Germany & Belgium Tour with Abel Selaocoe

Aurora Orchestra embarks on its longest tour yet, with a memorised performance of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and a collaboration with cellist and performer Abel Selaocoe.

Hailed by the German press as a “courageously creative orchestra”, Aurora’s multi-date German tour include debuts in Berlin and Frankfurt, as well as returning visits to Munich, Hamburg, Bielefeld and Cologne, before ending in Bruges’ Concertgebouw.

The South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe has an irrepressible energy and stage presence that has taken him from a township near Johannesburg to the top of the music world. Selaocoe crosses genre boundaries with ease in his cello concerto. He combines Western music from classical to soul with the sounds and traditions of his homeland – which include intense, throaty singing, which plays just as important a role in the concert as the cello. Bernhard Schimpelsberger joins on percussion.

In the second half of the concert, the Aurora Orchestra presents Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, played from memory, a work that the composer himself described as “a sheer expression of joy, happiness and the affirmation of life”.