≈ 120 minutes · With intermission
Last updated: May 14, 2024
Program
JIMMY LÓPEZ BELLIDO Aino* (14 min)
GABRIELA MONTERO Piano Concerto No. 1, “Latin”* (30 min)
I. Mambo
II. Andante moderato
III. Allegro Venezolano
Gabriela Montero, piano
INTERMISSION
MAURICE RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé (50 min)
Tableau I (A meadow at the edge of a sacred wood) –
Tableau II (Pirates’ camp) –
Tableau III (Scene from the first tableau, at the end of the night)
*Canadian premiere
Synopsis for Daphnis et Chloé
The following synopsis is drawn from the scenic directions printed in the score. The music is continuous throughout.
Tableau I
In a meadow at the edge of a sacred wood. In the background, hills. To the right, stands a grotto hewn out of rock, at the entrance of which is an antique sculpture of three Nymphs. Somewhat toward the background, to the left, a large rock vaguely resembles the form of the god Pan. In the background sheep are grazing. It is a bright spring afternoon. When the curtain rises, the stage is empty.
Introduction.
Youths and girls enter, carrying gifts for the Nymphs in baskets. Gradually the stage fills. The group bows before the altar of the Nymphs. The girls drape the pedestals with garlands.
Religious dance.
In the far background, Daphnis is seen following his flock. Chloé joins him. They proceed toward the altar and disappear at a bend. Daphnis and Chloé enter at the foreground and bow before the Nymphs. The dance ceases. Tender emotion on seeing the couple. The girls entice Daphnis and dance around him. Chloé feels the first twinges of jealousy. At that moment she is swept into the dance of the youths. The cowherd Dorcon proves to be especially bold. Daphnis in turn seems upset.
General dance.
At the end of the dance, Dorcon tries to kiss Chloé. She innocently offers her cheek, but with an abrupt motion Daphnis pushes aside the cowherd and approaches Chloé affectionately. The youths intervene. They position themselves in front of Chloé and gently lead Daphnis away. One of them proposes a dance contest between Daphnis and Dorcon. A kiss from Chloé will be the victor’s prize.
Dorcon’s grotesque dance.
The group sarcastically imitates the clumsy movements of the cowherd, who ends his dance in the midst of general laughter.
Daphnis’s light and graceful dance.
Everyone invites Daphnis to accept his reward. Dorcon comes forward as well, but he is chased off by the group, accompanied by loud laughter. The laughter ceases at the sight of the radiant group formed by the embracing Daphnis and Chloé. The group withdraws, taking along Chloé. Daphnis remains, immobile, as if in ecstasy. Then he lies face down in the grass, his face in his hands.
Lyceion enters. She notices the young shepherd, approaches, and raises his head, placing her hands over his eyes. Daphnis thinks this is a game of Chloé’s, but he recognizes Lyceion and tries to pull away. As though inadvertently, she drops one of her veils. Daphnis picks it up and places it back on her shoulders. She resumes her dance, which, at first more languorous, becomes steadily more animated until the end. Another veil slips to the ground and is, again, retrieved by Daphnis. Vexed, she runs off mocking him, leaving the young shepherd very disturbed.
Warlike sounds and war cries are heard, coming nearer. In the middle ground, women run across the stage, pursued by pirates. Daphnis thinks of Chloé, perhaps in danger, and runs off to save her. Chloé hastens on in panic, seeking shelter. She throws herself before the altar of the Nymphs, beseeching their protection. A group of brigands burst on stage, capture the girl, and carry her off.
Daphnis enters looking for Chloé. He discovers on the ground a sandal that she lost in the struggle. Mad with despair, he curses the deities who were unable to protect the girl and falls swooning at the entrance of the grotto.
As night falls, an unnatural light suffuses the landscape. A little flame shines suddenly from the head of one of the statues. The Nymph comes to life and descends from her pedestal, followed by the second and then the third Nymph. They consult together and begin a slow and mysterious dance. They notice Daphnis, bend down, and dry his tears. They revive him and lead him toward the large rock, and invoke the god Pan. Gradually the form of the god is outlined. Daphnis prostrates himself in supplication. The stage goes dark.
