Pete Tong: Orchestral manouevres on the dancefloor

In terms of the music, when the idea first came about I was conscious of it not just being a nostalgia trip or becoming a bit of a parody. I have a great relationship with Goldie and he had already worked with The Heritage Orchestra on recreating ‘Timeless’ live. He told me there was no one better than their conductor Jules Buckley to work with. The Heritage Orchestra is about being progressive, and is very careful to not just be a classical orchestra. They’d worked with people like Bjørk and Henrik Schwarz, and they always go for quite modern collaborations. What initially made me think it could work was the fact that in essence, house is an evolution of disco, in which strings obviously played a massive part – and then loads and loads of trance is very string-heavy too. While a club might feel a long way from a concert hall, the overlap between these types of music is quite clear to see, when you really start to think about it. Classical composers were the pop songwriters of their day, really, and orchestras play other people’s music and fill a similar role to that of a DJ in some ways.

Although we’re celebrating the past and what dance music has achieved in the last few decades with this, it isn’t about being retro! It’s a great opportunity for us to show the world, as a culture, what we’ve done.

Pete Tong’s ‘Classic House’ with The Heritage Orchestra is out now