Press
Quotes / Reviews
The
Times / November 2011 *****
Hilary Finch
"In a city suffocating
with musical activity, Nicholas Collon's Aurora Orchestra lets in more fresh air
than most. The aim is to make an audience hear anew, not by sugaring any pills,
not by didactic explanation, not by light-shows, but by context… I was gripped
from start to finish. And the music…was performed to exquisite perfection."
Read
full review >>>
The
Guardian / November 2011 ***
Andrew Clements
"Startlingly
good performances from Collon and the orchestra, fizzing with energy and enthusiasm."
Read
full review >>>
BBC
Music Magazine / October 2011
Howard Goldstein
On Seeing
is Believing
"It is hard to imagine performances more assured
and expressive than these by Nicholas Collon and the Aurora Orchestra. One of
the most ear-catching discs to come my way in a long time."
The
Times / August 2011 ****
Hilary Finch
"In fact, it all
made you feel as though you wished Collon and his Aurora Orchestra would simply
take over for all the Proms. This was a truly life (and death) enhancing concert."
Read
full review >>>
The
Telegraph / August 2011 ****
Benedict Brogan
"a smartly
chosen selection of classical greatest hits, which Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas
Collon ripped out with élan, from a thumping Also sprach Zarathustra to the overture
of The Marriage of Figaro."
Read
full review >>>
BBC
Music Magazine / August 2011
Jeremy Pound
"If they get invited
back to perform the Rite in its entirety, I’ll be first in the queue."
Read
full review >>>
The
Times / June 2011 ***
Geoff Brown
"A CD collection featuring
Britain's brightest young ensemble, Aurora orchestra, and their hot conductor
Nicholas Collon. The CD is a wonderful calling card for Collon's Aurora Orchestra.
The CD lasts 73 minutes and 23 seconds, and they dazzle in every one of them."
Read
full review >>>
The
Independent / June 2011 ****
Andy Gill
"The American wunderkind's
latest release focuses on linked commissions by the Aurora Orchestra, with Thomas
Gould's acquisition of a six-string electric violin prompting the 25-minute title-track,
a piece reflecting man's compulsion to map the heavens."
Read
full review >>>
The
Arts Desk / May 2011
David Nice
Another Brit conductor makes
lightning progress
Anyone who's attended an Aurora Orchestra concert at
Kings Place will know that twentysomething conductor Nicholas Collon is a force
to be reckoned with. When he speaks, he looks as if butter wouldn't melt, but
in action his technique is disciplined as well as sufficiently free to get the
flexibility he needs.
Read
full review >>>
The
Guardian / May 2011 ****
Erica Jeal
"Seeing Is Believing
is a concerto for electric violin, the centrepiece of a felicitous partnership
between Nico Muhly and London's Aurora Orchestra. Aurora's programming is as eclectic
as Muhly's list of influences; this concert under Nicholas Collon spanned four
centuries, finishing with a scamper through the cartoonish Chamber Symphony by
John Adams, Muhly's most obvious musical begetter."
Read
full review >>>
The
Telegraph / May 2011 ****
Ivan Hewitt
"Launching a new orchestra
is a tough business in these difficult times, but the Aurora Orchestra are surely
set to prosper. Every concert they play is eye-catchingly original and shrewdly
balanced.
Hindemith's wildly satirical Kammermusik No 1….was played with astonishing
heat and fervour. In John Adams's Chamber Symphony…[the] tinny synthesizer sound
and jazz-like running bass and distorted Schoenbergian memories make for a disquietingly
dark sound-world, which I've never heard with such thrilling clarity."
Read
full review >>>
The
Times / May 2011 ****
Richard Morrison
"Matching its virtuosic
flair and adventurous programming, Nicholas Collon's London-based Aurora Orchestra
clearly has canny promotional skills too. Not only was this pulsating concert
streamed live on the web, it also launched a Decca recording…..Adams, the old
American master was acknowledged with a stonking performance of his Chamber Symphony;
precise yet somehow free-spirited and jazzy under Collon's direction - exactly
as it should be."
