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There’s an ‘electric buzz in Belfast’, according to at least one critic, and the combined energy of the Ulster Orchestra and its dynamic Chief Conductor Daniele Rustioni illuminates everything they play together. Tonight, it’s all about Austro-German Romanticism at its most ardent: whether Schumann’s punchy but poetic Fourth Symphony, the dreams of a young Gustav Mahler, or Wagner’s thrillingly sensual opera of unleashed love, lust and creativity. Louise Alder is the soloist in Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, and The Times called her ‘a terrific talent, combining a big, lustrous voice with flawless intonation and keen intelligence’. This young British star could have been born to sing Strauss’s lovely (and much-loved) final songs.

There will be no interval

Image: Daniele Rustioni © Davide Cerati