MacGregor, Ulster Orchestra/Falletta

Waterfront Hall, Belfast

Bernstein – On the Town. Copland – Three Latin American Sketches. Gershwin – Rhapsody in Blue; I Got Rhythm Variations. Piazzolla – Tangazo. Arturo Marquez – Danzon No 2. Copland – El Salón México.

To the Ulster Orchestra went the honour of kicking off the 49th annual Belfast Festival at Queen’s, 17 days of arts and entertainment.

The occasion provided the biggest platform so far for the UO’s new principal conductor, JoAnn Falletta. Although it’s the first time the post has gone to an American, in fact the big story is that it went to a woman. If the slow advance of women conductors finds them currently holding important posts in some places (such as Lisbon, where three of the six main conducting posts are held by women), Britain and Ireland aren’t among them.

Will Falletta turn the tide? Too early to tell. Since assuming the post she has conducted two “colour” concerts: a season “Taster” last month, and the Festival opener featuring music from the US, Mexico and South America. Belfast audiences have to wait until February to hear her conduct a symphony (Sibelius No. 5).

In music rich with Latin dance energy by Copland, Piazolla and Arturo Marquez, a two-edged epithet for Falletta's approach might be the word "clean". She was clean in gesture and direction, entries were clean. In terms of character, however, "clean" too often bordered on sanitised, with no real abandon in the dance, little grit for the barefoot dancers in Copland's El Salón México, and scant trace of Bernstein's brash joie de vivre in the "Dance Episodes" from On the Town. Warm, affectionate, accurate, smooth – yes. But tame.

Although hardly tame, piano soloist Joanna MacGregor seemed a little cautious in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. That said, she was gamely individualistic in so highly familiar and popular a piece. She was more persuasive in the rarely programmed "I Got Rhythm" Variations, much of whose irrepressible scampering she captured.