Kluxen & Hetherington – Beethoven Symphony No. 7

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A festive Danish curtain-raiser by Friedrich Kuhlau (Beethoven’s contemporary and a composer central to Denmark’s musical identity) sets the tone for a season that celebrates place and belonging in a time when national songs resonate more than ever. Berlioz, another nineteenth-century visionary who expanded the orchestra’s expressive range, turns that brightness inward with Les Nuits d’été , a tender farewell to summer sung by mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington. Britta Byström’s A Walk to Beethoven , commissioned by Christian Kluxen during his Arctic Philharmonic tenure, answers across time with a luminous bridge leading naturally into Beethoven’s radiant Seventh Symphony—a “celebration of humanity being unworried and free.” Venue: Royal Theatre.