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The will open its new season tonight with a plea to concert goers to help it raise £1 million to support the company after it was hit by budget cuts.

The orchestra, which will be performing the complete Beethoven symphonies over six days at from tonight, has seen its funding cut by 24 per cent since 2010.

It says it needs the extra cash to support its work delivering key concerts, providing musical opportunities for youngsters and to continue with its four-year major community project in to commemorate the First World War.

The orchestra, which is planning its centenary in 2020, says it is looking to raise £1 million to support its work this year, around 80 per cent of which has already been committed.

Players from the orchestra are writing personally to thousands of regular concert goers with an appeal to raise £50,000 after an anonymous supporter pledged to match fund every £1 up to £50,000.

The CBSO has won international acclaim for its concerts and performs for more than 200,000 people each year.

It also offers musical education for the region's least privileged children, nurtures 750 talented musicians through its six choirs and youth orchestra and serves as one of Birmingham's highest-profile ambassadors on the world stage through its tours, broadcasts and recordings.

The money raised will support three priority areas of its work including keynote concerts such as Wagner's Parsifal, Mahler's Symphony No. 3 and the º£½ÇÊÓƵ premiere of James MacMillan's St Luke Passion.

It will also support the CBSO Youth Orchestra, Youth Chorus and Children's Chorus and finally the War Requiem, a four-year major community project in Perry Barr which brings together young people with residents in local care homes to commemorate the First World War centenary through music.