About this performance

Featuring
Benjamin Northey conductor
MSO Chorus

The concert
Experience a spectacle of sight and sound this January when the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performs the score to Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 ground-breaking masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Conducted by Benjamin Northey and featuring the MSO Chorus, this powerful screen and sound concert event will showcase the film’s bold use of classical concert music, which was revolutionary at the time of the film’s creation during a period when film scores were becoming chart-topping hits.

The film brought worldwide acclaim to classical music through cinema, with a soundtrack featuring Richard Strauss’ tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, the ballet Gayane by Aram Khachaturian; and Ligeti’s contemporary works Requiem Lux aeterna, Aventures, and Atmosphėres. 2001: A Space Odyssey is best remembered for one of the most remarkable scenes in cinema, of a spaceship floating serenely through space to Johann Strauss’ waltz The Blue Danube.

2001: A Space Odyssey was co-written by Stanley Kubrick and science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke. The novel and film were released simultaneously in 1968, sparking our curiosity to learn more about the greater universe.

Running time
3 hours and 24 minutes, including a 20-minute interval

Film rating
G