CELEBRATE New Year’s Day in style with a Viennese celebration from the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts.

Conducting this popular event will be widely acclaimed Viennese maestro Thomas Rösner.

Joining the party will be soprano Elizabeth Watts who International Record Review described as “one of the most beautiful voices Britain has produced in a generation”.

Many of the favourites from Johann Strauss Jr, known as ‘The Waltz King’, will be performed, including his Emperor Waltz, Pizzicato Polka and Voices of Spring, plus the most famous of them all – The Blue Danube.

This was written for the Vienna Men’s Choral Association in 1867 and was originally scored for chorus and orchestra. In that form it achieved something more akin to the status of a national anthem. The music flows as serenely as the Danube itself.

Also on the programme will be the lively Poet and Peasant Overture by the Viennese operetta composer Franz von Suppé.

Like most of his output the complete work is rarely heard, but the overture has become popular with both bands and orchestras.

The BSO will perform The Merry Widow Overture before Elizabeth Watts joins them to sing Vilja Song, popular with audiences around the world, as well as a number of other sweeping Viennese classics. There are two performances on Thursday, January 1 at 3pm and 7pm.