David Robertson and Susan Graham to Perform Mahler's Third Symphony at the Sydney Opera House

Two Grammy Award-winning artists, SSO Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson, and American mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, come together to perform two concert programs with the SSO at the Sydney Opera House this month.

Hailed as "an artist to treasure" by the New York Times, Graham will sing in Mahler's Symphony No.3 alongside the Women's Voices of Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the Sydney Children's Choir on 19, 21, 22 and 24 July.

"Mahler could tug at your heartstrings like nobody else," Graham says. "[His music] always has that level of intellectual depth which goes to the heart and doesn't just stop at the brain."

Robertson, who has collaborated with Graham many times before, says she has an "an absolutely effervescent personality," which is one of the reasons she's such a sought after opera artist around the world.

"Within the roles that she's played, the variety is extraordinary," Robertson says. "She is able to personify so many different aspects of the human experience so she is the perfect person for the philosophical depths of existence in Mahler's Third Symphony, as well as the subtle shades of sensuality and desire as expressed in Ravel's Shéhérazade."

Ravishing Ravel: Spinning Tales will be performed 27-29 July and Graham will join Robertson and the SSO for Shéhérazade on 28 July. The concert program also features Ravel's original work for the Russian Ballet, Daphnis et Chloé, and Stravinsky's Fireworks.

Graham is a favourite of major international opera houses, particularly the Metropolitan Opera where she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1988 and debuted with the company in 1991.

Tickets available from the SSO Box Office on (02) 8215 4600 or choose your own seat at sydneysymphony.com.