Ulster Orchestra Christmas concert was as much about showbusiness as seasonal classical music standards
The Ulster Orchestra under the direction of Alfonso Casado Trigo ended 2025 with a concert titled ‘The Magic of Christmas’ to a packed audience in the Waterfront Hall on Sunday night.
It was the same format as in previous years with a mix of Christmas music for people of different tastes, and performed to a high musical standard, with a sterling performance from the excellent Belfast Philharmonic Choir.
Earlier this month I enjoyed a lunch-time concert in the National Concert Hall in Dublin with the National Symphony Orchestra and soloists under the direction of the Ulsterman Christopher Bell. This was a good balance between the secular and the more traditional Christmas music.
However, the Ulster Orchestra’s concert in the Waterfront Hall had much more ‘showbiz’ than classical Christmas music, to the point where it could have been called ‘The Magic of Showbusiness’, rather than ‘The Magic of Christmas’.
In the first half there was ‘O Holy Night’, and a Christmas carol medley, but no room for excerpts from other seasonal favourites like Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Ballet’ or Handel’s ‘Messiah’, and I would have like to have heard more from ‘The Phil’ choir in the classical genre.
However there was a great professionalism from everyone on stage including the Ulster Orchestra, the conductor and the impressive London West End musical stalwarts Alice Fearn and Hugh Maynard with their collection of Christmas and showbusiness hits.
The next Ulster Orchestra performance in the Ulster Hall will take place at the end of January 2026. In previous years there were very successful early New Year concerts of Viennese music which was greatly appreciated by large audiences, but sadly these have been stopped, and it not clear why.
So the main consolation for those who love Strauss and others of the same genre will be watching on television the New Year’s Day Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the superb Musikverein Concert Hall.
The Ulster Orchestra can look back on a successful 2025 with many fine performances, and everyone among the players and the audiences will be looking forward to the debut of the new chief conductor Anna Handler from Berlin who will take up the baton at the inaugural concert of the new season which begins at the end of September next.