≈ 1 hour and 30 minutes · With intermission
Last updated: October 17, 2023
Program
CLARA SCHUMANN
(orch. Sarah Slean) (5 min)
“Am Strande” (“On the shore”)
“Der Mond kommt still gegangen” (“The moon rises silently”), Op. 13, No. 4
CLARA SCHUMANN Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7 (21 min)
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Romanze: Andante non troppo, con grazia
III. Finale: Allegro non troppo
INTERMISSION
CLARA SCHUMANN
(orch. Cecilia Livingston) (6 min)
“Die gute Nacht” (“To the good night”)
“Die Lorelei” (“The Loreley”)
JOHANNES BRAHMS Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello, Op. 102 (31 min)
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Vivace non troppo
Isata Kanneh-Mason appears by arrangement with Enticott Music Management
Isata Kanneh-Mason records exclusively for Decca Classics
Clara Schumann Lieder – Texts and Translations
Am Strande
German source: Wilhelm Gerhard
Traurig schau ich von der Klippe
Auf die Flut, die uns getrennt,
Und mit Inbrunst fleht die Lippe,
Schone seiner, Element!
Furcht ist meiner Seele Meister,
Ach, und Hoffnung schwindet schier;
Nur im Traume bringen Geister
Vom Geliebten Kunde mir.
Die ihr, fröhliche Genossen
Gold’ner Tag’ in Lust und Schmerz,
Kummertränen nie vergossen,
Ach, ihr kennt nicht meinen Schmerz!
Sei mir mild, o nächt’ge Stunde,
Auf das Auge senke Ruh,
Holde Geister, flüstert Kunde
Vom Geliebten dann mir zu.
Der Mond kommt still gegangen
German source: Emanuel Geibel
Der Mond kommt still gegangen
Mit seinem gold’nen Schein.
Da schläft in holdem Prangen
Die müde Erde ein.
Und auf den Lüften schwanken
Aus manchem treuen Sinn
Viel tausend Liebesgedanken
Über die Schläfer hin.
Und drunten im Tale, da funkeln
Die Fenster von Liebchens Haus;
Ich aber blicke im Dunklen
Still in die Welt hinaus.
Die gute Nacht
German source: Friedrich Rückert
Die gute Nacht, die ich dir sage,
Freund, hörest du;
Ein Engel, der die Botschaft trage
Geht ab und zu.
Er bringt sie dir, und hat mir wieder
Den Gruß gebracht:
Dir sagen auch des Freundes Lieder
Jetzt gute Nacht.
Die Lorelei
German source: Heinrich Heine
Ich weiß nicht, was soll es bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin;
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.
Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme
Und singt ein Lied dabei,
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewalt’ge Melodei.
Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh’.
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei getan.
Repertoire
orch. Sarah Slean
“Am Strande” (“On the shore”)
“Der Mond kommt still gegangen” (“The moon rises silently”), Op. 13, No. 4
orch. Cecilia Livingston
“Die gute Nacht” (“To the good night”)
“Die Lorelei” (“The Loreley”)
All throughout her career as a composer, Clara Schumann (née Wieck, 1819–1896) wrote Lieder (songs for voice and piano), from when she was a child right up until Robert Schumann’s death. Today’s audiences know 28 of her Lieder, but many more were lost.
This program’s selection of lieder showcases Clara Schumann’s consummate ability to intertwine piano, voice, and poetry in her art. The Lieder deal with quintessentially Romantic themes: the power of nature and the elements in “Am Strande” and “Lorelei,” and the night in “Der Mond kommt still gegangen” and “Die gute Nacht.”
In “Am Strande,” nature imagery is intended to represent human emotion. The ebb and flow of the endless sextuplets represents both the tides separating two lovers and the character’s emotions that oscillate between hope and despair. In “Die Lorelei,” Schumann eloquently reimagines the famous legend of a baneful nymph, the Loreley, who lures sailors on the Rhine to their deaths. Schumann clearly delineates between the narrator of the poem, the sailor and the Loreley by creating distinct tones and textures. She employs and emotional and musical crescendo that comes to a climax at the end of the song. The roiling piano score in these two Lieder, presented this evening in arrangements by Sarah Slean and Cecilia Livingston, are a credit to Schumann’s talents as a virtuoso.
