Aurora Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra founded in 2005 by conductors

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 Nicholas Collon

Nicholas Collon

Nicholas Collon is a British Conductor who holds the position of Principal Conductor of Aurora Orchestra. A viola player, pianist and organist by training, Nicholas studied at Clare College, Cambridge...

 and Robin Ticciati

Robin Ticciati

Robin Ticciati is a British conductor of Italian ancestry. His paternal grandfather was a composer and arranger. His father is a barrister, and his mother is a therapist...

.
It is based in Kings Place

Kings Place

Kings Place is a building in London’s Kings Cross area, providing music and visual arts venues combined with seven floors of office space, a home for The Guardian newspaper since December 2008 and the headquarters of Network Rail...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 and at LSO St Luke's.

In May 2011 Aurora won the Ensemble

Musical ensemble

A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...

 category of the annual Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards

Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards

The Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards are given annually for live classical music-making in the United Kingdom. The awards were first held in 1989 and are independent of any commercial interest....

.

History

Aurora Orchestra was founded in 2005 by Nicholas Collon, Robin Ticciati and fellow members of the National Youth Orchestra.

Apart from the current Kings Place and LSO St Luke's, the orchestra's residencies have included Aldeburgh
and the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music

The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...

.

In March 2011, the Arts Council of England

Arts Council England

Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport...

 included Aurora Orchestra in its new 'national portfolio' scheme, scheduling annual funding of £60,000 (approx.) for the 2012/13, 2013/14 and 2014/15 funding years. Aurora, which had not been a 'regularly funded organisation' under the council's previous funding scheme, was awarded this support as one of the "smaller adventurous music ensembles".

The Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards Ensemble category win in May 2011 placed Aurora Orchestra in the company of the London Sinfonietta

London Sinfonietta

The London Sinfonietta is an English chamber orchestra founded in 1968 and based in London. The ensemble specialises in contemporary music and works across a wide range of genres, performing modern classics alongside world premieres, and includes music by electronica artists as well as folk and...

, the Hallé

The Hallé

The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...

, and others.

In June 2011, Decca

Decca Records

Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....

 released Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly

Nico Muhly is a contemporary classical music composer, who has worked and recorded with classical and pop/rock musicians. He currently lives in the Lower East Side section of Manhattan in New York City.-Early years:...

's Seeing is Believing
as recorded by Aurora Orchestra (their debut).

Reception

"Bright, young and full of ideas, the Aurora Orchestra meld classical music with anything from jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 to tango

Tango music

Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...

 to Nico Muhly." - The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

"To launch a new orchestra, Aurora, in the cut-throat musical marketplace that is London requires courage and conviction. To sustain it through five seasons, during which you programme everything from the Baroque sounds of Gabrieli and Lully to the avant-garde scores of Berio and Adams, shows brilliance as well as bravado." - Richard Morrison, The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, Jan 2011

"They convey joy and freshness at the highest standard of musical excellence. And in just five short years they’ve carved out a niche in the country’s musical life which is unique." - RPS Music Awards

"Nicholas Collon's Aurora is a fabulous band, a small but extremely virtuoso group whose musical sympathies are enormously wide." - James Jolly, Gramophone