The perfect ending to the season, the Ulster Orchestra presents Act Of Defiance at the Ulster Hall, Belfast on 30 May 2025!
Walton Cello Concerto
Shostakovich Symphony No.5
DINIS SOUSA CONDUCTOR
NICOLAS ALTSTAEDT CELLO
Was it, or wasn’t it, an act of defiance and bitter retort to Stalin’s displeasure? Shostakovich’s life was so utterly and constantly in peril that he could never publicly declare whether his Fifth Symphony was simply ‘a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism’ or a satirical puncturing of the dictator, deliberately hollow but dressed as adulation.
"But either way, it’s a phenomenal piece of music."
Playful, poignant and magisterial, it’s a blockbuster end to the Season. Walton’s lyrically romantic Cello Concerto sets the scene for Shostakovich’s dramatic fireworks.
