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May 2019
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May 31, 2019
Our entire tour in under 2 minutes!
Our European Tour was INCREDIBLE in every way! We showcased more Canadian works on the world stage than ever done by another orchestra and on top of 8 concerts, led 60 community activities.
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May 26, 2019
NAC Orchestra in Gothenburg
As the NAC Orchestra's 50th Anniversary European Tour came to an end with Life Reflected presented in Gothenburg as part of the Point Music Festival Alexander Shelley reflects on the many positive outcomes of the European Tour.
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May 26, 2019
NACO would not be on tour without a generous helping hand
One of the things that the O’Borns have chosen to support is the NAC Orchestra’s 50th anniversary tour of Europe. They are the tour sponsors.
How does that meet her criteria?
“I feel that the level of harmony, of competence, of comfort, within the orchestra has grown on tour and that will give residual benefit when they go back to Ottawa.”
Each NACO tour is dominated by educational outreach events.
Source: artsfile
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May 26, 2019
NACO on Tour: Life Reflected 2.0 in Sweden
The journey of a piece of new music usually is a short one. The piece gets its world premiere and usually a second run through and then ends up on the shelf. It’s a rarity that gets played again.
Life Reflected, the NAC Orchestra’s signature new work, got its second performance in Europe on this tour. But without Sten Cranner, neither show would have happened.
Source: artsfile
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May 25, 2019
Highlights from Stockholm
Highlights from Stockholm include a concert at the Konserthuset Stockholm featuring GRAMMY award-winning violinist James Ehnes and Canadian soprano Erin Wall. Members of the NAC Orchestra and Ottawa’s OrKidstra working with Sistema Södertälje which culminated with a performance at the Swedish Royal Palace.
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May 23, 2019
Tour Champions: Janice & Earle O'Born
Our 50th anniversary European Tour is made possible because of people like Janice and Earle O'Born. Their generosity and philanthropy are inspiring examples of the power of giving to the arts. Thank you!
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May 23, 2019
Life Reflected, musical direction by Alexander Shelly, creative content and direction by Donna Feore
Article en français
Cela se passe dans le Grand auditorium de La Seine Musicale. En une heure et demi, ce spectacle à quatre volets créé en 2016, évoque la vie de quatre Canadiennes exceptionnelles, avec des musiques commandées à quatre compositrices de ce pays interprétées par l’Orchestre national, une soprano (Erin Wall) une narratrice à la voix enregistrée ( Martha Henry) et une comédienne (Monique Mojica) et un dispositif de projection sur un écran en fond et sur les côtés du plateau où jouent les musiciens.
Source:... Read more -
May 23, 2019
NACO on Tour: On the road with the happy warrior Elaine Klimasko
It’s the kind of drive that has carried Klimasko through 50 years in the violin section of the NAC Orchestra. And there’s no indication she’s stopping anytime soon, having recently signed a contract for her 51st season.
Not only is she playing all the concerts this season, she is on NACO’s current tour of Europe including London, Paris, Utrecht, Copenhagen Stockholm and Gothenburg, Sweden.
Source: artsfile
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May 22, 2019
NACO on Tour: Making the musical case for a peaceful school
Five members of the NAC Orchestra — Don Renshaw, trombone; Steven Van Gulik, trumpet; Julie Fauteux, French horn; Jonathan Wade, percussion and Kenneth Simpson, percussion — got their introduction to the Peaceful School Tuesday afternoon in the gymnasium shared by two of the 11 schools in Overvecht. They performed for and with members of the Music Route extra-curricular ensemble, ages eight to 12.
Source: artsfile
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May 22, 2019
Highlights from Utrecht
We continued to showcase Canadian talent in Utrecht Netherlands with James Ehnes joining us for our concert, and with world music making at Catching Cultures!
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May 21, 2019
NACO on Tour: Ehnes, Wall shine in Utrecht
To this day the people of Holland give Ottawa thousands of tulips that bloom every spring and brighten the city.
The NAC Orchestra’s performance in the Tivoli Vredenburg performing arts complex on Monday night was dedicated to that long and happy relationship. Those who were in attendance got a real treat from a bevy of talented Canadians including soprano Erin Wall and the great virtuoso violinist James Ehnes.
Source: artsfile
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May 21, 2019
The NAC Orchestra and creativity
Article in French
Présenté samedi à la Seine musicale, le deuxième concert de l’Orchestre du Centre national des arts (CNA) dans la capitale française a brillé par l’exécution efficace des musiciens. Le spectacle marquait la mi-parcours d’une tournée européenne qui est d’ores et déjà une leçon de courage et de responsabilité.
Source: Le Devoir
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May 20, 2019
An Evening of Contrasts with Canada’s NACO under Alexander Shelley
As part of its fiftieth-anniversary tour ‘Crossings’, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra under its Music Director and Conductor Alexander Shelley made a welcome return to the UK. They brought an interesting and varied programme – a brightly coloured musical palette, – which reflected Canada’s rich European heritage.
Source: Seen and Heard International
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May 20, 2019
NACO on Tour: Catching cultures in Utrecht and giving hope
In the Overvecht neighbourhood, where some 80 different nationalities reside, many of them asylum seekers, music is bringing people together in hope and pleasure instead of pushing them apart.
The music is being made by the Catching Cultures Orchestra which started in 2015 as a temporary collaboration between a Dutch wind ensemble called De Tegenwind and a group called the Band without a residence permit.
