AURORA ORCHESTRA - Key Persons
Amy Harman started the bassoon after a failed early career as a cellist. From 2010-15 she was principal of the Philharmonia and is currently a YCAT Artist, Member of Ensemble 360 and Principal of ENO and Aurora Orchestra. Career highlights include performing as a ‘flying soloist' in Birmingham Opera's premiere of Stockhausen's ‘Mittwoch aus Licht' where she performed from a trapeze suspended above the audience. When not playing Amy enjoys cooking, sleeping excessively, spending time with her cat Cheryl and drinking lovely wine.
Job Titles:
- Concerts and Participation Manager
Annemarie Federle is Principal Horn of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Aurora Orchestra, and she regularly appears as guest principal with other major orchestras in the UK, including the London Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestras.
Annemarie was a grand finalist in the BBC Young Musician 2020 competition, performing Ruth Gipps' Horn Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2021, she was a semi finalist in the prestigious ARD International Music Competition and winner of the Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award. Following these successes, Annemarie has enjoyed a diverse solo career, performing concertos with the LPO, English Chamber Orchestra, and London Mozart Players, among others, and recitals across the UK and Europe, including at the KKL Lucerne.
Originally from Germany, Annemarie grew up in Cambridge and is now in her final year of studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Ben officially joined Aurora in 2012 shortly after performing Mozart's infamous double bass showpiece ‘Per quest bella mano' with the orchestra. He has wide and varied experience of orchestral playing, including dozens of tours with the LSO and the John Wilson Orchestra. Chamber music includes regular appearances at the Cheltenham Festival, Guy Johnston's Hatfield House Festival and collaborations with several high-profile quartets. He enjoys yoga, cooking and skiing.
Job Titles:
- Orchestra Personnel Manager
Job Titles:
- Creative Director
- Principal Flute
Jane plays both period and modern flutes and loves the many challenges these different instruments present. As well as being principal flute of Aurora Orchestra, Jane plays regularly with both modern and period groups across Europe, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Irish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, London Sinfonietta, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Gabrieli Consort and Les Siècles. Jane feels passionately about finding new ways to make orchestral music speak to more people and has been deeply involved in Aurora's programming, production and devising of work since it began. Jane was also responsible for launching Aurora's first projects for young people in schools and now plays a key role in the development of the orchestra's series for young people, Far Far Away.
Canadian-American violinist Maia Cabeza enjoys a multi-faceted performing career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She has been successful in several international competitions, and her major awards include 1st prize at the 2013 Leopold Mozart Violin Competition in Augsburg and 2nd prize (Bach-prize) of the 2018 Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. As a soloist, she has performed with several notable orchestras including, among others, the Augsburg Philharmonic, St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, Edmonton Symphony and Detroit Symphony. Her solo and chamber music performances have brought her to some of the world's most important halls, including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Teatro Colón and Berlin Philharmonie. In 2016, she released a positively acclaimed debut CD on Oehms Classics which features contrasting solo and chamber works by Mozart and Schnittke.
Maia is extremely passionate and dedicated to chamber music, and she has performed at many prestigious festivals such as Marlboro Music Festival, Lockenhaus, Rheingau, Kronberg "Chamber Music Connects the World", Ravinia, Saronic Music Festival, Krzyżowa Music, Southwell, Verbier Festival Academy, and Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, taking part in the tour group of 2015. In these festivals and others, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with distinguished musicians such as Vilde Frang, Nobuko Imai, Steven Isserlis, Kim Kashkashian, Christian Tetzlaff, Dénes Várjon and various members of the Cleveland, Guarneri, and Juilliard String Quartets. In addition to her solo and chamber music activities, Maia performs regularly with top European orchestras. She was recently appointed co-leader of Aurora Orchestra, and is also a member of Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Principal Second of Kammerakademie Potsdam. She has been invited to guest lead orchestras such as Czech Philharmonic, Haydn Philharmonie and Orchestra Leonore, among others. Maia is also interested in historically informed performance practice and performs regularly in chamber ensembles on baroque and classical violin.
Maia was born in Japan in 1992 and is of Argentinean heritage. She received her Bachelor's Degree at the Curtis Institute of Music (Philadelphia, USA) studying with Ida Kavafian and Joseph Silverstein, and was a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Karajan Orchestra Academy between 2012-2014. She continued her studies and received her masters degree in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler Musikhochschule in the class of Antje Weithaas. Maia performs on a Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi violin (circa. 1750) on loan by the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank.
