Acclaimed NI composer on new symphony with Ulster Orchestra featuring vocals of anti-Putin Russians Pussy Riot

Conor Mitchell, who made headlines with his previous work Abomination: A DUP Opera, is staging his latest work, Riot Symphony with the award-winning Belfast Ensemble and Ulster Orchestra as part of its The Sun Still Shines performance tonight.

The talented composer told the Belfast Telegraph that once again his work blended politics with musical scores and video installations by Belfast-based video designer Gavin Peden, who worked on the Good Vibrations film. “This new piece of work is the first in the Ulster Orchestra season and I was very keen for it to reflect what’s happening in the world at the minute. The thing I wanted to talk about was protesting in the modern world — specifically Russia and Ukraine.”

The symphony will feature the vocals of anti-Putin Russian group Pussy Riot’s anarchist anthem Putin Light Up the Fires, as well as soprano Rebecca Murphy and tenor Michael Bell and music critic Stuart Bailie, who will participate in an on-stage discussion as an introduction to Riot Symphony.

Although the event’s focus is on the Ukraine/Russian war, Conor — whose past work has also tackled themes such as the Disappeared and homophobia — agrees that audience members may be thinking of other developments such as the college protest demonstrations on campuses across the United States sparked by the Israel/Gaza war or climate change demonstrations. And days after our chat, students staged a protest at Queen’s.

“While the Russian/Ukraine war has been a little bit more off the chart because of what’s happening in Gaza, it’s still a European war that I worry about the most,” he explains.

“I thought it was an opportunity to do something to highlight protest in music and that drew me to Pussy Riot who are very anti-Putin and have gone to prison.”

“It’s a glorious celebration of youthful voices speaking in opposition to those in power. I don’t, though, want it to be a big, moralistic piece in a sense that is telling the audience. It’s a celebration of protest. I found it shocking [the reaction to] the Sarah Everard [a vigil that was clamped down by Met police during lockdown] police were trying to stop that, and laws were being introduced to limit how we express our dissatisfaction with the government. And I’m seeing that more and more, that protestors are being demonised.”

He adds: “You could say that it was ever thus, it’s just we see it more. Sophie Scholl was part of the White Rose movement was living in a state where it was impossible to protest, and distributing anti-Nazi leaflets to the student population of Munich cost her her life. Sophie Scholl was right to voice opposition against the Nazis, and Pussy Riot was right about Putin. So sometimes it might be right to listen to protestors.”

Last year, Conor premiered Ten Plagues, a song cycle performed by Marc Almond, as well as The Headless Soldier at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre Belfast, a collaboration with Mark Ravenhill. He then collaborated again with Ravenhill on his new play Ben & Imo, which premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company last month. His next project is a three-year residency with the South Bank Centre in London, creating a new piece of work to be debuted in 2027.

“I want to make work that the audience doesn’t have to necessarily like or agree with, but they just have to know that an opinion is being expressed, and they can react to it in very live terms — they can protest it they want to,” he laughs.

For further information for the performance, which begins at 7pm with a pre-show discussion, please visit www.ulsterhall.co.uk