Orchestral celebrations of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth will have a distinctly Ballarat flavour with conductor Benjamin Northey taking charge of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and mezzo-soprano Jacqueline Dark singing in honour of the composing legend.
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The Ballarat-born pair will feature in the MSO's Season Opening Gala: Beethoven 9, Circa and Cheetham on February 21 and 22.
It will be a "dramatically different" style of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony to commemorate the milestone anniversary, according to the MSO.
"In the year of his 250th birthday, 2020 sees symphony orchestras across the globe celebrating the brilliance of Beethoven and his perennially popular and prodigious artistic output," the MSO stated in their program.
"In our year of Beethoven, the MSO will present one of his greatest works in a dynamic and dramatically different style to any other performance worldwide."
Alongside the orchestra, the MSO Chorus, Ms Dark and other soloists, 10 circus artists from Circa will present Beethoven's music in its physical form.
"Extreme skill and dramatic acrobatics play out in this grand celebration of humanity, where the lines between movement, music, dance and theatrics are blurred and boundaries are pushed."
As a mezzo-soprano soloist, Ms Dark will be joined by tenor Paul O'Neill, bass Warwick Fyfe and Latvian soprano Maija Kovaevska on stage.
Beethoven was the first major composer to include chorus and soloists in a symphony and his Ninth Symphony is now one of the most recognisable melodies in classical music - Ode to Joy.
Ms Dark grew up in Ballarat and went to the-then University of Ballarat gaining a Bachelor of Science (physics) and graduate diploma of education and became a physics teacher before following her passion for opera and becoming a renowned mezzo-soprano.
Ballarat born and raised, Mr Northey is the MSO's principal conductor in residence, and chief conductor of the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra.
Ms Dark and Mr Northey also collaborated in November when renowned physicist Professor Brian Cox took to the stage for three concerts with the MSO presenting A Symphonic Universe.
The world-first staging of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with a circus company will be performed alongside a world premiere by revered Australian composer Deborah Cheetham AO, her Dutala, star filled sky, a work created in response to Beethoven's Ninth.
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