National Arts Centre - Centre national des Arts Canada is our stage. Le Canada en scène.

NAC Orchestra
· 2019-2020 Season

https://nac-cna.ca/en/event/21673

Witness the might and power of the Verdi Requiem, an unforgettable work alive with drama one moment and reverent stillness the next. Written to commemorate the death of Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Giuseppe Verdi greatly admired, the Requiem has rightly become a staple of choral societies around the world. Whispered, tiny moments of beauty wrapped in thunderous passages of strength and passion have earned Verdi’s Requiem its rightful place among the world’s...

September 11 - 12, 2019

Southam Hall 1 Elgin Street Ottawa Canada

This event has passed

Verdi Requiem

Start: 2019-09-12T20:00-0400
End: 2019-09-12T22:00-0400
Location: Southam Hall

Sep 11 - 12, 2019

Southam Hall

Alexander Shelley © Dwayne Brown Studios

Music Classical music Masterworks Vocal

- play
- pause
Verdi Requiem

≈ 90 minutes · No intermission

Witness the might and power of the Verdi Requiem, an unforgettable work alive with drama one moment and reverent stillness the next. Written to commemorate the death of Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni, whom Giuseppe Verdi greatly admired, the Requiem has rightly become a staple of choral societies around the world. Whispered, tiny moments of beauty wrapped in thunderous passages of strength and passion have earned Verdi’s Requiem its rightful place among the world’s musical masterpieces.

The Ottawa Choral Society and an all-star solo line-up join the NAC Orchestra for this magnificent work from one of history’s preeminent composers.

Learn more in the program notes ›

Related podcast episode

Requiem de Verdi Duration: 1:01:33

Experience More

Be sure to see the additional free talks or presentations about the performance:

Free
Musically Speaking: Verdi Requiem
Featuring Katherine Duncan and Alexander...
September 11 - 12, 2019, 7:00pm

video: Shelley Notes: Verdi Requiem — Shelley Notes: Verdi Requiem

Artists

Conductor Alexander Shelley
Conductor Alexander Shelley

Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).

Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation; recent hallmarks include the multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED,and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for Encount3rs. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.

Alexander Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and, starting with the 2024–2025 season, Artistic and Music Director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, USA. In the spring of 2019, he led the NAC Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th Anniversary European tour, and in 2017, he led the Orchestra in a tour across Canada, celebrating Canada’s 150th anniversary. Most recently, he led the Orchestra in its first performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall in 30 years.

He has made seven recordings with the NAC Orchestra, including the JUNO-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, and the acclaimed Clara, Robert, Johannes four-album series, all with Canadian label Analekta.

The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D. (hc)
NAC media featuring Alexander Shelley
Close
Soprano Felicia Moore

Soprano Felicia Moore

Close
Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts

Mezzo-soprano Susan Platts

Close
Tenor Amitai Pati

Tenor Amitai Pati

Close
Bass-baritone Dashon Burton

Bass-baritone Dashon Burton

Close
Featuring Cantata Singers of Ottawa

Featuring Cantata Singers of Ottawa

The Cantata Singers of Ottawa (CSO) is well known regionally and across Canada. Founded in 1964, this choir of approximately 40 voices has distinguished itself in performance of music of many styles and musical periods, from early music to minimalism, both a capella and with orchestras and small ensembles.

The choir aspires to perform choral music to the highest standards, promotes choral music in Ottawa, and supports Canadian musical talent by commissioning Canadian composers, engaging Canadian musicians, and offering scholarships to young Canadian singers. Under Artistic Director Andrew McAnerney, CSO presents an annual concert series, with programs spanning a wide-ranging repertoire both in time and style. In every season, the choir includes works composed by women and Canadians.

CSO has been an invited guest artist almost since its formation. With the exception of the COVID period, it has performed annually with the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) and under the baton of every NACO artistic director since the opening of the NAC in 1969. In addition, the choir has sung NACO concerts led by other internationally renowned guest conductors. CSO performed on NACO’s 2019 JUNO-nominated recording New Worlds, singing Ana Sokolović’s composition Golden slumbers kiss your eyes.