“Der Mond kommt still gegangen,” Op. 13, No. 4 (“The moon rises silently,” 1843, arranged by Sarah Slean) opens with the tranquil image of a golden moon watching over the slumbering world. The gentle sway of the piano part is reminiscent of nocturnes and barcarolles, those instrumental lullabies of the Romantic era. The last stanza of the Lied, however, brings a subtle note of bittersweetness, as the narrator observes their beloved’s home from afar and then turns away to be embraced by the night. Does this mean the beloved is out of reach? Schumann emphasizes the moment’s ambiguity with rhythmic acceleration, chromatic harmonies, and the highest note of the Lied’s song.
“Die gute Nacht” (“To the good night,” 1841, arranged by Cecilia Livingston) reveals the power of music to transcend time and space. Here, the poem’s narrator sends out wishes for a good night through an angelic messenger, and in the form of a song—yes, Schumann’s Lied contains its own Lied!—Schumann gives the first stanza leisurely and spacious phrasing, as if to call forth images of the vast distances the goodnight wishes have crossed. The Lied finishes, infinitely peaceful, with a long and serene postlude, as if the solo piano is giving voice to everything that words cannot convey.
Program note by Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers (translated from the French)
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Romanze: Andante non troppo, con grazia
III. Finale: Allegro non troppo
Clara Wieck (1819–1896)—she was not Clara Schumann yet—composed her Piano Concerto during her teenage years. Not unlike to Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms with their first symphonies, this concerto was something of a rite of passage: large-scale, orchestral genres were the prerogative of professional composers, considered well beyond the creative abilities of women. Clara initially wrote the third movement as a standalone work but soon decided to integrate it into a fully-fledged concerto, achieving coherence through astute thematic connections and a unique large-scale design.
The opening “Allegro maestoso” is a sonata form that daringly omits its recapitulation, deferring closure to the end of the finale. The middle “Romanze” sounds an intimate duet for piano and cello, and foregrounds tone and touch rather than the fiery virtuosity of the outer movements. As musicologists David Keep and Larry R. Todd have observed, Robert directly quoted the “Romanze” at the opening of his 1840 Dichterliebe, a song-cycle that epitomizes longing and desire. This is a fitting tribute since the concerto’s genesis, from 1833 (the year of Brahms’s birth) to 1836, witnessed the blossoming of their love story.
Wieck’s concerto was at the forefront of innovative formal techniques that later Romantic composers further developed. She attempted only one other concerto in 1847, which remained unfinished.
Program note by Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers
Concerto in A minor for Violin and Cello, Op. 102
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Vivace non troppo
In the spring of 1887, Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) wrote to Clara Schumann, coyly informing her that he had the “amusing idea of writing a concerto for violin and cello. If it is at all successful, it might give us some fun.” He revealed he was insecure, however, about writing for the two stringed instruments. For his Violin Concerto (1878), he consulted and worked with his friend Joseph Joachim, but they had since become estranged for years. (In 1881, Brahms had sided with Joachim’s wife, Amalie, against her husband during their divorce proceedings, when the violinist was convinced she was having an affair with the music publisher Fritz Simrock.) Seeing an opportunity to make peace, Brahms cautiously approached Joachim in the summer about his plans for the “double concerto”, with the cello part to be played by Robert Hausmann for whom Brahms had written his Second Cello Sonata. His efforts appeared to have worked; as Clara, who attended an early rehearsal of the piece in September, reflected in her journal, “This concerto is a work of reconciliation—Joachim and Brahms have spoken to each other again for the first time in years.”
The Double Concerto, Brahms’s final orchestral work, was premiered in Cologne on October 18, 1887, with Joachim and Hausmann as the soloists, and the composer on the podium. They performed it several more times during the concert season though reception of the piece remained mostly lukewarm. Even Clara was doubtful: “I do not believe the concerto has any future…nowhere has it the warmth and freshness which are so often to be found in his works.” Today, it is much more appreciated—for its beauty and masterful construction, not to mention as a grand showcase for two top-notch soloists.
