≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: January 22, 2020
Reflection
A theme of Life Interrupted somehow runs through this program. Whether it be the talent that was robbed of us by the premature departures of Lili Boulanger (aged 24) and Felix Mendelssohn (38), or the lessons to be learned from the life and death of Amanda Todd (aged 15), the themes and music of this program capture the ephemeral, transient nature of this world and of our time spent in it. Faced with the challenge of capturing Amanda Todd’s ebullient personality and deeply troubled final months, composer Jocelyn Morlock created music that never ceases to move me and I am delighted that we will be presenting it here in concert – as opposed to its original multimedia setting – for the first time. And as always, it is such a pleasure to welcome back Joshua Bell, one of the most inspiring artists of our time.
Reflection
The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto is maybe the greatest of the violin concertos, along with those by Beethoven and Brahms. It’s often called the ‘perfect’ violin concerto, and it’s just a gorgeous piece. Of course, everyone knows it – what I bring to it is my own personal history and experience, and it will certainly be different from anyone else’s. That’s why we keep playing these pieces. It’s like going to hear Hamlet – each time you see it, you’ll see a different perspective on it. In this case, one thing the audience can listen for is that I play my own cadenza in the first movement, which I had the audacity to write as a replacement of the original by Mendelssohn.
This is the first time the NAC Orchestra has performed Lili Boulanger’s D'un soir triste.
The NAC Orchestra has played Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto many times. They first performed the work in 1969 under the direction of Roland Leduc with Steven Staryk on the violin, and their most recent performance was in 2019, on their tour of Europe, with Alexander Shelley as conductor and James Ehnes as soloist. Isaac Stern, Karen Gomyo and Gil Shaham are among the other soloists who have performed this work with the Orchestra over the years.
Jocelyn Morlock’s My Name is Amanda Todd was commissioned by the NAC Orchestra, and premiered by the ensemble in 2016 under the direction of Alexander Shelley. The Orchestra most recently performed this work in 2019, on their European tour.
While other orchestras have performed Debussy’s La Mer on Southam Hall stage, this is only the NAC Orchestra's second time playing it. The first time was in 2012 with conductor Juraj Valčuha.
Reflection: My Name is Amanda Todd
By Carol Todd, Mother of Amanda Todd
Having my daughter remembered in a production produced by the National Arts Centre is an honour in itself, and those of us who knew Amanda are so very proud of this.
Missing Amanda has played a huge part in my life and it was difficult for me to envision what the NAC wanted to create and present, but as time went on, the vision became clearer. Giving permission to use Amanda’s story in a venue of both visual and performing arts was a dream come true for Amanda’s Legacy. My daughter evolved around the sights and sounds of both art and music.
I want to express my appreciation to those who believe that there was a message of HOPE within Amanda’s story, and to send a message of thanks to those who BELIEVE and CARE. The NAC team worked to create a truer meaning of Amanda with her legacy – a spectacular representation of my snowflake princess.
Amanda Todd
AKA Princess Snowflake
November 27, 1996 – October 10, 2012
A snowflake is like a unique girl that no one else can duplicate because she is one of a kind.
Amanda was a child full of sparkle and spirit that became a memory too soon. She filled her life with people, music and art. She loved animals and mostly, she was passionate about helping others.
We can and have learned from Amanda and the stories about what happened to her in the short years of her life. Her YouTube video has sparked discussions all over the world on topics related to bullying, cyberbullying, mental health and online safety.
Amanda wanted her voice heard. She would have wanted everyone to know how much she hurt emotionally and how the same thing also hurt thousands of other children and youth each day.
A close friend wrote these words: “As you go forward in the days and months ahead, consider carefully what and how much can be done. Amanda’s legacy should be one that teaches awareness and that our society will only succeed via tolerance, compassion, community and forgiveness.”
When you see a snowflake falling gently from the sky, think of Amanda, our Princess Snowflake.
Repertoire
D’un soir triste
Born in Paris, August 21, 1893
Died in Mézy-sur-Seine, March 15, 1918
Lili Boulanger was born to a Russian princess and a 77-year-old Parisian father. Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger, to give “Lili” her full name, was prodigiously gifted, learning not only composition but also piano, organ, voice, violin, cello and harp. She was the first woman to win the Prix de Rome composition prize (1913), and one of the most important women composers of the early 20th century despite her mere 24 years. Lili’s name lives on not only on her own merits but by virtue of association with her older sister Nadia, one of the 20th-century’s leading teachers of composition. Nadia was also a composer (and also a Prix de Rome winner – Second Prize in 1918), but after Lili’s death declined to write anything more, declaring everything she had composed up to that point as “worthless.” Nadia’s life was as long (92 years) as Lili’s was short. In 1927, the asteroid 1181 Lilith was named after her.
