Full biography

Driven by the belief that orchestral music is for everyone, Aurora Orchestra has established itself as an innovative and boundary-breaking ensemble, creating musical experiences beyond the ordinary.

Under its Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, Aurora Orchestra has grown since its first concert in 2005 into an established name on the UK and international orchestral scene. Aurora is the pioneer for memorised orchestral performance: it is the first orchestra worldwide to break down physical barriers to music by removing sheet music and stands for large-scale works. Beginning with Mozart’s ‘Jupiter’ Symphony in 2014, Aurora has since performed many orchestral works in this way, including Beethoven Symphonies Nos. 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9, Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique and Stravinsky’s The Firebird and The Rite of Spring, as well as commissions by Max Richter and Héloïse Werner. 

Over recent years, these memorised performances have developed into cross-genre dramatic and musical explorations that reach deeper under the skin of the music, devised by Aurora’s Creative Director Jane Mitchell. Aurora has collaborated with an exceptional range of artists across different artistic disciplines.

Aurora inspires audiences of all ages and backgrounds to develop a passion for orchestral music. Through an award-winning Creative Learning programme, Aurora regularly offers workshops and storytelling concerts for families, schools and young people, including children with special educational needs and disabilities. In 2022, Aurora launched Aurora Classroom, a pioneering online learning platform for primary schools, which includes a feature film for young children, a wide range of resources to help teachers deliver music activities in the classroom, and bespoke activities for SEND settings.

In the 2024/5 season Aurora Orchestra will celebrate its 20th anniversary, with a new season of concerts as Resident Orchestra at the Southbank Centre and Resident Ensemble at Kings Place. It will undertake its biggest international tour to date, with debuts in Berlin Konzerthaus, Alteoper Frankfurt, and returns to Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and Munich Isar Philharmonie for a programme of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and Abel Selaocoe’s Cello Concerto, Four Spirits. In Autumn 2024 Aurora will tour Switzerland with Stravinsky’s The Firebird, which will also feature in a new immersive experience, ‘Inside the Orchestra,’ at Drumsheds in London.

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