The Double Concerto has a few notable precedents—Beethoven’s Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and piano, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, and J.S. Bach’s Double Concerto for two violins—that Brahms likely studied as models. From what he had absorbed, he forged a strikingly distinctive work. He opens with two dramatic cadenzas for the soloists, thus turning the typical structure of a concerto’s first movement completely on its head. Soon after full orchestra announces a fragment of the main theme, the cello interrupts with the first of these (“to be played like a recitative”). Woodwinds and horns later respond with the “sigh” motif of the second theme, after which the violin enters alone, and following a few musing phrases, is joined by the cello. Together, in the second cadenza, they revel in the depth and breadth of their sonorities—through resonant double stops and chords, then a magnificent arpeggio, displaying their entire range as if one “super instrument”. Finally, they unite to climb an ascending scale, which arrives at the orchestral exposition to properly reveal, at last, the movement’s main elements. As the soloists return to develop these throughout the movement, listen to how Brahms explores every facet of their relationship through spirited dialogue ranging from imitation to commentary, from argumentation to the completion of each other’s phrases. Near the end, at the point a cadenza is expected, violin and cello instead come together to state the main theme, then join in a marvellous unison octave passage—the musical embodiment of reconciliation—that emphatically closes this weighty movement.
Continuing their united front, the soloists introduce the gorgeous song of the “Romanze” in unison octaves (violin in its low register), with orchestral strings adding harmonic richness. Woodwinds later intone a serene chorale, which, as the movement progresses, alternates with the soloists’ increasingly elaborate ruminations on the song. In the reprise, violin and cello sing only the first part of the song, then recall past musings, after which an exquisitely dreamy passage draws the movement to a peaceful finish.
Cello and violin take the lead again to present the recurring theme of the third movement, which Brahms laces with elements of the “style hongrois” (Hungarian-Romani style)—a nod to Joachim’s heritage. The tune sounds delicate, slightly melancholy at first, but attains confidence when the orchestra takes it up. With subsequent returns, the soloists exchange its phrases, adding embellishments and flourishes. By contrast, the second theme is robust and boisterous, featuring resonant double stops, as does the assertive melody appearing mid-movement; with its juxtaposition of snappy and fluid rhythms, the “style hongrois” is most obvious here. In the epilogue following the reprise of the first two themes, the soloists trade gossamer arpeggios, extending to new heights in a soaring phrase. Finally, they merge once more in unison octaves to proclaim a transfigured version of the main theme and end the movement in triumphant joy.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
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“A natural communicator, both on and off the podium” (The Telegraph), Alexander Shelley performs across six continents with the world’s finest orchestras and soloists.
With a conducting technique described as “immaculate” (Yorkshire Post) and a “precision, distinction and beauty of gesture not seen since Lorin Maazel” (Le Devoir), Shelley is known for the clarity and integrity of his interpretations and the creativity and vision of his programming. He has spearheaded over 40 major world premieres to date, including highly praised cycles of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms symphonies, operas, ballets, and innovative multi-media productions.
Since 2015, he has served as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In April 2023, he was appointed Artistic and Music Director of Artis–Naples in Florida, providing artistic leadership for the Naples Philharmonic and the entire multidisciplinary arts organization. The 2024–2025 season is Shelley’s inaugural season in this position. In addition to his other conducting roles, the Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles’s Orange County announced Shelley’s appointment as its next Artistic and Music Director. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026–2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025.
Additional 2024–2025 season highlights include performances with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Colorado Symphony, the National Philharmonic in Warsaw, the Seattle Symphony, the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra (Ireland). Shelley is a regular guest with some of the finest orchestras of Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Australasia, including Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Helsinki, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Malaysian, Oslo, Rotterdam and Stockholm philharmonic orchestras, and the Sao Paulo, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto, Munich, Singapore, Melbourne, Sydney, and New Zealand symphony orchestras.
In September 2015, Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the youngest in its history. The ensemble has since been praised as “an orchestra transformed ... hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen), and his programming is credited for turning the orchestra “almost overnight ... into one of the more audacious orchestras in North America” (Maclean’s). Together, they have undertaken major tours of Canada, Europe, and Carnegie Hall, where they premiered Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 13.
