The BBC's Big Concert - Live from Belfast

Ulster Orchestra at Ulster Hall, Belfast. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. The Ulster Orchestra, founded in 1966, is Northern Ireland's only full time orchestra. It promotes its own international season and twenty BBC concerts each year in the Ulster Hall. These range from exploring lesser known classical works, to premiering new works by local composers, from educational concerts to community concerts, and from providing debut opportunities for young musicians to staging the biggest classical music party of the year: Proms in the Park. Tonight's concert features a new work - a Radio 3 commission for guitar and orchestra entitled Roots. Written by the young Irish composer Ciaran Farrell, it combines classical, folk and pop elements in an orchestral concerto context, and highlights the versatility of the orchestra. This contrasts with the fine lines of Prokofiev's Classical Symphony and the sense of place inherent in Copland's Appalachian Spring, and the concert ends in true Ulster fashion with one of the loveliest of Irish airs. Prokofiev: Symphony No.1 (Op.25) in D major "Classical" Ciaran Farrell: Roots for Guitar and Orchestra (Radio 3 Commission and World Premiere) Copland: Appalachian Spring Joan Trimble: The Boyne Water Craig Ogden, guitar; David Porcelijn, conductor. During breaks in the concert several features illustrate the range of work which the Orchestra has undertaken this year, including the Sonorities Festival of Contemporary Music, the Brian Irvine Education project The Pied Piper, Come and Play - a scheme with the Ulster Orchestra and Ulster Youth Orchestra performing together - and Rain Falling Up, an education project for four hundred school children and seventy senior citizens. And finally, a team from the orchestra go head to head with the audience in a light hearted music quiz.