The Glasshouse celebrates 20 years of music on the Gateshead Quays

Few buildings say Tyneside quite like the curved glass shell on the Gateshead Quays. The Glasshouse International Centre for Music opened over the weekend of 17 to 19 December 2004 as Sage Gateshead, and its 20th birthday celebrations have run through its recent seasons.

Designed by Foster and Partners after a competition launched in 1997, the building cost more than £70 million, raised mainly through National Lottery grants. It is 40 metres tall and has 630 panes of glass, and people across the region have described it as "as much a symbol of home as the Tyne Bridge".

In September 2023 the charity behind it took a new name, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, after plans were announced for a neighbouring arena and conference centre called The Sage. The new identity came with a simple line: "Music lives and grows here." It also launched a Music Pass, giving families of babies born in the North East and Cumbria a voucher for concerts, gigs or classes.

The numbers are impressive. By the time of the renaming, the venue had hosted 10,022 performances with 4.7 million tickets, delivered over 220,000 music lessons, and helped over 1.7 million young people learn to play, sing or produce music.

It is also home to Royal Northern Sinfonia, which tours the region and has played to audiences on four continents. The Glasshouse hosted the BBC Proms in 2023 and 2024.

Its 20th anniversary autumn season in 2025 showed off its range: Self Esteem, Black Country, New Road, Rufus Wainwright, Graham Nash, Lulu, Suzanne Vega and Emma-Jean Thackray all appeared, alongside Royal Northern Sinfonia concerts with music director Dinis Sousa. The season also included Mercury Fringe events as the Mercury Prize came to Newcastle.

The venue works hard to welcome new audiences, with £5 tickets for North East first-timers to Royal Northern Sinfonia main series concerts and £10 tickets for under-30s through its Bar 10 scheme. Its Artistic Partners include Corinne Bailey Rae, violinist Maria Włoszczowska, The Unthanks and John Wilson's Sinfonia of London.

Concert listings, classes and ticket schemes are on The Glasshouse website.