CSO has sung in major Canadian music festivals such as Festival de Lanaudière and Festival of the Sound and has partnered with well-known Canadian choirs, such as Pro Coro Canada of Edmonton, the Vancouver Chamber Choir, and St. Lawrence Choir to present joint concerts. Thanks to numerous CBC and Radio Canada broadcasts, the choir is well known across Canada.

Close
Featuring Ottawa Choral Society

Featuring Ottawa Choral Society

Close
Chorus Master Jean-Sébastien Vallée

Chorus Master Jean-Sébastien Vallée

Canadian-American conductor Jean-Sébastien Vallée is an internationally recognized musician, scholar, and pedagogue with a focus on vocal, choral, and orchestral repertoire. Maestro Vallée has conducted ensembles in North America, Europe, and Asia and has prepared choruses for the Toronto Symphony, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the National Arts Center Orchestra (Ottawa), and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2021, Jean-Sébastien Vallée was appointed the Artistic Director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, one of Canada’s largest, oldest, and most prestigious choral organizations. The TMChoir’s upcoming 2023-2024 season is highlighted by performances of Orff’s Carmina Burana, a new arrangement of Schubert’s Winterreise, Verdi’s Requiem, and an interdisciplinary dance work featuring Handel’s Dixit Dominus & Bach’s Christ Lag in Todesbanden. Vallée’s work is broadcast internationally and can be heard on his albums Lux (ATMA, 2017), Requiem (ATMA, 2018 – requiems by Fauré and Duruflé), and Distance (ATMA, 2021). In addition to his interest in choral, operatic, and orchestral music, Jean-Sébastien is an advocate for contemporary music, making one of his priorities to premiere and commission works by young composers and program rarely performed repertoire. Jean-Sébastien is Associate Professor of Music, Director of Choral Studies, and Coordinator of the Ensembles & Conducting Area at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University.

Close
Guest choral advisor Duain Wolfe
Guest choral advisor Duain Wolfe

The recipient of two GRAMMY® awards in 2011 (Best Classical Album, and Best Chorus Performance, for Verdi’s Requiem), Duain Wolfe is in his 14th season of preparing choral works for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, his 20th season as director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and his 30th season as founder-director of the Colorado Symphony Chorus. He also directs choral works at the Aspen Music Festival, the Ravinia Festival and the Berkshire Choral Festival. For twenty years he worked as chorus master and conductor for the Central City Opera Festival.

Well known for his work with children, in 1999 Duain Wolfe retired from the Colorado Children’s Chorale, an organization that he founded and conducted for 25 years.

In 2008, Mr. Wolfe conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a tribute concert of choral/orchestral masterworks as the culmination of the Chorus’s season-long 50th-anniversary celebration. He also directed the Chorus for the 1998 GRAMMY® Award-winning recording of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg with the late Sir Georg Solti, and last season prepared members of the Chorus for performing John Williams’ original score for the November 2012 movie Lincoln.

Duain Wolfe recently received the 2012 Michael Korn Founders Award for Development of the Professional Choral Art, awarded by Chorus America.
NAC media featuring Duain Wolfe
- Stories
Close
Stage manager Tobi Hunt McCoy

Stage manager Tobi Hunt McCoy

Tobi Hunt McCoy is enjoying another year as Season Stage Manager with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. In past seasons, she stage-managed Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Christopher Plummer in 2001 and Colm Feore in 2014. For the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra she co-produced the 1940s Pops show On the Air with Jack Everly, a show they had co-produced in 2007 for the NAC Orchestra.

Last season, Hunt McCoy made her Southam Hall acting debut in the role of Stage Manager in the Magic Circle Mime Co.’s production of Orchestra from Planet X. Additional professional duties have included aiding Susanna and the Countess in schooling the Count and Figaro on the finer points of marital love during The Marriage of Figaro; keeping her eyes open (for the first time ever) during the flying monkey scene in The Wizard of Oz; mistakenly asking Patrick Watson for proof of identity backstage; holding her breath while marvelling at the athletic ability of the cast during Cirque à Broadway; and cheering on Luke and Princess Leia with Charlie Ross, Émilie Fournier and Erik Ochsner during the Star Wars Pops concert.

In her spare time, Hunt McCoy is the Head of Arts, English, Drama, and Library at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.

Close