Messiaen is mixed with Adams, Ashkenazy with Dohnányi in David Robertson’s latest eclectic cocktail.

The return of Chinese piano superstar Lang Lang, Vladimir Ashkenazy’s Beethoven cycle and Christoph von Dohnányi making his Australian debut at 86 will be among the highlights of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 2016 programme. Chief Conductor David Robertson and his team have mixed a heady cocktail of the old with the new as Bruckner and Brahms rub shoulders with Stravinksy and Messiaen, plus a raft of new commissions from leading Australian and international composers. Oh, and they’re doing Porgy and Bess as well!

^{Vladimir Ashkenazy will conduct Beethoven}

Robertson’s own conducting duties will see him deliver Olivier Messiaen’s colourful and profound 12-movement Des Canyons aux Étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) in a performance enhanced by photographic technology. Later in the season he will tackle the three great Stravinsky ballets in imaginative programmes that will see each complemented with newer works, while Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade is paired with John Adam’s contemporary violin concerto, Scheherazade.2. Gershwin’s multiple-hit opera Porgy and Bess is also...