The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra has unveiled a 2027 season that ranges from a complete Beethoven symphony cycle and new Australian commissions to Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings and the music of locally made video game Hollow Knight.

The season also expands the ASO’s flagship Symphony Series to nine programs at Adelaide Town Hall, with international artists, world and Australian premieres and performances by ASO musicians in solo roles.

Chief Conductor Mark Wigglesworth will lead the Beethoven cycle, marking 200 years since the composer’s death. The cycle is positioned as a centrepiece of the season, with Wigglesworth describing Beethoven’s music as a reflection of empathy, compassion, heroism, adversity and the importance of community.

“In material form, music is just a set of black and white instructions. It is only in the act of hearing music that music becomes alive,” says Wigglesworth. “You are as much part of the music as the notes themselves. It is the listeners that make music human.”

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Jack Fenby

Beginning on 12 February, the Symphony Series will feature international soloists including pianists Pavel Kolesnikov and Alexander Gavrylyuk, violist Lawrence Power, violinist Anthony Marwood, baritone Morgan Pearse and cellist Beatrice Colombis.

Conductors include Ludovic Morlot, Anna Sulkowska-Migoń, Andrew Manze and Katharina Wincor, alongside Wigglesworth.

New Australian works and commissions will come from Paul Dean (his Bassoon Concerto, which premieres 19 and 20 March), Jack Symonds, Belinda Gehlert and Elena Kats-Chernin, while Power will perform the Australian premiere of Anna Clyne’s Viola Concerto on 28 and 29 May, with violist Lawrence Power.

Wigglesworth will also conduct an Australian premiere of a new narrated version of Elgar’s Enigma Variations, featuring actor Walter van Dyk (as Elgar) and cellist Antony Marwood (9 and 10 April), and present the world premiere of his own orchestration of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 at UKARIA Cultural Centre in Mount Barker on 19 May with Konstantin Shamray at the piano.

Mark Wigglesworth and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Claudio Raschella

Away from the core orchestral repertoire, the ASO has assembled a substantial program of crossover and popular music. Ben Folds will perform with the orchestra on 18 and 19 February, while May brings A Night in Vienna, featuring music by Franz Lehár and Johann Strauss. Wigglesworth will conduct.

ASO Concertmaster Kate Suthers will lead a reimagining of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons at St Peter’s Cathedral on 22 and 23 April.

Film concerts will include How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back live to screen at Adelaide Entertainment Centre, while The Music of The Lord of the Rings, presented with The Art of the Score podcast, returns to the program.

The ASO will also perform music by Adelaide-based composer Christopher Larkin from the locally developed video game Hollow Knight, extending the orchestra’s reach into gaming culture.

The season continues the ASO’s emphasis on access and audience development, with family and relaxed performances, Move to the Music, Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra with comedian Sammy J, Circus of Instruments at DreamBIG, school excursions, library performances, Big Rehearsals and Compose with ASO.

The orchestra will again take its programs beyond Adelaide, with regional concerts in Whyalla, Port Pirie, Gawler and Noarlunga. Its Sanctuary Series, which explores the relationship between music and wellbeing through relaxed performances, also returns, alongside Cathedral and Matinee Series programs.

Season packages are now on sale, with single tickets to go on sale in November.