Beyond its Belfast concert platform, the Ulster Orchestra has an increasingly busy programme of activities designed to bring the exciting experience of live music to people of all ages and walks of life from across the province. Individual projects focus on the specific needs of given groups and include events for nursery school children, special needs workshops, and performances in hospitals.

In May 1999, the Ulster Orchestra was awarded the inaugural Educational Award by the Royal Philharmonic Society for its West Belfast Initiative. The project, funded by the European Union Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, was one of the largest arts education projects ever staged in Northern Ireland, and was designed to increase social interaction between Catholic and Protestant children in West Belfast, as well as breaking down barriers and pre-conceptions about classical music. Events ranged from a nursery school tour by Ulster Orchestra ensembles to a creative music and writing project based on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. In total, around four thousand young people from 43 schools participated in the project, and an additional two thousand members of the public attended events.

2004 marked the arrival of Gulliver, another major education project with the Ulster Orchestra. Throughout this three month project, Ulster Orchestra players, a storyteller, composers and visual artists worked with 600 Belfast primary school children to develop a creative response to each part of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. This response, in the form of music, artwork and movement, was displayed in a performance which featured the premiere of new works by the four Northern Irish composers involved.