Announcing our next Aurora Play broadcasts
10 June 2020
Today we announce the second batch of broadcasts in Aurora Play, our new digital series showcasing the best of Aurora’s orchestral adventures. Broadcast free online, the series features highlights from Aurora’s performance archive alongside newly-created interactive content. Since its launch at the start of May the series has attracted over 50,000 viewers across YouTube and Facebook.
Our next seven broadcasts include a circus-infused staging of Britten’s Les Illuminations directed by Struan Leslie for the 2016 Aldeburgh Festival; a neglected masterpiece by nineteenth-century French composer Louise Farrenc; a performance by heart of Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony and cross-art form collaborations with filmmakers Bill Morrison and Jon Frank. Guest artists include Sarah Connolly, Andrew Staples, Duncan Ward, Sarah Tynan and an international ensemble of leading circus performers. Also featured is a much talked-about 2014 performance of Benedict Mason’s extraordinary site-specific piece MELD – the project which sparked our trailblazing experiments in symphonic-scale memorised performance. You can browse the full list of upcoming broadcasts below.
Illuminations
Friday 12 June, 9pm
Staging of works by Britten including Les Illuminations with Sarah Tynan and an international ensemble of circus performers, directed by Struan Leslie (Aldeburgh Festival 2016)
Louise Farrenc’s Symphony No. 3
Wednesday 17 June, 7pm
A 2019 performance of Louise Farrenc’s unjustly-neglected masterpiece, conducted by Duncan Ward (Kings Place, 2019)
Jupiter
Sunday 21 June, 4pm
Memorised performance of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony with a staged introduction devised by Jane Mitchell, Nicholas Collon and Tom Service (BBC Proms, 2016)
MELD
Sunday 28 June, 4pm
Benedict Mason’s mould-breaking MELD, a vast site-specific work written for large orchestra and choir following a series of intricate journeys around the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms, 2014)
Song of the Earth
Wednesday 1 July, 7pm
Mahler (arr. Iain Farrington) Das Lied von der Erde with soloists Sarah Connolly and Andrew Staples (Kings Place, 2017)
Metamorphosen
Sunday 5 July, 4pm
Strauss’ post-war masterpiece for 23 string soloists (BBC Proms, 2017)
Four Places
Sunday 12 July, 4pm
Two film collaborations inspired by locations in America: Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England with film by Jon Frank commissioned by Aurora in 2013; and Gotham, a collaborative work by Michael Gordon and Bill Morrison performed at Camden’s Roundhouse in 2012.
Performances will be broadcast on YouTube Premiere, and subsequently made available on demand through the Aurora website. You can find more details about all of the forthcoming Aurora Play broadcasts here. You can also catch up with earlier broadcasts in the series, including our landmark Orchestral Theatre staging of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique for the 2019 BBC Proms.
Alongside the broadcasts we’ll be continuing to release behind-the-scenes insights from players and members of the Aurora creative team, as well as new interactive Join in with Jessie videos, in which our Workshop Leader-in-Residence Jessie Maryon Davies invites you to create your own orchestral adventures at home.
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