Every August the BBC in Belfast runs a series of free invitation concerts with the Ulster Orchestra at the Ulster Hall. It's not just the admission that's free. The programming exploits the freedom that's opened by the absence of box office concerns, just as the RTESO's concerts in the St Francis Xavier Hall did in Dublin before the opening of the National Concert Hall. This year's Belfast offerings promise a "cool, flaky look at some music from 1799, 1899 and 1999". Elgar's Enigma Variations provide the 1899 connection in the opening concert next Friday, John Tavener's The World, with Patricia Rozario the soprano soloist, is from 1999. The programme, conducted by Vernon Handley (left), the UO's principal conductor in the mid-1980s, finds room for two rarities before the Tavener, Sullivan's Overture di ballo and Finzi's Dies natalis.