Tableau II
Introduction.
A trumpet calls and the voices come nearer.
There is a dull glimmer. The setting is the pirate camp on a very rugged seacoast, with the sea as the background. To the right and left is a view of large crags. A trireme is seen near the shore and there are cypresses present. Pirates are seen running to and fro carrying plunder. More and more torches are brought, which illuminate the scene.
Warrior dance.
Bryaxis commands that the captive be brought. Chloé, her hands tied, is led in by two pirates. Bryaxis orders her to dance.
Chloé performs a dance of supplication. She tries to flee, but she is brought back violently. Despairing, she resumes her dance. Again, she tries to escape but is brought back again. She abandons herself to despair, thinking of Daphnis. Bryaxis tries to carry her off. Although she beseeches, the leader carries her off triumphantly.
Suddenly the atmosphere seems charged with strange elements. Various places are lit by invisible hands, and little flames flare up. Fantastic beings crawl or leap here and there, and satyrs appear from every side and surround the brigands. The earth opens and the fearsome shadow of Pan is outlined on the hills in the background, making a threatening gesture. Everyone flees in horror.
Tableau III
Scene from the first tableau, at the end of the night.
There is no sound, but the murmur of rivulets produced by the dew that trickles from the rocks. Daphnis lies, still unconscious, at the entrance of the grotto. Gradually the day breaks. The songs of birds are heard. Far off, a shepherd passes with his flock. Another shepherd crosses in the background.
A group of herdsmen enters looking for Daphnis and Chloé. They discover Daphnis and wake him. Anxiously he looks around for Chloé. She appears at last, surrounded by shepherdesses. They throw themselves into each other’s arms. Daphnis notices Chloé’s wreath. His dream was a prophetic vision. The intervention of Pan is manifest. The old shepherd Lammon explains that, if Pan has saved Chloé, it is in memory of the nymph Syrinx, whom the god once loved.
Daphnis and Chloé mime the tale of Pan and Syrinx. Chloé plays the young nymph wandering in the meadow. Daphnis as Pan appears and declares his love. The nymph rebuffs him. The god becomes more insistent. She disappears into the reeds. In despair, he picks several stalks to form a flute and plays a melancholy air. Chloé reappears and interprets through her dance the accents of his flute.
The dance becomes more and more animated, and in a mad whirling, Chloé falls into Daphnis’s arms. Before the altar of the Nymphs, he pledges his love, offering a sacrifice of two sheep.
A group of girls enters dressed as bacchantes, shaking tambourines. Daphnis and Chloé embrace tenderly. A group of youths rushes on stage. Joyful commotion.
General dance.
English translation from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daphnis_et_Chlo%C3%A9, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0
Repertoire
Aino (Canadian premiere)
An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), with “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker), Jimmy López Bellido (b. 1978) has created works performed by leading orchestras around the world and in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Konzerthaus Berlin, Nordic Music Days, the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, and the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Grant Park music festivals. Aurora & Ad Astra, his most recent album featuring Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Leticia Moreno, and the Houston Symphony was released on January 14, 2022 on Pentatone. Aurora was nominated for a 2022 Latin Grammy in the “Best Classical Contemporary Composition” category. López completed his three-year tenure as the Houston Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence in the spring of 2020. A native of Lima, he studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music prior to graduating from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with a Master of Music degree. López completed his PhD in Music at the University of California-Berkeley.
López wrote the orchestral tone poem Aino in 2022. Commissioned by the Orchestre de Paris, Concertgebouworkest, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the work receives its Canadian premiere tonight. He describes his piece as follows:
Aino contemplates the sea, exquisitely dressed and inconsolable. It’s been three days since she left home, wandering through the woods. At dawn, her eyes still moist, she sees three beautiful maidens atop a headland, bathing in the waters. Enthralled, Aino sheds her clothes and joins them, but as she reaches the summit, the rock begins to sink, taking her to the bottom of the sea and thus silencing her sorrows.
