Artists

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  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, Darlings of the Muses, Lyrical Echoes, and Atmosphere and Mastery, all with Montreal label Analekta. 

    The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LL.D. (hc) 

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  Piano Isata Kanneh-Mason

  

  Piano Isata Kanneh-Mason

  Pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason is in great demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician. She offers eclectic and interesting repertoire with recital programs encompassing music from Haydn and Mozart via Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, Chopin and Brahms to Gershwin and beyond. In concerto, she is equally at home in Felix Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann (whose piano concerto featured on Isata’s chart-topping debut recording) as in Prokofiev and Dohnányi. 

  Highlights of the 2023–2024 season include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, NAC Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on tour in the U.S.A. and Germany, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Cleveland Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Stockholm Philharmonic. With her cellist brother, Sheku, she appears in recital in Japan, Singapore, and South Korea in addition to an extensive European recital tour. Isata also gives a series of solo recitals on tour in the U.S.A. and Canada, as well as at London’s Wigmore Hall, the Lucerne Festival, and across Germany. 

  Isata is a Decca Classics recording artist. Her 2019 album, Romance – the Piano Music of Clara Schumann, was followed by 2021’s Summertime, featuring 20th-century American repertoire. This year’s endearingly titled album Childhood Tales is a tour-de-force showcase of music inspired by a nostalgia for youth.

  2021 also saw the release of Isata’s first duo album, Muse, with her brother Sheku Kanneh-Mason, demonstrating the siblings’ musical empathy and rapport borne from years of playing and performing together. 2023 sees her BBC Proms solo debut, alongside Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. 

  Isata was an ECHO Rising Star in 2021–2022 and is also the recipient of the coveted Leonard Bernstein Award and an Opus Klassik award for Best Young Artist, and is one of the Konzerthaus Dortmund’s Junge Wilde artists. 

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  Violin James Ehnes

  

  Violin James Ehnes

  James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after musicians on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism, and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest at the world’s most celebrated concert halls.

  Recent orchestral highlights include the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, San Francisco Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Munich Philharmonic. Throughout the 2023–2024 season, Ehnes continues as Artist in Residence with the NAC Orchestra and as Artistic Partner with Artis–Naples. 

  Alongside his concerto work, Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Verbier Festival, and Festival de Pâques in Aix. A devoted chamber musician, he is the leader of the Ehnes Quartet and the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

  Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings, including two GRAMMYs, three Gramophone Awards, and 11 JUNO Awards. In June 2020 Ehnes launched a new online recital series entitled “Recitals from Home” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of concert halls. These recordings have been met with great critical acclaim by audiences worldwide and Ehnes was described by Le Devoir as being "at the absolute forefront of the streaming evolution.”

  Ehnes studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music and The Juilliard School, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music upon his graduation in 1997. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Manitoba, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he is a Visiting Professor.

  Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715. 

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  Cello Nicolas Altstaedt

  

  Cello Nicolas Altstaedt

  German-French cellist Nicolas Altstaedt is one of the most sought-after and versatile artists today. As a soloist, conductor, and artistic director, he performs repertoire spanning from early music to contemporary, playing on period and modern instruments.

  His 2023–2024 season includes tours with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées with Philippe Herreweghe, and Arcangelo with Jonathan Cohen. Altstaedt makes his debut with the Bamberger Symphoniker, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and NAC Orchestra, while re-invitations include the London Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner, amongst others.

  Altstaedt regularly performs on period instruments with ensembles such as Il Giardino Armonico, B’Rock, and Academy of Ancient Music. As a conductor, he has forged close partnerships with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Münchener Kammerorchester, and Les Violons du Roy. As a chamber musician, he performs at both Salzburg Mozart and Summer festivals, Verbier Festival, BBC Proms, Lucerne Festival, Prague Spring Festival, and Musikfest Bremen. 

  Joint appearances with composers such as Thomas Adès, Jörg Widmann, Thomas Larcher, Fazıl Say, and Sofia Gubaidulina consolidate his reputation as an outstanding interpreter of contemporary music. New concertos by Marton Illés and Erkki-Sven Tüür receive their premieres this season, and by Liza Lim in 2024–2025.

  His most recent recording for his Lockenhaus Festival garnered the BBC Music Magazine 2020 Chamber Award and Gramophone Classical Music Award 2020. Altstaedt is a recipient of the Credit Suisse Award in 2010, Beethovenring Bonn 2015, and Musikpreis der Stadt Duisburg 2018, and was a 2010–2012 BBC New Generation Artist.

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  soprano Midori Marsh

  

  soprano Midori Marsh

  Midori Marsh is an American-Canadian soprano, hailing from Cleveland, Ohio. She received her Bachelor of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University in 2017 and her Master of Music in Opera at the University of Toronto in 2020. In the fall of 2019, she took home both first prize and the audience choice award at the Canadian Opera Company’s (COC’s) Centre Stage competition, and recently completed her third year with the COC’s young artist ensemble.

  A “polished and poised performer” with “a truly gorgeous, expressive sound,” Midori is a known quantity in the Canadian opera scene, performing with Tapestry Opera, Against the Grain Theatre, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the NAC Orchestra, and more. While at the COC, Midori was seen as Nella in Gianni Schicchi, the soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem, Annina in La traviata, Papagena in The Magic Flute, and Frasquita in Carmen.

  In 2020 she was named one of the CBC’s “30 hot classical musicians under 30” and in 2022 she was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her portrayal of Papagena in the COC’s 2022 production of The Magic Flute. She took first prize at the 2023 Quilico awards, was a semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023 Laffont competition, and a 2023 Lotte Lenya finalist.

