Ode to Joy: Dane Lam conducts Beethoven 9

The University of Queensland’s School of Music proudly welcomes Maestro Dane Lam in his debut performance as Conductor and Director of The University of Queensland Symphony Orchestra (UQSO). This performance also features a mentoring and side-by-side collaboration with members of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. The UQSO and UQ Chorus will be joined by soloists Sarah Crane, Maria Woolford, Rosario La Spina and Shaun Brown.

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony has a special place in the history of symphonic music. Described as a “declaration in favour of universal brotherhood”, and a “quest for freedom of the mind and spirit”, the work embodies an elemental struggle incorporating macro and microcosmic musical perspectives. A crescendo towards cacophony gives way in the final choral movement, where Schiller’s “Ode” is so famously set. Arvo Pärt’s beautiful Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten will form a short prelude.

Any performance of Beethoven’s Ninth is an extraordinary event. For UQ’s School of Music it is the ideal work to celebrate a return to QPAC after the loss of two concert hall performances in 2020, and to welcome the University’s new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deborah Terry AO.