Alongside Aurora, Matthew plays principal trombone with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the brass septet Aurora. He is also on the teaching faculty of the Royal Academy of Music in London.
He has recorded four solo CDs, two on the NAXOS label - Songs of Travel, exploring English song cycles by Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Stanford, and Schubert's Winter Journey. Matthew has had a number of works written for him, most notably Circus Games and Sonata by Rob Keeley, and Fischietto è morto by Gary Carpenter and gave the U.K. première of Kurt Schwertsik's Trombone Concerto at St. Johns' Smith Square, London. He has performed and taken masterclasses internationally, including festivals in Melbourne, Wellington, New York, Sarajevo, Lieksa (Finland), Isla Verde (Argentina) and Beijing.
Matthew has performed with orchestras and ensembles all over the world, including the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Klangforum Wein, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and has recorded and appeared in many film and television scores. Matthew is a Getzen artist.
British conductor Nicholas Collon is recognized for his elegant conducting style,
searching musical intellect and inspirational music-making. He is Chief Conductor of
Ruth loves communicating through music, taking on an open-minded approach to music-making, and pursuing a diversity of creative projects. As a Samaritan and qualified yoga teacher she strives for meaning and balance on and off the stage. Her recent collaborations have included a Mozart string quintet cycle with the Heath Quartet, Mozart piano quartets with the Linos Piano Trio, Reich and Harvey string quartets with the Hebrides Ensemble and a UK tour of Janacek's Intimate Letters (from memory) and Written in Fire for quartet and electronics with the Singh Quartet. She is a member of Ensemble 360 and the Manchester Collective, and also regularly plays with Manchester Camerata, Nash Ensemble and the City of London Sinfonia. Ruth founded and directed the String Quartet Collective, the resident ensemble at the Royal College of Music (RCM) until 2016. In this innovative project, Ruth brought together players from different nationalities and generations for a week at a time, collaborating with RCM students and culminating with final performances, some of which were broadcast by the BBC. With the City of London Sinfonia, she is proud to be part of their outreach work year round, creating music with young people with psychiatric illnesses and patients in palliative care.
Sally enjoys a busy freelance life as a soloist, chamber musician and with many UK orchestras. She has appeared as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Academy of St Martins in the Fields, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Britten Sinfonia. Highlights outside Aurora have included performances of Britten's Canticles with Ian Bostridge, numerous Wigmore hall concerts and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts of performances from the Cheltenham Festival. She has recorded Britten's Ceremony of Carols with Trinity College Cambridge on the Hyperion label.
Job Titles:
- Co - Principal Cello
- Co - Principal Cello / Management
Prize winner of the Prague Spring, Rostropovich and Casals competitions, Sébastien Van Kuijk has performed around the world in venues including the Rudolfinum in Prague, Thé tre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Teatro Real de Madrid, Tokyo's Bunka-Kaykan Hall, the Concertgebow in Amsterdam and London's Wigmore Hall. He has worked with composers such as Nicolas Bacri, Henri Dutilleux, György Kurtág and Thierry Escaich, and artists including Gary Hoffman, the Ebène Quartet, Augustin Dumay, Cédric Tiberghien, Renaud Capuçon and Daishin Hashimoto. As a soloist, he has appeared with Orchestre lamoureux, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, and Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra. Recordings include Mendelssohn's works for cello and piano and Nicolas Bacri's ‘Four Seasons' concertos with François Leleux, Valeryi Sokolov, Adrien Lamarca and Besançon Orchestra.
Timothy Orpen is a founder member of Aurora Orchestra and is also the principal clarinettist of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He was formally the principal of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and now divides his time between Scotland and London. Whilst at Covent Garden he performed many of the major solos of the operatic and ballet repertoire with some of the worlds finest conductors and singers. He has performed concertos with Aurora Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Timothy has also been featured as a soloist on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. As a chamber musician Timothy has performed worldwide alongside pianists including Pascal Rogé, Lars Vogt, Susan Tomes and Sir Antonio Pappano. Timothy studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, Germany. In between Aurora projects Timothy has climbed 6000-metre mountains in the Andes and Himalayas.
Job Titles:
- Co - Principal
- Co - Principal Cello