A 90-minute show by The Rock Orchestra, a 13-piece chamber orchestra of classical musicians playing rock and heavy metal hits in classical arrangements.
The Rock Orchestra play the Princess Theatre on Thursday 4 February 2027, starting at 7:30pm. It's a 13-piece chamber orchestra that takes rock and heavy metal hits and works them into classical arrangements, so you'll hear songs you know from the radio played by strings and woodwind rather than distorted guitars. The whole thing runs for about 90 minutes.
The setlist pulls from a wide stretch of rock and metal. You'll hear Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Rage Against The Machine, Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, System Of A Down, The Cranberries, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, Nirvana and The Rolling Stones, so it's a mix of the big stadium names and a few different corners of the genre. The singing is a part of it too, and the audience reviews have singled it out as one of the stronger points.
There's a fair bit of theatre to it beyond the music. The orchestra wears rhinestone masks and plays in a room filled with candles, and the stage is set with skeletal players, crooked lurching towers, floating lanterns and giant headbanging puppets. The show is built on the contrast between the classical musicians and the rock material they're playing, and it moves between quiet, melodic moments and louder walls of sound.
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Behind the scenes, The Rock Orchestra is a rotating collective of classical musicians rather than a fixed band, and they've played to more than a million people worldwide. Their first album hit number one on the rock and metal charts. Tickets start from £34.32, and the concert starts at 7:30pm at the Princess Theatre in Torquay.
