The Ulster Orchestra perform music by William Walton - his overture Portsmouth Point and the Cello Concerto, featuring soloist Nicolas Altstaedt - and Shostakovich's Symphony No 5.
The Ulster Orchestra take to the stage of the Ulster Hall with conductor Dinis Sousa performing a programme of music by Walton and Shostakovich, opening with the colourful Portsmouth Point written when the composer was just 23, inspired by a print by the English artist Thomas Rowlandson. Next, cellist Nicolas Altstaedt features in Walton's Cello Concerto originally commissioned by cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and given it's premiere in Boston in 1957.
Finally, Shostakovich's mighty Symphony No. 5 in D minor, seen by many as an act of defiance against Stalin, it has been referred to as "a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism’ and is one of the composer's most famous pieces- wonderfully orchestrated and full of energy.
Ulster Orchestra
Dinis Sousa, conductor
Nicolas Altstaedt, cello
Walton: Portsmouth Point
Walton: Cello Concerto
Shostakovich: Symphony No.5 in D minor, Op. 47
During the interval our soloist will be in conversation with presenter John Toal.