Read
full review >>>
The
Telegraph / May 2011
Michael White
"But for me, the most
pleasing moment of the night was to see the Ensemble award go to Aurora, a fabulous
young chamber orchestra that in six years of existence has emerged as one of the
most dynamic, innovative and open-minded groups of its kind - led by the young
conductor, Nicholas Collon, who collected the pickle-fork."
Read
full review >>>
Gramophone
Magazine / March 2011 ****
James Jolly
An RPS Award win and
a new disc for Decca
"Fantastic to see Aurora Orchestra acknowledged
last night with an RPS Award and Saturday night's concert - at London's coolest
classical venue, King's Place (go there if you haven't already!) - in which they
played music by Nico Muhly, John Adams and others, was one of those events that
crossed boundaries and perhaps explained their victory. It attracted a very mixed
audience, not your average New Music crowd but something way more diverse."
Read
full review >>>
The
Guardian / March 2011 ****
Tim Ashley
"With London residencies
at Kings Place and LSO St Luke's, the Aurora Orchestra, founded six years ago,
is riding high, and after their latest concert it is easy to understand why."
Read
full review >>>
Bachtrack
/ March 2011
Sebastian Scotney
"There are the knowns. The things,
as Rumsfeld would have it, that we know that we know. Like the way the Aurora
orchestra can bring sheer youthful exuberance to a fast piece like the G Major
presto finale to the symphony No.27 which ended the first half of last night's
all-Mozart concert at Kings Place."
Read
full review >>>
The
Times / January 2011 ****
Richard Morrison
"Watching Colin
Davis conveying his vast experience of interpreting Mozart to the budding professionals
of the Aurora Orchestra - the entire band young enough to be his grandchildren
- would have been a fascinating experience. But it wasn't to be. British music's
most revered senior citizen fell ill (mercifully a passing ailment). So, with
the concert going out live on Radio 3, the Aurora's founder, Nicholas Collon,
found himself filling giant boots at very short notice."
Read
full review >>>
The
Guardian / January 2011 ****
Erica Jeal
"Mozart, Mozart
everywhere. Midway through Radio 3?s 12-day marathon, the station again teamed
up with Kings Place, where the year-long Mozart Unwrapped festival is just getting
going. And if the live broadcast offered Mozart in your living room, that's not
so far from what the live experience was like."
Read
full review >>>
The
Arts Desk / January 2011
David Nice
"Yesterday evening's
needs-must situation deprived us of a visit from the Aurora Orchestra's honorary
patron, Sir Colin Davis - whose infection, we were glad to hear, was nothing serious
- but I, for one, wanted to hear how this dazzling young ensemble's principal
conductor and artistic director Nicholas Collon would fare in his master's shoes."
Read
full review >>>
Bachtrack
/ January 2011
Kay Kempin
"Part of the King's Place Mozart Unwrapped
series, the Aurora Orchestra delivered a spellbinding performance Thursday night."
Read
full review >>>
The
Times / Richard Morrison (January 2011)
Nomination for Times Breakthrough
South Bank Sky Arts Award 2011
'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.
That’s the achievement of the young conductor Nicholas Collon, but it’s not the
only one. When there’s a tricky new opera to be nursed into life, when a top orchestra
has a difficult premiere that terrifies more senior conductors, when a promoter
wants a bright young enthusiast to lead an extraordinary happening — such as the
recent Frank Zappa festival at the Roundhouse — Collon is their first port of
call.
At Cambridge
his close friend was Robin Ticciati, whose own conducting career has taken off
spectacularly in the past couple of seasons. But there are signs that the 27-year-old
Collon, who made a well-reviewed Proms debut last summer, is also on the cusp
of a major international career.'