Boulanger’s catalogue includes choral works (including three psalm settings), songs, piano pieces, and a symphonic poem. D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) was the last composition Boulanger was able to compose by her own hand, without help in writing. She began it in 1917 and finished it in early 1918. The work exists in three versions, all by the composer: for piano trio, for cello and piano, and for orchestra. D’un soir triste is the companion piece to D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning). Both parts of this diptych are based on similar melodic outlines and are in three-four metre, though the two works differ in tempo and length (the work we hear tonight is twice the length of its companion). Most listeners hear in this short but intense work a reflection on the fatalities and tragedy of World War I, which raged on while Lili was writing, and they hear also in it the composer’s premonition of her own impending death. “Lili had known sadness and illness all of her life, but in this piece it seems as if the futility of it all has finally been deeply felt inside of her and projected in the work,” writes Sylvia Typaldos of Allmusic.com.
– Program note by Robert Markow
Violin Concerto
Born in Hamburg, February 3, 1809
Died in Leipzig, November 4, 1847
The facility, polish and effortless grace found in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto totally belie the creator’s struggle to compose it. This enormously popular concerto, Mendelssohn’s last major composition, occupied him for over five years (1838–1844), during which he carried on a lively exchange of ideas about the structural and technical details with the concerto’s dedicatee, violinist Ferdinand David (1810–1873). When Mendelssohn became conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he instated David as his concertmaster. At the concerto’s premiere on March 13, 1845, David was of course the soloist.
Mendelssohn, trained in the classical tradition, nevertheless possessed a romantic streak which manifested itself in the poetic fantasy that infuses his music, and in the liberties he took with regard to formal construction. For example, there is no opening orchestral introduction. The soloist enters with the main theme almost immediately. All three movements are joined, with no formal pauses to break the flow. A cadenza, which normally would appear near the end of a concerto’s first movement, in this work is placed before, not after, the recapitulation.
The term “well-bred” is often invoked to describe this concerto, and it is nowhere more appropriate than in describing the quiet rapture and poetic beauty of the second movement’s principal theme. A moment of sweet melancholy in A minor intrudes briefly, with trumpets and timpani adding a touch of agitation. The principal theme then returns in varied repetition, and a gently yearning passage, again in A minor, leads to the finale. As in the two previous movements, the soloist announces the principal theme, one of elfin lightness and gaiety.
– Program note by Robert Markow
My Name is Amanda Todd
The late Jocelyn Morlock (1969–2023) was one of Canada’s leading composers, who wrote compelling music that has been recorded extensively and receives numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe. Born in Winnipeg, she studied piano at Brandon University, and later earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where she was recently an instructor and lecturer of composition. The inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main Society (2012–14), she took on the same role for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.
Jocelyn had close ties with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who in 2015, commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd, a powerful work about the teen from Port Coquitlam, BC, who took her own life due to cyberbullying. It subsequently won the 2018 JUNO Award for Classical Composition for the Year.
Here’s her description of the work:
When I first approached writing this piece, I was focused on what happened to Amanda, and was feeling how devastating it must be to have people endlessly sharing bad messages and comments about you, especially at such a young age. That negativity seemed overwhelming. When talking to her mother, Carol Todd, and to the NAC Orchestra’s Christopher Deacon, I became aware of how transformational and empowering it would be for this young girl, Amanda, to take control and to tell her own story on this very same platform that people were using against her.
When I met Carol, she told me about all the places that she would be speaking, because people finally recognize the need to do something to stop cyberbullying. She told me about the kids who reach out to her and are looking for help, or who reach out to her to tell her that Amanda’s videos and her story have helped them; kids who, because of Amanda and Carol, found hope in their situation. I’m left with a feeling of profound joy in Amanda’s bravery, and Carol’s message.
Musically, the opening of the piece My Name is Amanda Todd draws first on overwhelming sorrow, which grows into a furtive, somewhat frenzied negative energy, like the uncontrolled proliferation of negative comments and images. I then use almost the same musical material (very similar small gestures, pitches, and rhythms) and gradually modify it to create increasingly powerful, positive music.
