Music/Arts Groups

Orchestras Live
Orchestras Live works in partnership with organisations across England to bring excellent professional orchestral activity to communities and audiences that would not otherwise have the chance to experience it live. We work with our partners on artistic programming, project planning, audience development, and performance and event presentation, not only contributing to the sustainability of local arts infrastructure and broadening the market for orchestral music, but also improving the cultural opportunities and quality of life for local people.In a typical year Orchestras Live will work with our partners on more than 350 events and activities, reaching more than 100,000 people across the country. We work in partnership with more than 120 local authorities and other promoters, and 40 professional orchestras. Activity includes formal and informal concerts both in and out of the concert hall, and community and education projects ranging from half-day workshops to year-round residencies. Many of our concerts contain work by living composers and we have a strong track record of taking new orchestral work to audiences and communities that wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to experience it.Orchestras Live is funded by Arts Council England, with additional support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Foyle Foundation and more than 50 local authority partners. We have a media partnership with Classic FM.
www.orchestraslive.org.uk

Orchestras

Aurora Orchestra
'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, Jan 2011

Since its creation in 2005, Aurora Orchestra has established itself amongst the most significant new voices on the UK's musical landscape. With flourishing London residencies at LSO St Luke's and Kings Place, a busy regional touring calendar, and an ambitious integrated Participation and Learning programme, it has developed a reputation for virtuosic live performance, innovative programming and adventurous cross-arts collaboration, engaging new audiences in London and beyond.

Recent highlights have included a debut appearance at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms, a major new touring production of Alexander Goehr's Promised End with English Touring Opera, and concerts as part of the City of London, Cambridge Summer Music and Oundle International Festivals. Aurora has developed a particularly strong reputation for introducing young people to live music, both through innovative family and children's concerts and through side-by-side schemes and workshops in schools. The orchestra was shortlisted for the 2010 RPS Ensemble Award, the UK's flagship award for live classical music.

In addition to appearances as part of Mozart Unwrapped at Kings Place, forthcoming projects include an appearance alongside Angelika Kirchschlager at the Wigmore Hall, the release of a debut disc on the Decca Classics label, and the launch of a three-year community project entitled Reaching Out in partnership with Oundle International Festival. The orchestra's flagship New Moves residency at LSO St Luke's continues with repertoire ranging from Purcell to Bernstein and Mahler to Lennon, and featuring collaborations with tango dancers, klezmer musicians, visual artists and the American horror writer Peter Straub.
www.auroraorchestra.com

London Sinfonietta
The London Sinfonietta is one of the world's elite contemporary music ensembles with a reputation built on the virtuosity of its performances and ambitious programming. It is committed to placing new music at the heart of contemporary culture and pushing boundaries, through regular collaborations with choreographers, video artists, film-makers and commissioning new work. Since its foundation in 1968 it has commissioned or premiered over 200 works. 2008 world premieres include new pieces by Karin Rehnqvist, Thomas Adès and Silvina Milstein.

Since September 2008 London Sinfonietta has established its headquarters at Kings Place and in addition to performing here, has already formed collaborations with Kings Place resident Pangolin Editions, see Rock Music, Rock Art and will run education and outreach programmes from Kings Place.

The London Sinfonietta is a Resident Orchestra of Southbank Centre in London and performs regularly at venues and festivals throughout the UK and worldwide. The ensemble has an acclaimed discography available on numerous prestigious labels and its own London Sinfonietta Label.

Conductor Laureate: Oliver Knussen CBE
Resident Orchestra at Southbank Centre
London Sinfonietta performs with the support of Arts Council England
www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk

Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment
Principal Artists: Iván Fischer, Vladimir Jurowski and Sir Simon Rattle

It's 1986. For some ten years there has existed a largely London-based core of players of baroque instruments who have played for bands run autonomously by experts. Confidence and standards have improved greatly. Music making has been transformed.

And then a group of players forms a self-governing orchestra of period instruments - the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE). There's no single conductor. Instead, conductors or directors from violin or keyboard are appointed on a concert-by-concert basis. The OAE is quickly recognised as special, and the recording industry clasps it to its bosom.

Twenty-two years later the OAE is now a Resident at London's Southbank Centre as well as Associate Orchestra at Glyndebourne, and having been active in the Kings Cross area for several years with an array of education projects, the OAE are establishing their Headquarters at Kings Place from September 2008. The Orchestra will rehearse and perform at Kings Place and continue to undertake education projects in the local area, marking a new chapter in the OAE's development.
www.oae.co.uk

London Chamber Music Society
The London Chamber Music Society promotes high-quality, professional, live, chamber music in Kings Place Hall 1 on Sunday evenings from the beginning of October to the end of April each year.

The LCMS is dedicated to bringing the best in chamber music to London audiences at affordable prices and can trace its origins back to Victorian music making in London in the 1870s and the regular Sunday evening concerts that developed at South Place and then Conway Hall.

Now resident at Kings Place since the fine Hall 1 opened in 2008 we present an exciting and varied series of chamber concerts given by some of the very best classical musicians.

www.londonchambermusic.org.uk