R D M R — Aurora Orchestra marks 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death with exploration of 5 Symphony

Aurora Orchestra marks 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death with a memorised exploration of the composer’s masterpiece – his Fifth Symphony

Actors announced for memorised and dramatised performances at BBC Proms and Saffron Hall
Aurora makes its Edinburgh International Festival debut with a Beanbag presentation

Aurora Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, actors Rhiannon May and Thomas Simper and players from Aurora Orchestra at the BBC Proms 2024. Image credit: Sisi Burn/BBC Proms

Founded by its Principal Conductor Nicholas Collon, Aurora Orchestra gave its first public performance on 15 April 2005. Now, 20 years later, Aurora has cemented its position as one of the world’s most creative orchestras, renowned for its ability to surprise, entertain and inspire.

This summer Aurora marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the most influential and performed composers of the 20th century, with a deep-dive into his Fifth Symphony – a work born in the shadow of Stalin’s regime that reveals music on the edge of life and death by a composer treading a dangerous line between political obedience and artistic defiance.

Made up of a roster of fearless musicians who have developed and grown with the orchestra, Aurora is the pioneer for memorised orchestral performance and has performed entire symphonies from memory at the BBC Proms and beyond for the last 11 years, delving ever deeper into cross-genre dramatic and musical explorations that get under the skin of the music, devised by Aurora’s Creative Director Jane Mitchell.

This summer Aurora presents a memorised and dramatised exploration of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony at the BBC Proms, giving audiences the opportunity to explore the masterpiece from the inside out, in a performance that takes audiences under the hood of the work and into the mind of the man who made it. Following a successful collaboration with Frantic Assembly on Carnival, Aurora collaborates once again with Frantic Assembly’s Artistic Director Scott Graham, who co-directs the dramatisation alongside Jane Mitchell and James Bonas. BBC Young Dancer winner Max Revell and actors Polly Frame, Craig Steinand Sarah Twomey join the players to bring the music to life through the story that surrounds its composition.

Jane Mitchell, Artistic Director of Aurora Orchestra and Co-Director, Concept and Script for Shostakovich’s Fifth by Heart, says: “Shostakovich’s 5th symphony was written under extraordinary circumstances and has been put under a magnifying glass since the moment it was first presented. The stories surrounding the symphony provide a fascinating lens through which to look at the role of artists in a totalitarian state. Our presentation of the 5th symphony will look at these stories alongside an exploration of the score itself, and will take a look at the endless ways in which we can interpret abstract music, throwing light on both the terrifying and farcical nature of a state attempting to control a composer’s voice.”

Aurora present two memorised and dramatised performances at the BBC Proms (Saturday 16 August, 7pm and Sunday 17 August, 11am), and a few days earlier at Saffron Hall (Thursday 14 August, 7:30pm).

The following week, Aurora makes its long-awaited debut at the Edinburgh International Festival, with two performances, including one in the Festival’s Beanbag Concert Series. Shostakovich Inside Out (Monday 18 August, 2pm) invites audiences to learn more about the Fifth Symphony in a fresh and immersive way, through a conversational presentation led by Nicholas Collon as the orchestra play the symphony by memory, pausing to share insights and delve into its emotional depth and historical context. Later the same day, Aurora performs the full symphony by memory, as part of a concert that also includes Abel Selacoe’s cello concerto Four Spirits, with the composer himself and percussionist Bernhard Schimpelsberger as soloists (Monday 18 August, 7:30pm).

Later in August, Aurora takes its memorised performance of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony on tour to Germany for two performances that present the symphony alongside Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, performed with soloist Alena Baeva – BeethovenFest Bonn (Friday 29 August, 7:30pm) and Bremen (Saturday 30 August, 7:30pm).

Aurora Classroom

To mark its 20th anniversary, Aurora Orchestra has announced that its online learning platform, Aurora Classroom, is now free to all schools. Continuing its commitment to music education, Aurora Classroom helps specialist and non-specialist teachers teach music with confidence, with units that focus on different dimensions of music and storytelling in music. Spring 2025 saw the launch of Stories in Sound, a new unit for KS2 that takes Aurora Orchestra's performance of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique as a basis for a term's worth of lessons focusing on creating music in the classroom and grows to include materials for KS3, 4 and 5; as a result, Aurora Classroom now supports music education across the entire 3-18 age range for free.