Sheffield International Concert Season 2026/27 - Hallé Orchestra

The Hallé Orchestra play the Sheffield City Hall Oval Hall on Friday 23 October, as part of the Sheffield International Concert Season. They're conducted by Nicholas Collon, who describes his approach as orchestral theatre — the kind of thing that's as much about the drama and the storytelling as it is about the notes. The whole programme is built around the idea of far-off lands, and the three pieces on the bill each pull from a different corner of the map.

Emily Davis, one of the orchestra's leaders, takes the spotlight for Szymanowski's Second Violin Concerto. It's a rhapsodic, ecstatic piece that pays homage to the folk music of the Tatra mountains in the composer's native Poland, so it's got that specific, regional character to it. Then comes Rachmaninov's Third Symphony, a brooding work written while the Russian composer was in exile in Switzerland, yearning for the homeland he'd left behind. It's a heavy, nostalgic piece, and it sits right in the middle of the night.

Closing the evening are Colin Matthews' orchestrations of Ravel's miniatures. Ravel's original miniatures were small, delicate things; Matthews has expanded them for full orchestra, turning those miniature worlds into something luminous and wide enough to fill the room. It's a lighter, more atmospheric way to end the night after the weight of the Rachmaninov.

So you've got the Polish mountains, a Russian in exile, and Ravel's miniature worlds all on one bill. It starts at 19:00 at the Oval Hall, and the whole thing is conducted by Nicholas Collon.