They have commissioned ground-breaking projects such as Life Reflected and Encount3rs, released multiple Juno-nominated albums and, most recently, responded to the pandemic and social justice issues of the era with the NACO Live and Undisrupted video series.
In August 2017, Shelley concluded his eight-year tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, a period hailed by press and audiences alike as a golden era for the orchestra.
Shelley’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Royal Danish Opera), La bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Louis Riel (Canadian Opera Company/National Arts Centre), lolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon), The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North), Tosca (Innsbruck), and both Le nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni in semi-staged productions at the NAC.
Winner of the ECHO Music Prize and the Deutsche Grunderpreis, Shelley was conferred with the Cross of the Federal Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in April 2023 in recognition of his services to music and culture.
Through his work as Founder and Artistic Director of the Schumann Camerata and their pioneering “440Hz” series in Dusseldorf, as founding Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s “Zukunftslabor” and through his regular tours leading the National Youth Orchestra of Germany, inspiring future generations of classical musicians and listeners has always been central to Shelley’s work.
He regularly gives informed and passionate pre- and post-concert talks on his programs, as well as numerous interviews and podcasts on the role of classical music in society. In Nuremberg alone, over nine years, he hosted over half a million people at the annual Klassik Open Air concert, Europe’s largest classical music event.
Born in London in October 1979 to celebrated concert pianists, Shelley studied cello and conducting in Germany and first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition, with the press describing him as “the most exciting and gifted young conductor to have taken this highly prestigious award.”
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., ONL, LL.D. (hc).
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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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 Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra. Throughout the 2024/2025 season, Ehnes will be an Artist in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony and will tour Asia, where he will perform the complete Beethoven sonatas at Kioi Hall, Tokyo, as well as performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
Alongside his concerto work, Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at Wigmore Hall (including the complete cycle of Beethoven Sonatas in 2019/20, and the complete violin/viola works of Brahms and Schumann in 2021/22), Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Verbier Festival, Dresden Music 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 GRAMMY Awards, three Gramophone Awards and 12 JUNO Awards. In 2021, Ehnes was announced as the recipient of the coveted Artist of the Year title at the 2021 Gramophone Awards, which celebrated his recent contributions to the recording industry, including the launch of a new online recital series entitled ‘Recitals from Home,’ released in June 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent closure of concert halls. Ehnes recorded the six Bach Sonatas and Partitas and six Sonatas of Ysaÿe from his home with state-of-the-art recording equipment and released six episodes over two months. These recordings have been met with great critical acclaim by audiences worldwide, and Le Devoir described Ehnes as being “at the absolute forefront of the streaming evolution.”
Ehnes began violin studies at age five, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin at age nine, and made his orchestra debut with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal at age 13. He continued his studies 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 graduating in 1997. Ehnes 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, where he is a Visiting Professor. As of summer 2024, he is a Professor of Violin at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music.
Ehnes plays the Marsick Stradivarius of 1715.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Credits
NAC Orchestra
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Emily Westell
Zhengdong Liang
Manuela Milani
**Marjolaine Lambert
*Martine Dubé
*Erica Miller
*Andréa Armijo Fortin
*Oleg Chelpanov
*Renée London
Second Violins
*John Marcus (guest principal)
Emily Kruspe
Frédéric Moisan
Carissa Klopoushak
Winston Webber
Leah Roseman
Mark Friedman
Karoly Sziladi
**Edvard Skerjanc
*Heather Schnarr
*Sara Mastrangelo
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
Tovin Allers
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey
*Sonya Probst
Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
**Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Leah Wyber
Marc-André Riberdy
Timothy McCoy
*Karen Kang
*Desiree Abbey
*Daniel Parker
Double Basses
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
Marjolaine Fournier
*Paul Mach
*Doug Ohashi
Flutes
Joanna G'froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen
English Horn
Anna Petersen
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
Horns
*Spencer Park (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lawrence Vine
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
Trombones
*Steve Dyer (guest principal)
Timpani
*Simón Gómez (guest principal)
Percussion
Jonathan Wade
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
*Additional musicians
**On leave
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees