This is the online streaming event for Aurora Orchestra with Allan Clayton. The stream is live only and will not be available on demand.

Aurora Orchestra welcomes soloists Allan Clayton and Pip Eastop for a performance of one of the greatest achievements of 20th-century British music: Benjamin Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings.  Composed at the height of World War II and premiered at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1943, Britten’s masterly cycle is immediately recognisable for its haunting, uncanny soundworld, and astonishing marriage of text and music.

Alongside the Serenade, Nicholas Collon conducts Aurora’s string players in works spanning a century of London music-making, from Elgar’s Introduction to Allegro, composed for the London Symphony Orchestra in 1905, to Kate Whitley’s Autumn Songs for 12 solo strings, premiered in 2018. Walton’s exuberant Sonata for String Orchestra was transcribed in 1971 from an earlier String Quartet; the result is an energetic and charismatic showcase, making full use of the colours and textures the string orchestra has to offer.

Allan Clayton is established as one of the most exciting and sought after singers of his generation. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge and at the Royal Academy of Music in London. An Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and former BBC New Generation Artist from 2007-09, his awards include “The Queen’s Commendation for Excellence” and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship. Allan garnered huge praise as the lead role in Brett Dean’s Hamlet, which had its world premiere at Glyndebourne in June 2017. During 2017, Allan also sang the role of David in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He is the winner of the 2018 Royal Philharmonic Society Singer Award and the 2018 Whatsonstage Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera.