing work for freelance creatives.”