Page 31 - Coverage Book_Aurora Orchestra Autumn 2020

Luckily they don’t have to pick - because this week sees them playing both a BBC
Prom and two socially distanced live gigs under the Handyside Canopy as part of
their residency at Kings Place.

Their impassioned rendition of Beethoven’s rumbustious Seventh symphony - with
all the more fire in their bellies after six frustrating months of lockdown - was a
poignant tonic for our times.

Judging by the standing ovation, an audience who had braved the trip into central
London hungry for live music, weren’t disappointed - we clapped until our arms
ached.

Crouch End conductor Nicholas Collon bounced, nay almost jived, on the podium,
and most of his players performed on their feet, straining for their next entry in a
piece which gallops along at a ferocious pace so 50 minutes passed in a blink.

Late night shoppers stopped to join this charmed circle, a joint enterprise between
musicians and audience, which felt almost an act of defiance against all those
months of sickness and fear.

Playing from memory allowed us to see the pleasure etched on the players’ faces at
having stepped out of the Zoom squares and into the light.

Throughout the ages, playhouses have been closed due to war, plague and
puritanism.

But the energy of this young ensemble reminds us that you can’t keep a good
orchestra down as a piece first performed more than 200 years ago for wounded war
veterans once again moved and uplifted. Bravo.