February 1971 – Challenging times and new venues

With violence and escalating civil disorder in Belfast and across Northern Ireland, the orchestra had to find creative solutions to continue to perform and draw audiences.

Alternative venues for concerts beyond Belfast city centre were sought. One notable performance of Verdi’s Requiem with the Queen’s University Choir and Orchestra at Belfast’s Whitla Hall drew 1,200 people, far exceeding the Hall’s capacity.

We’d never had such a big audience. We broke all the fire regulations – there were people sitting in the aisles, an extraordinary occasion.

Raymond Warren, the Orchestra’s resident composer, as related in Dr Ciaran Kennedy’s PHD thesis, 'A desert for the arts'? Orchestral provision in Northern Ireland, 1945-1981, QUB 2014)