The National Symphony Orchestra (right) opens its 2000/2001 season on Friday with a special "Symphony for Chernobyl" concert, the proceeds of which will go to the Chernobyl Children's Project. Both of the two soloists, soprano Victoria Kurbatskaya and bass baritone Willard White, are making their Dublin debuts, in a selection of arias by Mozart, Rossini, Puccini and Gershwin. And the NSO's principal conductor, Alexander Anissimov, has chosen to start his final season as with one of the core works of the Russian repertoire, Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. On the same evening, ace Russian trumpeter Sergei Nakariakov, still only in his early twenties, makes his Irish debut in concertos by Haydn and Arutiunian with the Ulster Orchestra under Janos Furst in a free BBC invitation concert at the Ulster Hall. The Belfast programme also includes Dvorak's symphonic poem The Golden Spinning Wheel and Nielsen's Four Temperaments Symphony.
