IF HE'S honest Peter Hook says his relationship with classical music has for the most part been a distant one. “Occasionally we would flirt with it,” the one-time member of Joy Division and New Order tells me from the Netherlands where he’s prepping to play a gig with his current band The Light. “We did a strange cover version of Ode to Joy by Beethoven as New Order,” he recalls. “You take in all these influences in as a musician. But I suppose, like most people, I’ve heard the majority of classical music on adverts.”

So perhaps it’s not a surprise to learn that when he first heard about the idea behind Hacienda Classical – a mad-for-it merger of house music and a chamber orchestra – he was a little … Well, sceptical possibly doesn’t quite cover it.

“When the idea was first mooted I thought it was absolutely f****** ridiculous and I couldn’t see how anybody would grasp it,” he says.

All change. A couple of years on and with performances in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and London’s Royal Albert Hall in the bag, he is happy to admit that he was wrong. So don’t be surprised tonight when he appears on stage at the SSE Hydro and starts to play along to an orchestral version of New Order’s Blue Monday.

Hooky apart, Hacienda Classical brings together a 40-strong orchestra in the shape of Manchester Camerata, a choir, a couple of DJs in Mike Pickering and Graeme Park (returning to his Scottish roots), and few special guests (past events have seen the likes of Shaun Ryder and Bez take to the stage) all coming together to reinterpret and reinvent a handful of tunes that soundtracked the second summer of love in 1988, plus a few from the summer after. Black Box’s Ride on Time, A Guy Called Gerald’s Voodoo Ray if you want examples; in short, the tunes that soundtracked many a messy night in the legendary Manchester nightclub that gives the event its name.

So, what we’re getting isn’t strictly classical as such. It’s house music given an orchestral oomph. “This is using classical to emphasise rave music,” Hook suggests, “and it gives it a grandeur and a pomposity that I love.”

Having it large has suddenly acquired a different meaning in this context.

The marriage of classical and pop has at times been an uneasy one down the years (Hooked on Classics anyone?) but Manchester Camerata has a long history of reinventing and reinterpreting the orchestral experience in a bid to reach out to new audiences. Even so, the concept of Hacienda Classical was a challenge.

“From an orchestra point of view we were actually pretty nervous about how our orchestral players world feel about doing this,” admits Samantha Morgan, Manchester Camerata’s Wishaw-born head of creative programming. “There was this trepidation. How are they going to feel? But when we arrived at that first rehearsal it was quite astounding how our musicians just absolutely loved it from the off and really got involved in it and wanted input.”

That’s because, Hook suggests, many of them grew up with this music. “These are classically trained musicians and here we are giving them a chance to relive their youth. So a lot of them are absolutely over the moon being able to play something that is, shall we say, a bit more funky, a bit more ravey and a bit more upbeat.”

But how does it work? How do you meld electronic beats with a 40-piece orchestra? What are the challenges in reworking music that comes from a very different musical arena? That, Morgan suggests, is where arranger and conductor Tim Crooks comes in.

“If you’ve got a Beethoven symphony in front of you there’s so much detail in that score. But there’s just as much detail in what Tim has written for the musicians and the challenge was trying to get that across to the audience.

“And there are elements throughout the show where the orchestra really comes to the fore and you can hear the strings really going for it. It takes the whole Hacienda experience that one step further and lets people hear something that, whilst they know the tracks, gives them this tone and this breadth of sound that perhaps they haven’t heard before.”

Ah yes, the audience. Presumably we’re talking about ageing clubbers who’ve swapped their Smiley T-shirts for Boden tops and Ikea coffee tables. In short, a little calmer these days. Apparently not. “I thought they’d be all sat there with their Earl Grey tea and nodding appreciatively," says Hook. “But it was like a rave. I must admit I wasn’t prepared for that passion.”

Morgan was born in 1988, so never attended the Hacienda herself, but, she points out, she knows all the tunes. “They’ve lasted,” she argues.

The Hacienda itself, of course, did not. After being opened in 1982 by Manchester’s Factory record label it struggled for years before becoming the heart of the acid house phenomenon when DJs like Pickering and Park pioneered house music in the UK. But it closed in 1997 after years of struggling with gang, drug and debt-related problems.

In recent years, much to the annoyance of the other members of New Order he’s estranged from, Hook has become effectively the Hacienda’s “brand owner”. He’s not one to put any distance between himself and the club. “I don’t want a distance from it actually. It was a hell of a life lesson, the Hacienda. And I’m immensely proud of what New Order and Factory achieved. The Hacienda was built on Joy Division’s money so Ian Curtis gets a lot of the praise whether he’d want it or not.

“The Hacienda was about idealism,” he continues. “It wasn’t based on realism, it was about escapism and it was about people wishing for a better world for the public, for their friends, for their peers. It’s a wonderful idea to have, isn’t it? There aren’t many groups who have paid for a club to entertain a whole city for 16 years the way that New Order did. It was such a noble gesture.”

A noble gesture that cost Hook and his compatriots a lot, financially and emotionally, of course. “The Hacienda cost us a horrendous amount of money and caused a lot of ill feeling between members of the band. It still does strangely enough. One of the main reasons for them excluding me from New Order was because they were annoyed that I had resurrected the Hacienda brand. So the thing is it’s still very raw in all our minds but to me it’s about enjoyment. It’s about seeing people having a good time.

“I just hope and wish one day that I’ll make some f****** money out of it.”

Hacienda Classical is at the SSE Hydro tonight.