Aurora Orchestra to join Southbank Centre Resident Orchestras
5 April 2022
Aurora announces it will join Southbank Centre’s world-class roster of Resident Orchestras from autumn 2022, as part of the first changes to the latter group for 30 years
Aurora will also renew its 15-year partnership with Kings Place as Resident Ensemble
Aurora Orchestra this week announces it will become Resident Orchestra at London’s Southbank Centre from September 2022. Aurora joins existing Resident Orchestras the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Sinfonietta. Revealed at the launch of the Southbank Centre’s 2022/23 programme today, the announcement marks the first change to the Resident Orchestras group since it was established in 1992. Southbank Centre will also welcome Chineke! Orchestra, Europe’s first majority Black and ethnically diverse orchestra, as a new Resident.
Aurora has been performing regularly at Southbank Centre for more than a decade and has been Associate Orchestra since 2016. As Resident Orchestra it will expand its programme at Southbank Centre significantly, delivering a year-round programme of performing, educational and digital activity.
Southbank Centre will be the home of Aurora’s distinctive ‘Orchestral Theatre’ work, adventurous cross-art form productions that use memorised performance, staging and design to redefine the possibilities of the orchestral concert. Aurora’s first appearance as Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre will be on 27 September, when the orchestra presents its landmark Orchestral Theatre staging of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, with the orchestra performing from memory under Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon.
Aurora will also continue to appear in London as Resident Ensemble at Kings Place, with a rich ongoing programme of intimate performances spanning a wide variety of smaller chamber orchestra and mixed ensemble repertoire. Forthcoming highlights include the conclusion of Aurora’s epic journey through Mozart’s complete cycle of piano concertos with Javier Perianes, and a collaboration with Nicholas Mulroy spanning European baroque music and twentieth-century Latin American popular song.
Aurora Creative Director Jane Mitchell said: “We’re enormously excited and proud to be starting a new chapter as one of Southbank Centre’s Resident Orchestras. Many of Aurora’s happiest artistic memories have been forged at Southbank Centre, and we’re thrilled to be able to expand and deepen the relationship. As Resident Orchestra we look forward to offering the richest, most vibrant experience of orchestral music to the broadest possible audience, both in and beyond the concert hall.
Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon said: “We’re so fortunate to have two wonderful home venues in London, each of which plays a key role in Aurora’s ongoing creative and musical development and allow us to connect with audiences in different ways. Joining the core group of Resident Orchestras at Southbank Centre is a thrilling new chapter for Aurora: no other venue in the world boasts such an extraordinary array of varied orchestral talent, and we are excited about supporting the bold ambitions which the venue has for the future, from radical audience development initiatives to helping transform the UK’s music education landscape.”