VAUGHAN WILLIAMS’S The Lark Ascending is far from being my favourite tune. But as I listened to it on Thursday I felt a distinct moistening round the eyes which — were I not a cynical hack and thus immune to real feelings — would surely constitute evidence of a grown man weeping. And all around me, I sensed, other grown men were on the verge of perpetrating similar emotional atrocities.

The reason lay not in the performance, though that was very pleasant. It was the moment. Behind locked doors, the Sage — Britain’s newest and most spectacular concert hall — was being put through its acoustic tests after seven years of planning, praying and building.

Even the words “spectacular concert hall” diminish the Sage. This vast, testicular Norman Foster creation, looming on the Gateshead bank of the Tyne like some GM-enhanced glass-and-steel snail about to slither into the river, is far more than a concert hall. When it opens next month, symbolically with a weekend of free concerts, it will not only offer the most radical diet of music-making in Britain but also embody the regener ative aspirations of a community.

It will also be the last culture-palace built with lottery lolly. The timing couldn’t be more pertinent. The lottery’s tenth birthday has seen a spate of newspaper articles exhuming its failures: the Dome, the Sheffield Pop Museum, the grim “Earth Centre” in Doncaster. People tend to forget that it has bankrolled 50 successes for every debacle. But even so, it is vital that the Sage succeeds, and not just for the sake of the punters who bought the 47 million lottery tickets that helped to cover its £70 million price-tag. It’s no exaggeration — well, all right, it’s a small exaggeration — to say that musical life in the North depends on this extraordinary project.

Extraordinary? Yes, for three reasons. The first is that it will become home both to the region’s superb orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia (that was them ascending the lark last Thursday) and Folkworks, a sparky traditional-music outfit. But the folkies and classical dudes aren’t simply going to share a canteen. They have effectively merged, believing there should be no divisions in music, except between good stuff and rubbish. So jazz, folk, rock and classical will be on an equal footing. The old prejudices, the old “elitist” and “populist” tags, will be swept away. About time, too.

Secondly, although shows will happen constantly in the Sage’s halls and on its glazed concourse (with its dazzling view over the Tyne to Newcastle), education is at its heart. The main hall is a 1,700-seat creation that seems to float in wood, with six “smart” ceiling blocks that can be adjusted to supply acoustics for every sort of music. That is on the upper floor. So is a rehearsal room, and a breathtaking galleried recital room.

But on the lower level are 25 teaching spaces. It is here that thousands of children will come every week. In no other concert hall that I know is education given so central a place. And with music teaching so precarious in schools, never has such a facility been so needed. I hope it shines like a beacon, reminding local councils everywhere of their cultural responsibilities to the young.

Which brings us to the last extraordinary aspect. The glories of the Sage (it takes its name from a software firm that has chipped in £6 million) have not been conjured by some rich metropolis. Gateshead is a borough of just 180,000 residents with, until recent years, a Cinderella image in comparison with glam-sister Newcastle.

But it dares to dream big. The regeneration of Gateshead Quays is an enormously bold public-private effort to replace dead industries with businesses sustainable in the 21st century. “So what?” you think. “Every northern town has the same aim.” But Gateshead is placing its faith in culture as the catalyst of its rebirth.

Not just token-gesture culture either. Somehow this place has managed to net four of the most iconic edifices of our time: Gormley’s Angel of the North, Wilkinson’s “winking eye” Millennium Bridge, the Baltic Centre (which like Tate Modern only nicer, turns an industrial hulk into a trendy art gallery), and now the Sage.

True, much of that has happened because Gateshead Council has been phenomenally successful at “playing” the lottery, which has poured £89 million into a patch of riverbank no bigger than Trafalgar Square. But I don’t begrudge a penny, because the council itself has invested something even more vital than cash. And that’s vision and hope. Gateshead’s leaders, in short, are determined that Geordies should have as rich a cultural life as Mancunians or southerners.

I wish all local councils were like that. And, as a Londoner, I wish my city had a hall half as inspiring as Gateshead’s new pride and joy. Still, I’ve got a valid passport, so there’s nothing to stop me visiting Tyneside whenever I want. Which will be often.

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