La Mer
Born in Saint Germain-en-Laye, August 22, 1862
Died in Paris, March 25, 1918
An irresistible fascination with the sea has impelled almost countless composers and songwriters to evoke it in their music. Debussy’s La Mer is surely the best known work of this title, and few works so richly and evocatively portray the sea as Debussy has done. Oddly enough, however, this composition was not written anywhere near the sea, but rather in various inland locations, including the Burgundian mountains and Paris. In La Mer, Debussy portrays the sea in its varied moods but does not attempt explicit images in sound; rather, through sonorities he seeks to stir the memories, emotions and imagination, permitting each listener a personal perception of the sea. The first performance took place on October 15, 1905 at the Concerts Lamoureux in Paris, with Camille Chevillard conducting.
The first part, “From dawn to noon on the sea,” begins very quietly with slow, mysterious murmuring. Through sonority itself, Debussy evokes the sensation of peering into the very depths of the dark, mysterious sea. As the sea awakens, the orchestral colours brighten and motion quickens. Eventually a noble, chorale-like passage appears and slowly grows to paint a majestic picture of the sea under the blazing noonday sun.
“Play of the waves” is full of sparkle and animation. The range and delicacy of Debussy’s scoring fascinate at every turn – even the “ping” of the triangle has evocative power.
Biographer Oscar Thompson describes this music as “a world of sheer fantasy, of strange visions and eerie voices, a mirage of sight and equally a mirage of sound.”
“Dialogue of the wind and the sea” opens restless, gray and stormy, the music suggesting the mighty surging and swelling of the water. Melodic fragments from the first movement return. The activity subsides, and out of the mists comes a haunting, distant call, like that of the sirens, high in the woodwinds. The music again gathers energy. Finally we hear once more the grandiose chorale motif from the first seascape, and La Mer concludes in a frenzy of whipping wind and dashing waves.
– Program note by Robert Markow
Artists
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre 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 Orchestra performs a full series of subscription concerts at the National Arts Centre each season, featuring world-class artists such as James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds.
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.
National and international tours have been a hallmark of the National Arts Centre Orchestra from the very beginning. The Orchestra has toured 95 times since its inauguration in 1969, visiting 120 cities in Canada, as well as 20 countries and 138 cities internationally. In recent years, the orchestra has undertaken performance and education tours across Canada, as well as the U.K. and China. In 2019, the Orchestra marked its 50th anniversary with a seven-city European tour that included performances and education events in England, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden, and that showcased the work of six Canadian composers.
The NAC Orchestra has recorded many of the more than 80 new works commissioned since its inception, for radio and on over 40 commercial recordings. These include Angela Hewitt’s 2015 JUNO Award-winning album of Mozart Piano Concertos; the groundbreaking Life Reflected, which includes My Name is Amanda Todd by Jocelyn Morlock, winner of the 2018 JUNO for Classical Composition of the Year; and from the 2019 JUNO nominated New Worlds, Ana Sokolović’s Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes, 2019 JUNO Winner for Classical Composition of the Year.
The NAC Orchestra reaches a national and international audience through touring, recordings, and extensive educational outreach. The Orchestra performed on Parliament Hill for the 2019 Canada Day noon concert in a live broadcast for CBC Television.
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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 eight 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)
The late Jocelyn Morlock (1969–2023) was one of Canada’s leading composers, who wrote compelling music that has been recorded extensively and receives numerous performances and broadcasts throughout North America and Europe. Born in Winnipeg, she studied piano at Brandon University, and later earned a master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of British Columbia, where she was recently an instructor and lecturer of composition. The inaugural composer-in-residence for Vancouver’s Music on Main Society (2012–14), she took on the same role for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2019.
Jocelyn had close ties with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, who in 2015, commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd, a powerful work about the teen from Port Coquitlam, BC, who took her own life due to cyberbullying. It subsequently won the 2018 JUNO Award for Classical Composition for the Year.
“With its shimmering sheets of harmonics” (Georgia Straight) and an approach that is “deftly idiomatic” (Vancouver Sun), Morlock’s music has received numerous national and international accolades, including Top 10 at the 2002 International Rostrum of Composers, the Mayor’s Arts Award for Music in Vancouver (2016) and the JUNO award for Classical Composition of the Year (My Name Is Amanda Todd, 2018).
Most of Morlock’s compositions are for small ensembles, many of them for unusual combinations like piano and percussion (Quoi?), cello and vibraphone (Shade), bassoon and harp (Nightsong), and an ensemble consisting of clarinet/bass clarinet, trumpet, violin and double bass (Velcro Lizards). Cobalt, a concerto for two violins and orchestra, was her first commission for the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in 2009. Her first full-length CD, also titled Cobalt, was released on the Centrediscs label in 2014.