Sugar-Plum Swing: Tchaikovsky, Ellington and Strayhorn

Tchaikovsky/Ellington/Strayhorn: The Nutcracker Suite
Robin Haigh: LUCK Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra (UO co-commission)
Tchaikovsky: Selections from Swan Lake

Cosette Justo Valdés: Conductor
Matilda Lloyd: Trumpet

Christmas is often the time for a trip to the ballet, and this concert will take you there; albeit with a bit of a twist! In 1960, the great jazz band leader Duke Ellington and his regular collaborator Billy Strayhorn took the music (and movement titles!) of Tchaikovsky’s ballet suite The Nutcracker and made it swing.

This concert’s concerto, Luck, commissioned by the Ulster Orchestra for Matilda Lloyd, starts with string and wind flurries like snowflakes, that melt into a playful, buoyant work for trumpet and orchestra that keeps jazz-inflections to the fore. The concert closes with selections from another of Tchaikovsky’s peerless compositions for the ballet, the romantic tragedy, Swan Lake.

Doors open: 6.30pm approx.
Pre-concert talk: 7.00pm
Concert start: 7.45pm
Concert end: 9.45pm approx.