The Aurora Orchestra takes center stage with an exhilarating array of performances this season. From the vibrant streets of Paris circa 1900 to the echoing valleys of Italy, each event promises a unique sonic adventure. Highlights include a transformative 'Carnival' tour, an operatic tale of love and longing, and a deep dive into Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. Join us as we explore the intricate fusion of music, narrative, and history brought to life by this innovative orchestra.

Aurora Orchestra: A Melodic Journey Through Time and Culture

Delve into a year of extraordinary musical experiences with the Aurora Orchestra as they present a series of events that transport audiences to different times and places. From the bustling streets of 1900s Paris to the tense atmosphere of Stalinist Russia, and the serene yet challenging peaks of the Alps, each concert is a vivid narrative brought to life through masterful performances and innovative storytelling. These events not only showcase renowned compositions but also highlight the creative genius of contemporary artists, offering a unique blend of historical and modern musical expressions.

Aurora Orchestra: Journey Through Diverse Musical Landscapes

In this unique concert, Aurora flips the concert hall on its head, bringing you inside and around the orchestra to feel the music as the musicians do.

Mozart’s Jupiter by Heart: Family Edit

Southbank Centre

Aurora takes its trademark memorised performances to the next level, inviting you up onto and around the stage, into the very heart of the orchestra.

Mozart’s Jupiter by Heart

First performed from memory by Aurora in 2023, The Rite of Spring is one of the most influential pieces of the 20th century. Taking away the music stands allows us to communicate more intensely with each other and the audience, an orchestra breathing as one with no barriers.

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The Rite of Spring – International Tour

Berliner Philharmonie

Paddle in the stream, explore echoes across the valley and meet some friends along the way in Aurora’s latest adventure in the Far, Far Away Early Years series. Featuring the music of Gustav and Alma Mahler in new chamber arrangements by Harry Baker, and a brand-new story from Aurora’s Writer-in-Residence Kate Wakeling, expect to move, sing and join in with the storytelling.

Mahler and the Mountain Adventure

Kings Place

Nothing lifts the spirits quite like the opening of Mendelssohn’s symphony, which bursts into life with an irrepressible energy that could lift you off your feet. The composer once referred to it as ‘blue sky in A major’ and these postcards in sound from an epic 10-month foreign tour seem drenched in Mediterranean sunshine. Prokofiev’s concerto, written on the cusp of his resettlement in the Soviet Union, melds exquisite surface beauty with dark foreboding in his gripping, emotionally-charged concerto, performed by Chloë Hanslip. And to open, Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte, inspired by a performance of a Haydn string quartet.

Mendelssohn 4 – UK Tour

Saffron Hall

Ayres offers a different perspective on mountain life with his extraordinary No. 42 – In the Alps: an ‘animated concert’ which combines a virtuosic and ravishing score with a zany story and projected silent film-style titles. Mary Bevan appears as soloist for this playful, beautiful and often uproariously funny piece which tells the story of a young girl stranded on top of an unclimbable mountain-top, who learns to sing from the mountain animals around her and falls in love with the distant trumpet-playing of a boy in the valley far below.

In the Alps

Put your party clothes on, it’s time to sing, dance, play games and discover orchestral instruments!

Meet the Instruments

Written in the shadow of Russia’s Stalinist regime, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony was by no means a purely rehabilitative work after the composer had been subjected to harsh attacks for his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Instead, its ambiguity means it is now regarded as a subtle denunciation of the brutality of the Stalinist regime.

Shostakovich 5 – Germany Tour

Die Glocke

In 1936, Shostakovich’s new opera was slammed by the official Soviet paper Pravda as ‘muddle instead of music’. In Joseph Stalin’s Russia, a review like that could be deadly. Shostakovich knew he had to redeem himself fast. The result was his life-saving Fifth Symphony.

Edinburgh International Festival

Usher Hall

Explore a symphony from the inside out. Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra reflect this year’s Shostakovich anniversary with a Prom that takes the audience under the hood of a 20th-century masterpiece and into the mind of the man who made it. Actors join our players to bring to life a symphony born in the shadow of Stalin’s regime – music on the edge of life and death by a composer treading a dangerous line between political obedience and artistic defiance.

Shostakovich 5 – BBC Proms 2025

Royal Albert Hall

Explore a symphony from the inside out. Nicholas Collon and Aurora Orchestra reflect this year’s Shostakovich anniversary with a concert that takes the audience under the hood of a 20th-century masterpiece and into the mind of the man who made it. Actors join the players to bring to life a symphony born in the shadow of Stalin’s regime – music on the edge of life and death by a composer treading a dangerous line between political obedience and artistic defiance.

Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony

At the heart of the programme is Harold in Italy, Hector Berlioz’ vivid evocation of a journey through Italy, scored for solo viola and orchestra.

Lawrence Power & Aurora: In Italy

A Visit to Friends is an opera about love. Or, more accurately, about love’s frustrations. Drawing on Anton Chekhov’s short story and William Boyd’s Chekhovian play Longing, Colin Matthews’ opera (with libretto written by William Boyd) is, beguilingly, an opera within an opera, with music strongly influenced by Scriabin.

