With spring just around the corner, all four seasons come to L/Derry, Lisburn and Armagh this week as the Ulster Orchestra hits the road today (7 March) for a mini regional tour that includes one of the most popular and evocative pieces of music in the repertoire, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, in Baroque Brilliance, a concert of timeless Baroque classics.
The first concert in this JTI Regional Tour takes place in Derry’s Millennium Forum tonight at 7.30pm and sees Northern Ireland’s only professional symphony orchestra perform the Four Seasons alongside music by Bach, Purcell and Handel’s uplifting Water Music. The UO will be at the ISLAND Arts Centre, Lisburn on Thursday (8 March, 8pm) and Armagh’s Market Place Theatre on Friday (9 March, 8pm).
The concerts, which are under the direction of the Ulster Orchestra’s Hungarian-born Leader, Tamás Kocsis – who performs Vivaldi’s masterpiece – is also the soloist with the UO’s Christopher Blake in Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe.
Looking forward to the tour Tamás said, “Having performed with Barry Douglas last Friday and the historic joint concert with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra on Sunday, this is a busy time for the Orchestra, as we end this week with a family concert back in Belfast this Saturday.
“But I am very much looking to Baroque Brilliance and playing the Bach Double with Chris, as he is a dear friend and a fantastic oboist, so I am sure we are going to have lots of fun performing this wonderful piece.
“The Four Seasons always presents a challenge, being very well known and very transparent. No wonder it’s popular with audiences and performers alike, it is a beautiful set of Concertos,” Tamás said. More…
Also looking forward to the concerts, Christopher Blake, the UO’s Principal Oboe player said, “Nothing beats live music and to hear an orchestra in full flow playing some great pieces of music is quite something. Beats CDs or your iPod!” he said.
Talking about the Bach Double concerto Christopher said, “I have played this amazing concerto with the last two leaders of the Orchestra and am really looking forward to performing it with Tamás who is an extraordinary violinist.
“You need a lot of stamina for it because the music never stops which is unusual for a wind concerto. It is also a challenge to play in different places too, as the environment and acoustics differ from place to place, but we are all really looking forward to this mini tour,” he said.
Tickets are available from each of the venues.