In recent years, the Ulster Orchestra has been heard more often at the Proms in London than in Dublin. The orchestra's management seems to have found it difficult to identify the sort of artist/repertoire combinations that would appeal to Dubliners, just as RTE has been challenged by the same task for the NSO on its regular visits to Belfast. In spite of generally dismal attendances, the NSO has stuck with its Belfast appearances, and the Dublin end of what began as an arrangement for reciprocating visits has now been restored.
The Ulster Orchestra makes its first NCH appearance under the new exchange deal tonight, with Gerard Korsten conducting a programme of Barber (the Toccata Festiva with organist Thomas Trotter), Chausson (Poeme de l'amour et de la mer, with mezzo soprano Sylvie Sulle) and Saint-Saens (the Organ Symphony).
Tomorrow night sees the return of pianist Radu Lupu to the NCH, when his programme includes the First Piano Sonata by his Romanian fellow-countryman, Georges Enesco, along with two sonatas by Beethoven and the first book of Janacek's On an overgrown path. And, also on Sunday, Alexander Taylor, a semi-finalist at the AXA Dublin International Piano Competition last May, opens an LMA Chamber Music Millennium Festival in Dun Laoghaire at the new Pavilion Theatre.
