When Edo de Waart conducts Beethoven’s Symphony No 9 for Sydney Symphony Orchestra for three performances from tomorrow, American lyric soprano Amanda Majeski will be making her Australian debut.

“I’m so excited. It’s always been a bucket list dream of mine to see the Opera House and to experience Australia so to get a chance to do it is pretty crazy, I’m so excited,” she says.

Amanda Majeski. Photograph © Fay Fox

It will be the third time that she has sung the Beethoven Nine – the first when she was training at the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago, and then at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel.

“So I have not a lot of experience but the experience that I did have was pretty great,” she says. “[Working with Dudamel] was so exciting. He’s as charismatic in person as he is in every interview, TV show, anything you see or read about him. We didn’t have a whole lot of rehearsal time. From what I remember, I think we arrived the day before the concert and we met the morning of the concert for one...