Name: Epic Film Scores: Hans Zimmer & John Williams
Start: 2025-05-10T19:45:00
Location: Waterfront Hall

The Ulster Orchestra's 2025 season promises a rich tapestry of musical experiences, from the cosmic landscapes of 'The Great Outdoors' to the dramatic flair of 'Flame of Genius', and the nostalgic journeys of 'Essentially Broadway'. Each event is meticulously crafted to captivate audiences, featuring world-class soloists, conductors, and breathtaking compositions that span genres and centuries. Whether it's the symphonic storytelling of Haydn or the filmic majesty of Hans Zimmer and John Williams, this season offers something for every music aficionado.

Ulster Orchestra's 2025 Season: A Symphony of Nature, Drama, and Iconic Melodies

In 2025, the Ulster Orchestra offers a profound journey through a diverse musical landscape with an array of events that promise to captivate and inspire. From the serene pastures of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony to the dramatic flare of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, these concerts explore myriad themes and artistic expressions. With renowned soloists like Ben Goldscheider and Stephen Hough, the season includes everything from classical compositions and film scores to cross-over Broadway favorites. Each concert is a unique experience, weaving narratives that resonate with both the heart and the soul.

An Odyssey of Sound: Exploring the Ulster Orchestra's 2025 Season

This May, the Ulster Orchestra brings a captivating blend of orchestral and film score music to Belfast. With concerts like 'Take the Stage,' 'Epic Film Scores,' 'Grand Masters,' and 'Act of Defiance,' the orchestra offers audiences a chance to experience the dramatic and emotional depth of music from Strauss to Shostakovich, and from Harry Potter to Superman. Join us as we explore the stories and emotions behind these incredible performances, featuring renowned conductors and soloists in an unforgettable musical journey.

Ulster Orchestra's May 2025 Season: A Symphony of Drama and Emotion

This May, the Ulster Orchestra presents a series of captivating concerts at Belfast's iconic venues, showcasing music from some of the greatest composers in history. From Strauss's and Mozart’s operatic dramas to Hans Zimmer's and John Williams's epic film scores, and Tchaikovsky's and Shostakovich's orchestral masterpieces, each performance promises unforgettable experiences that bridge the worlds of opera, ballet, and cinema. Join us as we delve into these timeless works, guided by talented conductors and musicians who bring these pieces to life.

Ulster Orchestra's May 2025 Concert Series: A Symphony of Drama and Masterful Compositions

Pete Harrison

Ulster Orchestra

Rivers and landscapes shape the course of this programme, which has its source in Spain and flows to Bohemia. The story of Falla’s Three-Cornered Hat centres around a miller, his beautiful wife and the local magistrate, and the music is packed with references to Spanish folk music. Turia is named after the Spanish river that meets the Mediterranean near Valencia, and the solo guitar shimmers and sparkles like sun on the water. From here we move further east and join another river, the Vltava, as it wends its way through Smetana’s beautiful musical depiction of his Bohemian homeland.

Of Rivers & Mountains

Belfast

Prowl with the tigers, stamp in the snow and hear the desert wind, as well as going on an adventure to find one of the tiniest creatures in the world. Duggee, Bluey, the Octonauts and lots more CBeebies friends invite you and the most unusual animal guests, to join in with music, songs and lots of wildlife fun.

CBeebies Prom: Wildlife Jamboree

Millennium Forum

This Easter, we invite you to join us for a concert of gentleness and reflection. Roxanna Panufnik’s Three Paths To Peace intertwines Christian, Jewish and Islamic music in an uplifting, harmonious whole, while Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending sends a solo violin soaring to stunning heights with a yearning, free-spirited song. Brahms’s beautiful, humane German Requiem is nothing less than the musical equivalent of a friend coming alongside in a time of loss to offer comfort and consolation.

Paths to Peace

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

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.

Soul Music

Hans Zimmer and John Williams are two of the greatest film music composers of all time, creating epic scores for some of the most iconic films ever made. Experience this incredible symphonic celebration of music from blockbusters such as Gladiator, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, Superman, Batman Begins and of course Harry Potter and re-live your memories of hearing and seeing it for the first time.

Epic Film Scores: Hans Zimmer & John Williams

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