Mon 7 September 2020 West Handyside Canopy, Kings Cross  6pm & 8.15pm

Welcome

A very warm welcome to this evening’s very special concerts: Aurora’s first since the start of March, and the first public, ticketed performances of a full-scale orchestral symphony anywhere in the UK since the imposition of lockdown.

It's difficult to express what a moving and precious experience it has been to come together again as a group over the past few days and to make music together after such a long period of enforced separation. Whilst we remain a long way from anything resembling a ‘normal’ calendar of performing activity, this week’s series of concerts – here at Kings Cross, in Saffron Walden on Wednesday and at the BBC Proms on Thursday night – mark a hugely important milestone.

We're intensely grateful to the many partners who have made the project possible, including Argent, our hosts here at Kings Cross; Kings Place; Saffron Hall; and the team at the BBC Proms who have been so supportive of these outdoor performances in advance of our televised performance of this symphony at the Royal Albert Hall on Thursday. We are particularly grateful to the Parabola Foundation, whose financial support has helped us to mount these special outdoor performances as part of a newly-adapted version of our Kings Place season, and to the many other organisational funders listed in the acknowledgments below whose generosity has helped to sustain Aurora during the past intensely challenging months. Lastly we are grateful to Aurora’s extended family of patrons and friends for their ongoing support of our work – your assistance has been more vital now than ever before, and we are so pleased that many of you are able to be with us in person this evening for the first time in many months. If you are interested in becoming a supporter of Aurora and would like to find out more or make a donation, please do visit our website.

These events mark the start of an autumn season which also includes three concerts at our Kings Place home, staged as part of Aurora's five-year project to perform all of Mozart’s 27 piano concertos. Although the programmes we had originally planned are for the time being no longer possible because of social distancing rules, we have reimagined them as sparkling chamber-scale concerts, with reduced arrangements of the concertos paired with much-loved chamber music as well as brand new commissions from three of the UK’s most exciting young composers. You can find more details listed below: we do hope you can join us either as part of our safely-distanced audience in the hall, or digitally by purchasing an online ticket. And look out for news of further performances to be announced in the coming weeks, including socially-distanced performances for young children and families as part of our Far, Far Away series of storytelling concerts.

Thanks again for joining us this evening and I hope you enjoy these performances as much as we have relished preparing for them.

John Harte Chief Executive, Aurora Beethoven 7 Outdoors

Ludwig van Beethoven – Symphony No. 7 in A major i. Poco sostenuto – Vivace ii. Allegretto iii. Presto iv. Allegro con brio

Aurora Orchestra Nicholas Collon conductor

Programme note

Composed in 1812, the Seventh Symphony was premiered the following year at a charity concert in aid of wounded soldiers returning from the Battle of Hanau. The work was performed alongside Beethoven’s ‘novelty’ Wellington’s Victory (or Battle Symphony), a piece originally composed for a newly invented mechanical organ but performed that evening in full orchestral glory (an arrangement Beethoven completed for a well-timed 50 gold ducats). The concert marked the end of a decade of hardship and heartache for the Viennese. Although still smarting from Napoleon’s occupations of Vienna in 1805 and 1809, the 1813 Battle of Leipzig had at last turned the tide in the war and the Duke of Wellington had that June vanquished Napoleon’s younger brother in northern Spain. Vienna was poised to celebrate. While the Battle Symphony more literally saluted this success, striking up two respective military marches to depict the meeting of French and British armies, the Seventh Symphony was received as a more abstract but nonetheless resonant mark of victory. As such, the symphony elicited a frenzy of acclaim. The second movement was encored - an unprecedented gesture even in nineteenth-century concert etiquette - and the symphony performed again just four days later. Famously described as ‘the Apotheosis of the Dance’ by Wagner, the symphony has attracted a wealth of programmatic interpretation: from Berlioz’s description of the first movement as a peasant dance, to an account of the work as a ‘rustic wedding’ (Schumann) and the finale as a ‘bacchanalian orgy’ (Bernstein). Aside from such colourful overwriting of the symphony’s intent, the work is doubtless a masterpiece in vigour and invention.

The first movement begins with a daringly extended introduction, stretching far beyond any symphonic opening yet composed, while also floating seamlessly from A major to C and F major in the space of 62 bars. Framed by a stately but shadowy single chord in the winds, the second movement’s A-minor Allegretto was originally intended for Beethoven’s third ‘Razumovsky’ String Quartet. Yet while the slow but insistent drive of the opening is left mostly to the strings, it is the clarinet that leavens the movement’s central section, offering a sudden chink of light and air before a whispered fugue begins in the strings. The following Presto provides a mischievous foil to the solemnity of the second movement, answering its A-minor chill with a joyful F major. Scored in five parts, the movement unusually features not one but two trios (in D major) to comprise a novel ABABA structure. The concluding Allegro con brio whirls and thumps with extraordinary energy. In a neat piece of symmetry that aligns the finale with the first movement’s introduction, the Allegro features a much- extended coda, where grand, rolling brass fanfares and racing strings bring the work to a triumphant close.