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  Mezzo-Soprano Alex Hetherington

  

  Mezzo-Soprano Alex Hetherington

  Recently named one of CBC’s “30 hot classical musicians under 30,” mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington is quickly establishing herself as a skilled interpreter of operatic and concert repertoire, with a specialty in contemporary music. She is in her second year of residency at the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio and has performed on major stages across Canada.

  Operatic highlights include making her Canadian Opera Company (COC) debut as Mercédès in Carmen, singing the role of the Attendant in the COC’s production of Salome, and premiering the role of Riley in R.U.R. A Torrent of Light with Tapestry Opera, which won the 2022 Outstanding Ensemble Dora Mavor Moore Award. Other operatic credits include Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, Carmen in La tragédie de Carmen (UofT Opera), and Nicklausse in Tales of Hoffmann (Toronto City Opera). Alex has also appeared in concert with the NAC Orchestra (Mozart’s Requiem; Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes), the Victoria Symphony (Songs from the House of Death), the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Neruda Songs), and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Tilly, in The Bear).

  Alex holds a Master’s degree in Opera Performance from the University of Toronto, where she won the Jim and Charlotte Norcop Award in Art Song and completed a research-creation project examining art song performance practice through the lens of modern gender theory.  Alex has a passion for contemporary music, composition, and innovative recital programming, and in her spare time she can be found reading, gardening, and admiring dogs. 

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  Composer Sarah Slean

  

  Composer Sarah Slean

  Signed to Atlantic/Warner Records at the tender age of 19,  four-time JUNO nominee and modern-day Renaissance woman Sarah Slean has since released 11 albums in over 10 countries worldwide—but perhaps the most astonishing aspect of her artistry is its breadth. Over her 25-year career, Slean has published two volumes of poetry, starred in short films and a movie musical (spawning two Gemini Award nominations), penned award-winning chamber works, held numerous exhibitions of her paintings, and shared the stage with 10 of the country’s professional orchestras. Classically trained from the age of five, she routinely collaborates with cutting-edge contemporary classical ensembles like The Art of Time, and has been invited to sing world premieres by Canada’s leading living composers. She composes orchestral arrangements for her own music as well as for her pop colleagues (Dan Mangan, Hawksley Workman) and her recent collaborative recording with Symphony Nova Scotia was nominated for both an East Coast Music Award and a JUNO Award in the Classical Album category (2021). Sarah is also an alumna of the prestigious Canadian Film Centre's screen composing residency (2017–2018) and earned her first Canadian Screen Award in 2021.  She can also be heard on the CBC’s national hybrid pop/classical radio program About Time as an occasional host.  

  Citing such diverse influences as Leonard Bernstein, philosophy, Joni Mitchell, Buddhism, and J.S. Bach, her music borrows aspects of cabaret, pop, and orchestral: all knit together by the startling poetry of her lyrics, unique arranging and piano-playing, and that voice, described by the CBC as “a 19th century Kate Bush.” In addition to headlining theatres across Canada, Sarah has also toured Europe, the U.S., and Scandinavia, and has opened internationally for such artists as Bryan Ferry, Rufus Wainwright, Alanis Morissette, Andrew Bird, Feist, Ron Sexsmith, and Chris Isaak. Her 11th solo recording Metaphysics, released in 2017, is described as a “breathtaking amalgamation of Slean’s dramatic orchestral arranging and her signature take on songwriting.” In 2023, Sarah will be composing the music for the stage musical adaptation of the award-winning film Maudie and completing a master’s degree in composition.  

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  Composer Cecilia Livingston

  

  Composer Cecilia Livingston

  Cecilia Livingston specializes in music for voice. She is composer-in-residence at the Canadian Opera Company (2022–) and was composer-in-residence at Glyndebourne Opera (2019–2022). Her music is driven by melody, mixing styles from minimalism to The American Songbook to create work that is lyrical and unsettling. 

  Cecilia’s residencies at the COC and Glyndebourne build on her two-year fellowship at The American Opera Project in New York. Her opera Singing Only Softly won the inaugural Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes and was nominated for two 2020 Dora Mavor Moore Awards for Theatre (including Outstanding New Opera), and her harp and vibraphone duo Garden features on the 2020 JUNO Classical Album of the Year for Solo or Chamber. Her music has been heard at Bang on a Can’s summer festival, Toronto’s Nuit Blanche art festival, the 21C Music Festival, with the Royal Conservatory of Music, the international World Choir Games, with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Kingston Symphony, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Toronto’s Thin Edge New Music Collective, and on Deutsche Grammophon’s Digital Stage. 

  Current projects include a song cycle with Orange Prize winning poet Anne Michaels, new work for Soundstreams, and an opera for TorQ Percussion Quartet and Opera 5. Her creative work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council, and SOCAN Foundation. 

  In the summer of 2022, Cecilia joined the faculty at the Banff Centre’s Opera in the 21st Century program, and she is Vice-President of the Canadian League of Composers and an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre.    She was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellow in Music at King’s College London and her articles and reviews have appeared in Tempo (Cambridge), the Cambridge Opera Journal, and The Opera Quarterly (Oxford); she has given papers on contemporary opera at the Royal Musical Association and American Musicological Society annual conferences. 

  Winner of the Canadian Music Centre’s Toronto Emerging Composer Award and a winner in the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers, she studied with Steve Reich at Bang on a Can’s summer festival and Soundstreams’ Emerging Composer Workshop. She holds a doctorate in composition from the University of Toronto, where she was awarded the Theodoros Mirkopoulos Fellowship in Composition. 

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