Guardian
/ Guy Damaan (November 2010)
Zappa / Boulez / Varese/ (London Sinfonietta)
Read
review >>>
The
Times / Richard Morrison (July 2010)
Five to watch
Read
text >>>
The
Times / Richard Morrison (May 2010)
The Lion's Face at the Theatre Royal,
Brighton
Read review >>>
The
Times / Geoff Brown (March 2010)
Aurora Orchestra's 5th Birthday
Concert at LSO St Luke's
Read review
>>>
Classical
Source / Bob Briggs (March 2010)
Mahler 10 (Cooke) (Salomon Orchestra)
Read
review >>>
Guardian
/ Guy Damaan (March 2010) ****
Phillips / Knight Crew (Glyndebourne Opera)
Read
review >>>
The
Sunday Times / Paul Driver (November 2009)
Aurora Orchestra at Kings Place
Read
review >>>
Opera
Magazine / Roderic Dunnett (July 2008) ****
Walton / The Bear & Stravinsky
'The Fox' (Aurora Orchestra / Mahogany Opera)
'...this
combined with a provocative and arresting staging to make Mahogany's double bill
one of the most exciting and electrifying evenings I've spent at the opera in
recent seasons....yet even this vibrant vocal quartet was upstaged by the brilliant
playing of the Aurora Orchestra, conducted by Nicholas Collon, whose feel for
Stravinsky's Russian colourings were beyond reproach.'
Metro
/ Warwick Thompson (January 2008)
Debussy/Muhly/Byrd/Ives (Aurora Orchestra)
'It's
been a remarkable success story. Founded just a little over three years ago, Aurora
Orchestra, a sparky, young ensemble specialising in new repertoire and chamber
arrangements of symphonies has already reached the threshold of big-name status.
The current conductor is the name-to-watch firecracker Nicholas Collon.'
Opera
Now
/ Roderick Dunnett (March/April 2008)
Hans Krasa / Brundibar (Mahogany Opera)
****
'...A
cleverly designed show, a heroic costume team, much acting to die for, and vocals
to match (plus a 21-strong band wreathed in in Krasa-like irony by conductor Nicholas
Collon). And poignancy? In swathes.'
Classical
Source / Robert Matthew-Walker (March 2008)
Shostakovich / Symphony No.4
(Kensington Symphony Orchestra)
'Shostakovich's
mighty Fourth Symphony, one of this composer's greatest and most original orchestral
pieces, received a performance of considerable insight, revealing that Collon
knows this masterpiece very well, and equally knows how to get the best from this
most excellent orchestra.'
Sunday
Times / Paul Driver (December 2007 / Spitalfields Festival)
Wagner / Siegfried
Idyll (Aurora Orchestra) ****
'Wagner's
Siegfried Idyll, played by the new, young Aurora Orchestra under Nicholas Collon,
was written as a present for the composer's wife, Cosima, and first performed
on the staircase of their villa near Lucerne on the morning of her birthday, Christmas
Day. In the intimacy of St Leonard's, with an acoustic well suited to chamber
forces, one could easily imagine that occasion. Each phrase sounded as fresh and
near as if you were on those stairs yourself.'
Evening
Standard / Barry Millington (March 2007)
Birtwistle/Takemitsu/Bach/Adams
(Aurora Orchestra)
'A
typically imaginative progamme from the brilliant young Aurora Orchestra under
their talented Principal Conductor, Nicholas Collon.'
Musical
Opinion / Rian Evans (June 2006 / Aldeburgh Festival)
Ligeti / Chamber
Concerto (Aurora Orchestra) ****
'Had
the concert given by the chamber ensemble Aurora on 22 June ['06] been my only
taste of Aldeburgh this year, it would have sufficed. Their playing of György
Ligeti's Kammerkonzert was truly memorable. Conductor Nicholas Collon recreated
the magical textures of this Ligeti score, gossamer threads, crystalline chords
and dancing, shimmering passages were simply beguiling.'
BACK
TO TOP