Kate Wakeling Aurora Orchestra

VIOLIN I CELLO BASSOON Alexandra Wood Sébastien van Kuijk Nina Ashton Maia Cabeza Reinoud Ford Dominic Tyler Katie Stillman Ben Chappell Alessandro Ruisi Peteris Sokolovskis HORN Beatrix Lovejoy Steve Stirling Elizabeth Cooney DOUBLE BASS Hugh Sisley Peter Liang Ben Griffiths Fabian van de Geest Ian Watson Elena Hull Marianne Schofield TRUMPET VIOLIN II Vera Pereira Russell Gilmour Eva Thorarinsdottir Imogen Hancock Jonathan Stone FLUTE Sam Kinrade Agata Daraskaite Jane Mitchell Tamara Elias Rebecca Larsen TIMPANI Cassandra Hamilton Matthew Hardy Ronald Long OBOE Thomas Barber VIOLA Michael O’Donnell Nicholas Bootiman Richard Waters CLARINET Asher Zaccardelli Timothy Orpen Ruth Nelson Jonathan Parkin

Nicholas Collon

British conductor Nicholas Collon is Founder and Principal Conductor of Aurora Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Gürzenich Orchestra, Cologne. He is also Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Residentie Orkest in The Hague until next year, when he becomes Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Nicholas has also worked with such as the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Oslo and Toronto Philharmonic orchestras and many of the leading British orchestras, including the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Hallé, Philharmonic Orchestra and . His opera engagements have taken him to Cologne Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne on Tour and Welsh National Opera, and he has conducted over 200 new works. He has made ground-breaking recordings with Aurora Orchestra and acclaimed discs with the Hallé and Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Aurora Orchestra

With its signature creative ethos, Aurora Orchestra combines world-class performance with adventurous programming and presentation. Founded in 2005 under Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, it has quickly established a reputation as one of Europe’s leading chamber orchestras, garnering several major awards including three Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards, a German ECHO Klassik Award and a Classical:NEXT Innovation Award.

Collaborating widely across art forms and musical genres, Aurora has worked with an exceptional breadth of artists, ranging from Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Sarah Connolly and Pierre-Laurent Aimard to Wayne McGregor, Edmund de Waal and Björk. A champion of new music, it has premiered works by composers including Julian Anderson, Benedict Mason, Anna Meredith, Nico Muhly and Judith Weir. In recent years, it has pioneered memorised performance (without the use of printed sheet music), and is thought to be the first orchestra worldwide to perform whole symphonies in this way. Since 2016, Aurora has been creating Orchestral Theatre productions spanning diverse musical genres and art forms. These orchestral adventures rethink the concert format and offer bold new ways to engage with orchestral music for both old and new concert-goers alike. Based in London, Aurora is Resident Orchestra at Kings Place and Associate Orchestra at . Its busy UK calendar includes ongoing regional residencies at St George’s Bristol, The Apex (Bury St Edmunds) and Colyer-Fergusson Hall (Canterbury). International highlights include appearances at The Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Kölner Philharmonie, Victoria Concert Hall Singapore, Melbourne Festival and Shanghai Concert Hall.

By challenging expectations of what an orchestra can and should do on the concert platform, 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 2020, Aurora launched ‘Aurora Play’, a free digital series showcasing the very best of Aurora’s orchestral adventures online, with creative ways for listeners of all ages to join in at home. Thank You

We are so grateful to everyone who supports Aurora. It is thanks to our Supporters that we have been able to survive the difficult period of concert hall closure, launch a vibrant series of digital broadcasts, and now make our way back to performing life. We’d particularly like to thank Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, the Parabola Foundation, Signatur – The Karlsson Játiva Charitable Foundation, the Sir John Fisher Foundation, and the Aurora Patrons and Friends for their generous support.

We’d also like to thank the Systems Biology Laboratory, funded by the Fischer Family Foundation, for kindly providing Covid-19 testing of the Aurora Players and Staff.

Support Us

These are challenging times for our musical community, but we are determined to continue to deliver a vibrant and inspiring programme both during and after the current crisis. If you are in a position to help us safeguard Aurora’s future with a donation we’d be hugely grateful for your support.

To make a donation please visit auroraorchestra.com/donate-to-aurora. From all of us, thank you. Live at Kings Place this autumn

We're delighted to be returning to our Resident Orchestra home with a special series of intimate chamber concerts, available to watch in the hall and online.

Saturday 18 October, 7pm, Hall One Internationally-renowned pianist Imogen Cooper joins Principal Players of Aurora for an arrangement of Mozart’s radiant Piano Concerto No. 25, alongside Schubert’s much-loved ‘Trout’ Quintet and a new commission from Electra Perivolaris. Book tickets to watch in the Hall or online here.

Saturday 7 November, 7pm, Hall One Former BBC New Generation Artist Louis Schwizgebel makes his Kings Place debut with an arrangement of Mozart’s glorious ‘Coronation’ concerto, alongside Ravel’s Piano Trio. Also featured is a new work by Sasha Scott, winner of the 2019 BBC Young Composer Competition. Booking soon.

Saturday 12 December, 7pm, Hall One Aurora welcomes Spanish virtuoso Javier Perianes for an exuberant programme featuring Schumann’s Piano Quintet, a chamber arrangement of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23, and the world premiere of a new work by Sylvia Lim. Booking soon.