Music from Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England is to be the focus of the Ulster Orchestra's free summer concert season.

The Ulster Orchestra's annual concert series for BBC Radio 3 takes place across Northern Ireland during August and early September. The 'Five Nations'-themed series, which treats Ireland as two separate entities, begins at Belfast's Whitla Hall on Friday 1 August with works by Irish composers. It includes the premiere of Stephen Gardner's An Sash in a programme that also includes music by A. J. Potter, Howard Ferguson, Hamilton Harty and Charles Villiers Stanford. Featuring soloists Hugh Tinney (piano) and Chris Blake (oboe), the concert is conducted by Celso Antunes.

The Ulster Orchestra's principal conductor Kenneth Montgomery leads the concert on Tuesday 5 August, again at the Whitla Hall, and during which Marian Ingoldsby's The Heron by the Weir will receive its first performance. The programme also features 'Vlatava' from Smetana's Ma Vlast and Dvorák's Eighth Symphony, with pianist Finghin Collins joining the orchestra to perform Stanford's Second Piano Concerto.

Music by Scottish composers Edward McGuire, Hamish MacCunn, Alexander Mackenzie, William Wallace and James MacMillan feature in the Nicholas Braithwaite-conducted concert at the Island Arts Centre, Lisburn on Friday 15 August. Wales takes centre stage at St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh on Friday 22 August, with music by Mark Bowden, Grace Williams, John Metcalf and Stanford. David Hill conducts.

The premiere of a new work by Stephen McNeff opens the programme of English music at the Spires Centre, Belfast on Friday 29 August, when Rumon Gamba conducts the Ulster Orchestra, Ulster Youth Choir and viola soloist Philip Dukes in music by Richard Rodney Bennett and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

All five works receiving their premieres in the season are heard together for a second time in the final concert of the series at Belfast's Spires Centre on Friday 5 September, when David Brophy will conduct a programme that includes music by William Mathias, Constant Lambert and Stanford's Songs of the Sea.

For details see our calendar; all concerts are fully booked.

Posted: 5 August 2008