Aurora Orchestra: Inside Beethoven’s Septet

Resident Ensemble Aurora Orchestra opens its Kings Place season with Beethoven’s exuberant Septet, inviting audiences to get to the heart of a work that became a runaway success, even if its composer had decidedly mixed feelings about it.

“That damned thing! I wish it were burned!” said Beethoven of his Septet. It was so popular with audiences at the time that he felt it overshadowed some of his more revolutionary work.

It’s easy to see why it was such an instant hit. Packed full of merry tunes, musical jokes and chirpy dances, this is Beethoven at his most relaxed.

Aurora at Kings Place offers you a chance to get closer to the music; to sit amongst the musicians in an immersive and intimate setting and hear the players talk about what this work means to them. This is an invitation to sit back (perhaps even pretend you’re at an 18th-century tea party) and Aurora will take it from there.

There are two seating options: beanbags in the middle of the performance or chairs around the edge of the performance area. You can choose where you want to sit on the night, but both seating options will be offered on a first-come, first-serve basis.

This event will last approximately 60 minutes with no interval. 

About Aurora Orchestra

Since its creation in 2005, Aurora has rapidly established itself as the most significant new British chamber ensemble in a generation, and one of Europe’s leading chamber ensemble. With its signature creative ethos, Aurora combines electrifying live performance with a uniquely adventurous approach to programming and presentation. Collaborating widely across art forms and musical genres, the ensemble has worked with an exceptional breadth of artists from Ian Bostridge to Wayne McGregor to Björk. In recent years it has pioneered memorised performance, and is thought to be the first ensemble worldwide to perform whole symphonies in this way.

Based at Kings Place since 2009, and formally appointed as Resident Ensemble in 2013, Aurora has played a pivotal role in Kings Place’s music programme, launching the critically-acclaimed Mozart’s Piano, an exploratory late-night series The Lock-In, and imaginative storytelling concerts for families and young audiences Far, Far Away.