Pianist Alain Lefèvre is making a powerful case for Canadian composers
Lefèvre, himself a respected composer, teacher and pianist, has made a career out of playing and bringing the music of Canadian, especially...
Alain Lefevre
Tales of the Arabian Nights
Includes Alain Lefèvre in Walter Boudreau’s Concerto de l’asile
February 20
- 21, 2018
Music
Classical music
Masterworks
Piano
“(Lefèvre) has a genial and outgoing talent. He lives every measure of the music, and draws his audience into a warm partnership.” The Gazette
- Bilingual
Soar away on a musical magic-carpet ride to the enchanted world of the Arabian Nights. Rimsky-Korsakov’s spellbinding orchestral suite weaves a dreamscape around a sweet, solo violin part that represents the voice of the storyteller Scheherazade, as she recounts ancient tales of love and adventure to her cruel, jealous husband. By turns thrilling, suspenseful, sinister and beautiful, the music of Scheherazade is sure to evoke, in the words of the composer, “an Oriental narrative of some numerous and varied fairy-tale wonders.”
After opening the concert with Ravel’s short masterpiece, this exciting concert continues with Alain Lefèvre taking the stage to play Walter Boudreau’s Concerto de l’asile. The Concerto comes from a piece he wrote for Claude Gauvreau's play The Asylum of Purity (2004). Alain Lefèvre attended the play and asked Boudreau for a piano version of the waltz, which he wrote. They became good friends, and Alain asked him to write a Concerto based on the original waltz. The Concerto de l’asile depicts the bridge between Gauvreau’s visionary poetic world (represented by the piano) and the obscurantist society of the time (the orchestra).
The Friends of the NAC Orchestra are pleased to hold a spectacular silent auction on February 20 and 21 in the Southam Hall Foyer in conjunction with this NAC Orchestra concert. Bid on outstanding and unique donated items from across Canada and from around the world. Proceeds benefit the Friends of the NAC Orchestra’s commitment to music education programs for young people. Help us build a fantastic future for music in Canada!
- Conductor Alexander Shelley
- Piano Alain Lefèvre
- Featuring NAC Orchestra