Aldeburgh Festival Opera: A Visit To Friends

Snape Maltings

Our new production transforms the concert into a museum visit in Paris around 1900, in which the musicians and the instruments are sounding exhibits. Carnival is performed alongside a new work by Richard Ayres, which explores what happens when the carnival is over and just the performers are left. Do you dare enter?

Carnival – International Tour

Kurtheater Bad Kissingen

Nikolaisaal

Stadttheater Ingolstadt

Théâtre Le Reflet

Amare

Brucknerhaus

Distinguished audience members, friends: welcome to a world of sound and movement, of risk and endeavour, of mystery and beguilement. Meet Dr Frompou, a madcap scientist who’s dedicated his life to taming his Most Magnificent Orchestra.

Carnival – UK Tour

arc Shopping Centre

From Finland to Italy, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is re-imagined for the 21st century, infused with Nordic and traditional tunes led by Pekka Kuusisto and citternist Ale Carr. Folk dances from the Åre Swedish mountain range become the Apres-ski to Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’; a lazy Finnish summer evening unfurls in the form of a folk song before Vivaldi’s summer storm hits.

To open, Caroline Shaw’s Plan and Elevation, a driving yet reflective work inspired by nature and architectural drawings. A bird’s-eye “plan” shows the whole structure, while an “elevation” reveals its intricate details and ornaments – much as tonight’s improvisations illuminate music centuries old from a new angle.

Pekka Kuusisto: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons

You may well feel as though you’ve swapped the Queen Elizabeth Hall for a retreat in the Finnish countryside with this triumphant proclamation of nature in all its beauty.

Pekka Kuusisto, Ale Carr & Aurora Orchestra: Four Seasons

Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto joins forces with Aurora Orchestra for two of classical music’s greatest nature-inspired hits, with a sprinkling of Kuusisto’s signature experimental flair.

The natural world has proved a muse for many composers, but there’s arguably no more ecstatic end to a symphony than Sibelius’ painting of soaring swans. It will be impossible not to feel like you’ve swapped out the Queen Elizabeth Hall for a silent retreat in the Finnish countryside with this triumphant proclamation of nature in all its beauty.

From Finland to Italy, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is re-imagined for the 21st century, interspersed with tunes performed by Pekka Kuusisto and Ale Carr, most of them traditional, most of them Nordic. Folk dances from the Åre Swedish mountain range become the Apres-ski to Vivaldi’s ‘Winter’; a lazy Finnish summer evening unfurls in the form of a folk song before Vivaldi’s summer storm hits.

To open, Caroline Shaw’s Plan and Elevation, a driving yet reflective work inspired by nature and architectural drawings. A bird’s-eye “plan” shows the whole structure, while an “elevation” reveals its intricate details and ornaments – much as tonight’s improvisations illuminate music centuries old from a new angle.

Pekka Kuusisto: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Sibelius

Get your party hats ready, something special is happening on your street! It’s time to sing, dance, play games, and discover the magical sounds of orchestral instruments.

As the postman delivers the invitations, we’ll bump into old friends and meet new neighbours. But who lives behind each door and what instrument do they play?

Find out in this lively, interactive concert for families, as we’re joined by two engaging presenters to bring the world of orchestral music to life through fun, participation, and plenty of surprises.

For thousands of years the Psalms have been sung and remembered – words of sorrow, joy and hope that have travelled across generations and cultures. Aurora Orchestra’s latest collaboration with the BBC Singers brings together three composers, centuries apart, who each return to those ancient texts in their own way.

At its heart is Bach’s Magnificat – Mary’s song of praise, which itself remembers and reimagines the psalm tradition in the light of Christ. Bach’s setting summons the splendour of Lutheran Leipzig, layering centuries of sacred tradition into music bursting with colour, invention and joy. Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms recalls the sounds of his Jewish heritage with music that is tender, playful and dramatic. And in newly-composed settings of psalm texts, Nico Muhly gives these timeless words a fresh, modern voice, alive with echoes and fragments like half-remembered prayers.

The programme is co-curated and introduced by writer and artist Edmund de Waal, who reflects on the Psalms as vessels of memory, carrying human experience across centuries. Together, words and music reveal the Psalms as a living thread that binds past, present and future. This collaboration between Aurora Orchestra and Edmund de Waal is born out of Edmund’s role as a Schwarzman Centre Cultural Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he has been working with academics to explore the continuing resonance of the Psalms across the three Abrahamic faiths and beyond.

Aurora Orchestra

Sep 24, 2026

Pekka Kuusisto: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons

Sep 25, 2026

Pekka Kuusisto, Ale Carr & Aurora Orchestra: Four Seasons

Sep 25, 2026

Pekka Kuusisto: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Sibelius

Oct 17, 2026

Meet the Instruments

27 - 29 Nov, 2026

Aurora with the BBC Singers and Edmund de Waal

Jun 28, 2026

Mozart’s Jupiter by Heart: Family Edit

Jun 28, 2026

Mozart’s Jupiter by Heart

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