Britain's young Aurora Orchestra seems to be following a past of thematic programs that innovatively blend classical and popular pieces in challenging ways. The idea is a good one, and it worked especially well on their Road Trip album, evoking American landscapes and ideas with works by Copland, Ives, Adams, and Paul Simon, among others. The orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon try to replicate that program structure on Insomnia, which sure enough delivers pieces closely or more distantly related to the concept of sleep ...
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Britain's young Aurora Orchestra seems to be following a past of thematic programs that innovatively blend classical and popular pieces in challenging ways. The idea is a good one, and it worked especially well on their Road Trip album, evoking American landscapes and ideas with works by Copland, Ives, Adams, and Paul Simon, among others. The orchestra and conductor Nicholas Collon try to replicate that program structure on Insomnia, which sure enough delivers pieces closely or more distantly related to the concept of sleep (if not insomnia). Although there's no denying the tightness of the ensemble, it doesn't work as well this time around. Benjamin Britten's chamber song cycle Nocturne, Op. 60, must have seemed a logical choice, but it tends to overwhelm the rest of the program, and the other larger work, the Pastoral Symphony by Australian composer Brett Dean, whose subject matter is birds and their disappearance, does not play off against it effectively. Tenor soloist Allan Clayton is fine in the...
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