Page content

Magee Music Students Team Up With Ulster Orchestra

3 May 2013

The University of Ulster Orchestra will team up with the Ulster Orchestra for an unprecedented performance at the Magee campus.

Music students from the School of Creative Arts and Technologies will be joined by the leader and associate leader of the Ulster Orchestra in Bach’s ‘Concerto for Two Violins’ as part of the University Orchestra’s end of year concert.

Also on the programme will be Italian Baroque arias sung byMark Chambers(countertenor with the Monteverdi Choir, the Gabrieli Consort and the National Chamber Choir of Ireland)and music by Mozart and Pachelbel.

Tamás Kocsis, Leader of the Ulster Orchestra, is a native of Budapest, Hungary. Before taking up his current appointment in 2010, he held Concertmaster positions with the Fort Worth Symphony, the Savannah Symphony and the Orlando Philharmonic.

He also had Concertmaster positions at the summer festivals of Breckenridge and Crested Butte in Colorado.

Tamás was honoured by the the European Council in 1994 and won the Artists’ International Auditions in New York in 1995. In 2006 he was knighted in Budapest.

Ioana Petcu-Colan, Associate Leader of the Ulster Orchestra, was born in Cork. Growing up in a family of professional classical violinists, she began her first violin lessons at the age of four.

Ioana has given solo performances of many of the great violin concertos and has recorded for commercial release on the Lyric FM label with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra.

She was formally leader and founder member of the Callino Quartet and is currently violinist with piano trio ensemble Avalon, with whom she has recently released an internationally acclaimed CD.

Cormac Newark, Senior Lecturer in Music, said: “We are delighted that the Ulster Orchestra, and Tamás and Ioana in particular, have been so willing to collaborate with us.


“We hope this concert will represent the beginning of a long-term association. The students are very excited about the prospect of sharing the stage with such wonderful musicians.”

Ioana Petcu-Colan, from the Ulster Orchestra, added: “Tamás and I are thrilled to be representing the Ulster Orchestra in this launch event inwhat promises to be an exciting new partnershipbetween the Orchestra and the University of Ulster.”

The concert entitled, ‘Eighteenth Century Masters: Bach, Handel, Mozart’, will take place at 8pm on Tuesday 7 May in the Great Hall, at the University of Ulster’s Magee Campus.

For further information and ticket booking please contact the School of Creative Arts and Technologies, Magee campus, on: 028 71675133 .