In a diverse 2017 season, cinema and Americana rub shoulders with classical masters and contemporary voices.

Following the huge success of its multi-media concert The Reef, first seen in 2012 and 2013 and then revisited this year, the Australian Chamber Orchestra will present the world premiere of Mountain, a similarly ambitious project, as part of its 2017 season.

^{Richard Tognetti. Photo by Paul Henderson Kelly}

Where The Reef celebrated surfing, the ocean and the desert with a fusion of music and footage filmed around the world heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef in northern Western Australia, Mountain looks to awe-inspiring peaks. Subtitled “a cinematic and musical odyssey”, it is a collaboration between the ACO and film director Jennifer Peedom, whose BAFTA-nominated documentary Sherpa (filmed on Everest in 2014 after a tragic avalanche that killed 16 Nepalese mountain guides) was released in 2015.

Tognetti has worked with Peedom to assemble what he calls “a soundscape to mirror the serenity, magnitude, harshness and terror of the landscapes filmed” with music by Chopin, Grieg, Vivaldi, Beethoven and Tognetti himself. Describing the multi-sensory event as “our big project,...