KEIKO DEVAUX
Listening Underwater for orchestra
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op.18
RICHARD STRAUSS
Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), Op. 64
Tonight’s guest artist, Japanese pianist Nobu (Nobuyuki Tsuji), first found himself at a keyboard at the age of 2 picking out a tune he heard his mother hum. Nobu has gone on to become a composer and much sought-after guest pianist, with a legion of fellow concert pianists as admirers. Blind from birth, Nobu learns each piece strictly by ear, and of his performances, iconic pianist Van Cliburn once said “…he was absolutely miraculous. His performance had the power of a healing service. It was truly divine.” Tonight, Nobu performs Rachmaninoff’s glorious and immensely moving Piano Concerto No. 2.
Montreal-based composer Keiko Devaux is an NAC Orchestra Carrefour composer resident whose approach to composition embraces a love of electroacoustic sounds and “genre-blurring.” The NAC Orchestra is proud to perform the world premiere of her new work.
Our concert closes with Richard Strauss’s tone poem An Alpine Symphony, the great composer’s orchestral rendering of the alpine landscape—rousingly rugged in one passage and delicate as snowfall in the next. An Alpine Symphony paints with music the majesty of icy mountains and silent winter nights and perfectly demonstrates how artists have always listened to the Earth and endeavored to capture the exquisite beauty of our planet.
The NAC Orchestra is proud to present this concert as part of NACO’s Mentorship Program. Now in its second year, this program provides aspiring young orchestral musicians three immersive and inspiring weeks working side by side with NACO musicians in a professional orchestra setting. The evening’s performance also serves as a fitting bookend to NACO’s year-long exploration of the Orchestra as an ecosystem and the ways in which music and art can serve as inspiration for a way forward in the climate crisis.
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)
Described by The Observer as the “definition of virtuosity,” Japanese pianist Nobuyuki Tsujii (Nobu), who has been blind from birth, won the joint Gold Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009 and has gone on to earn an international reputation for the passion and excitement he brings to his live performances.
Nobu has appeared in concert with leading orchestras worldwide including the Philharmonia, BBC Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, and Japan Philharmonic orchestras, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, and the Sinfonieorchester Basel under the baton of conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Spivakov, Juanjo Mena, and Vasily Petrenko. Nobu’s past appearances as a recitalist have seen him perform at prestigious venues across the world such as Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall in London, the Berlin Philharmonie, and Vienna’s Musikverein.
Nobu’s 2022–23 season sees him perform recital programs at Carnegie Hall, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, Birmingham Town Hall, and the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. Nobu also features as a concerto soloist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Domingo Hindoyan, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko, Seattle Symphony under Jiří Rozen, the Sarasota Orchestra, and the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, in addition to numerous solo and concerto appearances across his native Japan.
Nobu’s growing catalogue of recordings encompasses the breadth of the piano concerto repertoire including Chopin’s Piano Concerto No.2, Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and Rachmaninoff’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.5. Nobu has also recorded several recital programs of Chopin, Mozart, Debussy, and Liszt.
Nobu’s international tours are supported by All Nippon Airways (ANA).
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra has been praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary educational programs, and its prominent role in nurturing Canadian creativity. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, reaching and representing the diverse communities we live in with daring programming, powerful storytelling, inspiring artistry, and innovative partnerships.
Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director in 2015, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and former Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (2009–2017), he has been in demand around the world, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others, and maintains a regular relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the German National Youth Orchestra.
Each season, the NAC Orchestra features world-class artists such as the newly appointed Artist-in-Residence James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds. As one of the most accessible, inclusive, and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
Assistant Conductor
(appears courtesy of Tapestry Opera’s Women in Musical Leadership Program)
Naomi Woo
Conductor Naomi Woo, named by CBC in 2019 as a “Top 30 Classical Musicians under 30”, is the Assistant Conductor of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the first-ever Music Director of Sistema Winnipeg. Born in Newfoundland and raised in North Vancouver, Naomi conducts across Canada and is noted for her work as a socially-engaged artist and educator, with appearances at the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra, and the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. An advocate for opera and new music, Naomi recently led the Canadian premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone (re:Naissance Opera) and the world premiere of Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s The Night Falls (BalletCollective, American Opera Projects). She holds degrees from Yale, Université de Montréal, and Cambridge.
“A two year residency that allows composers to work closely with Alexander Shelley and the National Arts Centre Orchestra is such an invaluable and exciting opportunity. Having meaningful access to musicians, the artistic direction, and the entire NAC team offers an immediate, rich, and personal approach to expanding, learning, and challenging myself as a composer for which I am immensely grateful.”
Keiko Devaux (b. 1982) is a contemporary music composer based in Montreal.
Her works have been performed in Canada, France, Germany, and Italy by various ensembles including Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, Ensemble musica assoluta, Ensemble Arkea, Quartetto Prometeo, and Ensemble Wapiti among others. She composes regularly for diverse ensembles, as well as collaborating with choreographers and filmmakers.
Her approach embraces a love of electroacoustic sounds and methodology by manipulating and distorting acoustic sound with digital tools, and then transcribing or re-translating these interpretations back into musical notation and the acoustic realm. Her interests include emotional experience and affect, auto-organizational phenomena in nature and living beings, as well as “genre-blurring” by layering and juxtaposing contrasting melodic/harmonic skeletal elements of highly contrasting sonic sources. The distortion of the temporal, frequency, and timbral attributes allows the blurring between traditional tonal sounds and more electroacoustic-inspired “noise” gestures.
She has received numerous prizes and awards, including the Jan V. Matejcek Award for New Classical Music (2019), the Rotary Club Siena Award for distinction in her master courses with Salvatore Sciarrino (2018), the OUM composition prize (2016 and 2018), and the Jury and Public prizes of the Accès Arkea competition (2017). Her composition Ebb, premiered by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, was nominated as Création de l’année for the 2017-2018 Opus awards, and her work Ombra was a finalist for the Prix du CALQ - Œuvre de la relève à Montréal in the same year. In 2019, she won the inaugural Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music, at $50,000, the largest of its kind in Canada and one of the largest in the world.
From 2016 to 2018, she was the composer in residence with Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. She is an associate composer with the Canadian Music Centre, president of the board of directors of Codes d’accès, and past organizer of the Montreal Contemporary Music Lab.
Originally from British Columbia, she began her musical career in piano performance studies as well as composing, touring, and recording several albums in independent rock bands. She holds a Bachelor of Music (Écriture) and a Master of Music in instrumental composition from the Université de Montréal. She has also studied with Maestro Salvatore Sciarrino at L'Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy (2017-19). She is currently completing her doctorate in music composition and creation at Université de Montréal under the direction of Ana Sokolović and Pierre Michaud.
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