Source: artsfile
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May 20, 2019
NAC Orchestra in Paris
We loved our residency and performances at La Seine Musicale in Paris. Here is what a Sorbonne student and Canadian Soprano Erin Wall had to say.
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May 19, 2019
NACO on Tour: For Donna Feore, it’s all about collaboration
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘What’s your favourite thing about Life Reflected?’
“Looking back,” she said, “it was putting together artists who should never have been together ever.
“Putting them into the room and, as challenging as that was and believe me it was challenging, watching them thrive and develop a kind of mutual respect. It was a fantastic thing.”
Source: artsfile
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May 18, 2019
Technology connects young musicians around the world
Watch the video: CTV News
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May 18, 2019
NACO on Tour: Life Reflected makes splash in its Paris debut
Since when do new Canadian compositions get a premiere in Paris? The answer: pretty much never. So the performance of the NAC Orchestra’s Life Reflected quartet of Canadian music in Paris on Friday night was something to pay attention to.
Source: artsfile
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May 18, 2019
Life Reflected: an important project opens its wings
Article en français
Trois ans presque jour pour jour après sa création, Alexander Shelley et Christopher Deacon, directeur du Centre national des arts, réalisaient leur rêve d’exporter Life Reflected (Réflexions sur la vie), œuvre en quatre parties sur quatre destinées de femmes véhiculant des valeurs ou réflexions sur l’existence...
Source: Le Devoir
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May 17, 2019
NACO at 50: Life Reflected situation Normal
Samuel Greffe-Bélanger is a producer with Montreal’s Normal Studio. He’s pretty hip to new technology and the latest software. And yet these days he’s become a classical music junkie.
He blames Life Reflected, the NAC Orchestra’s quartet of four new Canadian compositions.
Source: artsfile
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May 16, 2019
NACO on Tour: Erin Wall’s music marathon
She is now on another kind of marathon. She is currently travelling with the NAC Orchestra on its 50th anniversary tour of Europe. She’ll be singing in Dear Life, part of the Life Reflected quartet of new music about Canadian women. And she will sing The Lonely Child by Claude Vivier.
Source: artsfile
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May 15, 2019
Highlights from the NAC Orchestra in London
A wonderful concert at Cadogan Hall as well as community outreach, a live broadband connected event, Music ConneXXions 2019, and a Royal College of Music residency.
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May 15, 2019
NAC Orchestra: ready to take on the world!
Article in French
Devant un public très attentif à l’oeuvre d’Ana Sokolović, très accueillant pour le pianiste Jan Lisiecki et d’un bruyant enthousiasme après la 2e Symphonie de Brahms, Alexander Shelley, à la tête de l’Orchestre du Centre national des arts, a réussi son pari exposé dans ces colonnes samedi dernier.
Source: Le Devoir
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May 14, 2019
NACO on tour: David DQ Lee offers some truths about the countertenor
David DQ Lee is a Korean Canadian countertenor with an international reputation. He has joined the NAC Orchestra’s European tour for two concerts. In London’s Cadogan Hall Tuesday night he sang the JUNO winning composition, and NACO commission, Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes by Ana Sokolovic. Before the performances he answered some questions from ARTSFILE.
Source: artsfile
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May 14, 2019
Esther Abrami is making a name for herself one click at a time
When you meet her, Esther Abrami seems just like any other young music student anywhere. But the petite, attractive violinist from Aix-en-Provence in France is not any other young music student.
She has become a social media phenomenon, mainly on Instagram, where she has 177,000 followers on just 377 very popular posts.
Source: artsfile
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May 14, 2019
Making classical cool: NAC travels to London to connect musical youths on both sides of the Atlantic
The National Arts Centre showed how cool classical music can be during ConneXXions 2019, a technological marvel of an event at London’s Royal College of Music on Monday.
Source: Ottawa Citizen
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May 14, 2019
Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra at Cadogan Hall - Review
So far as your correspondent is concerned, this concert proved to be one of the major highlights of the current London orchestral season, now approaching its end. Not for a very long time, and certainly not confined to concerts I have attended since last September, have I been so impressed throughout, with each work receiving performances of the highest calibre.
Source: ClassicalSource
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May 14, 2019
NACO on tour: Canadian music steps onto a world stage
What is the purpose of a national orchestra? Well, there are many, but surely one is for Canadians perform the music of Canadians on foreign stages.
That is certainly the case with the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s 50th anniversary tour of Europe.
Source: artsfile
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May 14, 2019
Listen to ConneXXions 2019 in London
NAC connects Ottawa's Orkidstra with British school band
Source: CBC LISTEN
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May 13, 2019
Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra at Saffron Hall - Review
Under its English music director Alexander Shelley, Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra from Ottawa – a capital city that sees fit to provide its citizens and neighbourhood with a performing arts centre including not only a 2,000-seater hall but also, as Shelley engagingly reminded us (he's a good communicator), English, French and Indigenous theatre departments – is on an ambitious fiftieth-anniversary tour, “Crossings”...
Source: ClassicalSource
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May 12, 2019
NACO on tour: Music education front and centre
When the National Arts Centre Orchestra goes on the road, the biggest part of every tour is not the concerts in glittering halls.
In fact, much of NACO’s time is spent in a form of cultural diplomacy that takes place in conservatories and public schools with young musicians from university to Grade 1.
Source: Artsfile
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May 9, 2019
Celebratory tour send off concert
Last night the National Arts Centre Orchestra performed their send off concert. Tonight the NAC Orchestra, led by Music Director Alexander Shelley, will begin a remarkable tour of the U.K and Europe.
- April 16, 2019