Taking us on a Field trip

JOHN O’CONOR (PIANO),

DAVID ADAMS (VIOLIN), UO/PIERRE-ANDRÉ VALADE Ulster Hall, Belfast Fri 7.45pm Adm free

0044-370-9011227

It was John O’Conor’s 1982 recordings which helped to put the piano concertos of Irish composer John Field on the international map. Concert performances of the concertos are still something of a rarity, even in Ireland. But Friday’s instalment in the BBC’s current series of free invitation concerts with the Ulster Orchestra provides the opportunity of hearing the First Concerto, written while Field was still in his teens.

There’s a second Irish element, Deirdre McKay’s Meltwater, in an otherwise French programme that includes André Caplet’s orchestration of Debussy’s Children’s Corner, Ravel’s Mother Goose, and Berlioz’s Rêverie et caprice, in which

the violinist is the orchestra’s departing leader, David Adams, appearing as a

soloist in his final week

with the orchestra.

The conductor is Pierre-André Valade.