Our journey with memorised performance

Our journey with memorised performance

In August 2014, Aurora became the first professional orchestra in the modern era to perform a symphony entirely from memory. What started as an eye-catching experiment has since developed into a core part of our concert output: over the past nine years, we’ve performed no fewer than 14 major classical works in this way. Memorised performance is an intense and demanding approach, with considerable artistic challenge posed to individual players. However, the results are transformational, radically enhancing the level of communication and trust between players, greatly deepening their musical understanding of the work being performed, and heightening the concert experience for all involved. Players and audiences alike highlight the enhanced sense of communication and shared experience that is made possible by memorised performance.

“There is a freedom and big extra level to learning and performing this way. The depth of knowledge that we all have of the music and how we can give more to the audience without stands in front of us.” – Aurora player

“The music reached me, touched my heart, included me” – audience member

Orchestral Theatre presentations

We have found that memorising unlocks a wide range of possibilities. Take away music stands and the orchestra becomes uniquely versatile – the musicians can move, change formation, or even perform in the dark. We’ve found an orchestra performing by heart to be an incomparably powerful tool for musical explanation: musicians can move to show a musical idea, like a rhythm or a chord. In recent years we’ve loved exploring these many facets of memorised performance, all with the aim of helping audiences get under the skin of great music.

Immersive performance

Since our very first experiments in memorised performance, we’ve explored immersive approaches in various intimate settings: pop-up performances in shopping centres; schools’ workshops in which pupils wander among the orchestra; encores to memorised concerts, where members of the orchestra step off stage and out into the audience to play. Concert attendees often tell us that these moments are highlights for them – they love the sense of getting up close to players and being enfolded by the sound of the orchestra.

In recent years we have taken these experiments further, developing immersive performances of entire symphonies – ranging from concerts for small audiences in acoustic settings, to amplified performances using digital sound reinforcement technology for nightclub audiences of more than 1,500 people. We have tailored performances to specific communities, such as care home residents and school pupils.

“an amazing and unique experience […] I have never felt so included in a classical performance before – it felt how music SHOULD be – accessible to all.” – audience member, immersive performance (acoustic) in Norwich cathedral

“What an extraordinary way to experience orchestral music” – audience member, immersive performance (amplified) at Printworks nightclub

“The experience was amazing (…) I know it will have made a lasting impact on the students. It was absolutely incredible to feel so much a part of the orchestra and inside the sound. It was really inspiring.” – teacher feedback, immersive schools’ performance

Participation

Through all of this work we have discovered that memorising is a powerful tool for enabling audiences to connect, participate and become part of the music – from intimate storytelling performances for children and adults, to 5,000-strong audiences at the Royal Albert Hall.

Where next?

In June 2026 we will create and tour a new memorised concert format which builds on our experiments in memorised performance to date. It will combine the creative storytelling of Orchestral Theatre, the immediacy and connection of the immersive approach, and an increased focus on audience participation, to give a radically new experience of a classical symphony.

This is an experimental format which, alongside Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, will include specially commissioned music, arrangements and songs which the orchestra will be able to perform flexibly. For example, one commission will combine text, passages of Mozart and flexible vamp bars to introduce audiences to how string sections work in orchestras. The orchestra will be able to ask audience members to choose what they want to strip out or build up in the music, who they want to hear next or even what tempo they might like. A similarly flexible commission will introduce audiences to the different colours of the wind and brass sections. Other excerpts will ask audiences to use their voices or body percussion to join the various sections of the orchestra – enabling them to share in the music-making. All of these additional elements will be memorised by the Aurora players, who will receive training to deliver them flexibly in response to each individual audience.