Pinchas Zukerman
Conductor and Soloist
Pinchas Zukerman has remained a phenomenon in the world of music for over four decades. His musical genius, prodigious technique and unwavering artistic standards are a marvel to audiences and critics. Devoted to the next generation of musicians, he has inspired younger artists with his magnetism and passion. Currently in his 15th season as Music Director of the NAC Orchestra, and his fifth as Principal Guest Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, he has led many of the world’s top ensembles in a wide variety of orchestral repertoire.
A devoted and innovative pedagogue, Mr. Zukerman chairs the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music, where he has pioneered the use of distance-learning technology in the arts. In Canada, he has established the NAC Institute for Orchestral Studies and the Summer Music Institute encompassing the Young Artists, Conductors and Composers Programs.
Born in Tel Aviv in 1948, Pinchas Zukerman came to America in 1962 where he studied at The Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian. He has been awarded the Medal of Arts and the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence. His extensive discography contains over 100 titles, and has earned him 21 GRAMMY® nominations and two awards.
Amanda Forsyth
Cello
Internationally known for her innate musicality, warm resonating sound and effortless technique, JUNO Award-winning cellist Amanda Forsyth has been praised as both a soloist and chamber musician in more than 45 countries in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, New Zealand and Australia, performing with the most prestigious orchestras at world-renowned concert halls and festivals.
During 2012-14, her global solo appearances take her to Russia several times; Germany, Hungary, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland including Verbier; across the U.S. and at Carnegie Hall with Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic; Canada; to China twice, including Hong Kong, and to Taiwan; to Japan three times; throughout South America; to Australia and South Africa.
As a founding member of the Zukerman ChamberPlayers, she has toured South America several times, performed in the U.S., Western and Eastern Europe annually, and has appeared in Israel, Jordan and New Zealand. In 2013, they returned to Asia for concerts in Taiwan, China and Japan, the U.S., Europe and South America.
In January 2014, Ms. Forsyth will be featured as soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as they give performances in St. Petersburg, Russia, and tour across the U.S.
You can follow Ms. Forsyth’s performances and travels at amandaforsyth.com.
John Estacio
Composer
Composer John Estacio is a recipient of the National Arts Centre Award for Composers (2009)– a major prize that includes the commissioning of three works for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the first of which is Brio: Toccata and Fantasy for Orchestra. The NAC Orchestra premiered Mr. Estacio’s Brio in Ottawa and performed it on tour throughout Canada’s Atlantic provinces in 2011.
Mr. Estacio has written three operas including Lillian Alling, which premiered in October 2010 by the Vancouver Opera. Filumena, his first opera, premiered in 2003 in Calgary and Banff, and went on to receive four Betty Mitchell Awards, including one for outstanding production. Filumena was filmed for television and aired on PBS. As composer-in-residence for several orchestras, Mr. Estacio created several compositions and recorded some of them
on the JUNO nominated CD “Frenergy, the Music of John Estacio,” released by CBC Records.
Mr. Estacio’s orchestral works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, by the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra, and by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet featured several
of Mr. Estacio’s orchestral works in Wonderland – a ballet choreographed by Shawn Hounsell. The Cincinnati Ballet has commissioned Mr. Estacio to compose a new orchestral ballet score for King Arthur’s Camelot, to be premiered in February 2014. The Los Angeles Philharmonic and acclaimed tenor Ben Heppner toured Europe with Mr. Estacio’s arrangement of Seven Songs by Jean Sibelius.
Please visit johnestacio.com for more information.
Alexina Louie
Composer
The music of Alexina Louie is influenced by her Chinese background, an exotic instrumental palette, traditional and nontraditional elements of Western music, poetic images, nature, historical studies, and heavenly phenomena. One of the most frequently performed Canadian classical composers, Alexina Louie is a two-time JUNO Award-winner.
In 2002, the National Arts Centre named Alexina Louie as one of three recipients of the NAC Award for Composers. Dr. Louie’s commissions include String Quartet No. 2 (2003) and Infinite Sky With Birds for Orchestra (2006). A commissioned orchestration of Bringing The Tiger Down From The Mountain II was premiered at the NAC. In addition,
the National Arts Centre and CBC co-commissioned Shattered Night, Shivering Stars (1997), which won a JUNO Award. Dr. Louie’s most recent composition (Alliance Films, April 2011) is Mulroney: The Opera, a musical satire of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s life.
Dr. Louie was the featured composer on the NAC Orchestra Northern Canada Tour in 2012. The Orchestra performed her composition Take The Dog Sled to audiences in Nunavut, Northwest Territories and Yukon.