Classical and Jazz: Latest News > January 13
Published: 13 January, 2011
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
STILL just six years old, the young Aurora Orchestra is showing every sign staying on in London’s cut-throat musical marketplace.
This year’s London season will involve regular concerts at Kings Place and LSO St Luke’s in Old Street as part of annual residencies at the two venues.
As well, the orchestra will play at concerts and music festivals elsewhere in the country and lead out-reach community music-making.
It has developed a reputation for virtuosic live performance, innovative programming and adventurous cross-arts collaboration. In March, for instance, tango dancing will feature in a music-and-dance concert that will include a new arrangement of the Symphonic Dances from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story.
Although this sort of innovative programming wins plaudits, the real test of any orchestra comes when it plays music by the great composers without the gimmicks.
Aurora took on the challenge of an all-Mozart programme at Kings Place last week, delivering a delightful programme devised by Sir Colin Davis, the orchestra’s patron. Unfortunately, he was ill and not able to conduct at the concert, his place being taken by Nicholas Collon, the orchestra’s principal conductor. Welsh soprano Fflur Wyn sang two solos and Thomas Gould, the orchestra’s leader, played Mozart’s violin concerto No 5 and the concert ended with Symphony No 36, known as the Linz.
Much of Aurora’s playing was full of Mozartian zest and panache, strong phrasing and admirable clarity. Here and there, however, playing became mundane particularly when the strings were faced by Mozart the Hack repetition after repetition of a phrasal line.