Name: Symphonic Queen
Start: 2026-05-16T19:45:00
Location: Belfast

Alfonso Casado Trigo

Ulster Orchestra

Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto is a virtuoso tour de force. Its scale, technical demands and emotional richness are perhaps the ultimate challenge for a pianist to master, but the challenge is worth the prize as the rippling melodies for the soloist are full of melancholy and heart-rending drama. And if Rachmaninoff’s focus is the soloist, then Bartók’s is the orchestra. His concerto ensures that every instrument gets its chance to shine in a piece that embraces vivid colours, gorgeous tunes and ends with a life-affirming, rabble-rousing burst of sheer joy.

A Lifetime for Music

Belfast

Felix Mendelssohn fell in love with Scotland on holiday and the resulting musical inspiration produced two of his best-known and loved works, the Hebrides Overture and his Third Symphony, nicknamed Scottish. From his depiction of the sea around the coast and even a bit of Hibernian thunder, both evocatively depict the dramatic scenery of Scotland.

On Your Doorstep: Highlands & Fjords

Strule Arts Centre

Guildhall Derry

All the poise, elegance and grace of the Classical period is in this concert – on the surface. But each piece shows its composer in an inventive mood, pushing the boundaries of what was expected and creating something new. Prokofiev imagined how Mozart or Haydn might write in the 1920s and produced his charming First Symphony. Mozart used his Fifth Violin Concerto to play with tempo and style, creating his most brilliant, lyrical and witty writing for the instrument. And Beethoven’s First Symphony contains all the clues required to understand that this was no ordinary composer – he would take the symphony to somewhere entirely new.

Classical Adventures

The past meets the future in bold, unexpected ways. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella transforms the elegance of Baroque music into something sharp, witty, and rhythmically alive, a playful homage viewed through a modern lens. Then, experience the grandeur of Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony, a sweeping, lyrical masterpiece that bridges the Classical and Romantic worlds. Together, these works celebrate tradition not by preserving it, but by reinventing it. Two composers, a century apart, united in their fearless reinvention of tradition.

Reimaginings

Get ready for this epic evening of rock like no other as the Ulster Orchestra and West End singers pay tribute to one of the world’s most iconic and successful rock bands of all time.

Symphonic Queen

“Here is enshrined the soul of…” This mysterious note, scribbled by Elgar opposite the title page of his Violin Concerto, sets the tone for an unforgettable end to the Season. Journey from the deeply introspective beauty of Elgar’s concerto to the playful charm of Vaughan Williams’s Wasps Overture and the sweeping grandeur of Strauss’s Viennese gem Der Rosenkavalier. This concert is a celebration of life’s full emotional spectrum – joy, sorrow, love and everything in between.