In pure tone poem tradition, Aino follows the story of the eponymous hapless maiden as told in the fourth poem of the Kalevala (Finland’s national epic), but although Aino is the central character of this poem, she is certainly not the only one. There is Joukahainen, her brother, who promises her hand to Väinämöinen in a desperate bid to save his own life. There’s Väinämöinen, the grand and powerful suitor, whose formidable powers can’t prevent him from ultimately losing Aino. There’s Aino’s mother, whose pain at losing her daughter prompts her to cry rivers of tears, which eventually give birth to waterfalls, mountains, and forests; and there’s the hare, who amongst all animals, is entrusted with the bitter task of relaying the news of Aino’s passing.
I first learned of the Kalevala through [the Finnish composer Jean] Sibelius’s oeuvre, but it was not until I moved to Helsinki that I fully grasped the unique place it holds in Finland’s sense of national identity. It therefore came as no surprise when conductor Klaus Mäkelä brought up the story of Aino as a possible source of inspiration for this commission. This piece is first and foremost a gift to Klaus, to whom I am deeply grateful for taking my music with him wherever he goes, but it is also a homage to the country that welcomed me as a young student, and with which I still have very strong and loving ties.
As soon as I read Aino’s story, I was struck by its rich sound world, which although not obvious at first, becomes clear as the poem progresses. The anguished sobs of Aino; the mesmerizing vision of the three maidens bathing; the rock sinking to the bottom of the sea; the hare running across the forest to relay the news; the mother wailing upon learning of her daughter’s fate, and the waterfalls, golden mountains, and trees that emerge from her endless stream of tears; and finally, the three cuckoos, singing eerily atop three birch trees. All these elements offer a plethora of tantalizing sounds, all of which inspired and guided the way I orchestrated the piece. The cuckoo’s song, due to its universally known musical cadence, makes a prominent appearance at the climax across all instrumental sections, and makes its presence felt all the way up until the end (on glockenspiel). But I also chose to thread the cuckoo’s song into an earlier musical motive: my imagined “song of the three maidens”, uttered as they first entice Aino to join them, and represented in the orchestra by two solo violins and a solo viola playing a haunting, whistle-like melody on high harmonics.
Writing Aino has been a wonderful journey into the world of the Tondichtung or tone poem, and in many ways, it is a departure from other relentless and rhythmically driven works of mine. Here, instead of trying to tell the story by imposing my point of view, I chose to quiet myself and listen to what the story had to tell me. It seemed all but fitting, given that it was in Finland that I learned the art of listening, and that silence can be just as powerful as a thunderous orchestral tutti.
Biography and program note provided by the composer
Piano Concerto No. 1, “Latin” (Canadian premiere)
I. Mambo
II. Andante moderato
III. Allegro Venezolano
“Composing to me, creating, improvising, whatever you call it, is at the core of what matters to me,” Venezuelan-born musician Gabriela Montero (b. 1970) said in an interview for the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. “Being alive equals being creative. Having a message is vital to me.” As she elaborates in the written introduction to her recording of her “Latin” Concerto, released in 2019, she considers her primary role “is to tell stories that reflect the wide gamut of human experience across both time and geography. Every era and continent has its story to tell, however joyful or troubling, from Renaissance Europe to the contemporary Americas, and composers are well positioned not only to tell it, but to provide a unique form of social commentary.”
Montero composed Piano Concerto No. 1, “Latin”, in 2016—her first full-length composition following her formal debut as a composer with the tone poem Ex Patria in 2011. Whereas Ex Patria was “explicitly designed to illustrate and protest Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness, corruption, and violence”, she describes her “Latin” Concerto as “an entirely different beast. It’s complex and challenging, but in a different way. It’s not meant to provoke, but rather to invite you to discover the complexities, dichotomies, and colours of Latin America through the contemporary musical language.” Yet, there’s a dark undercurrent in the work as well. “There is so much potential and beauty in Latin America, but our tragedy is that, at the same time, there are ever-present dark shadows like corruption and violence which threaten that potential. That metaphor is a constant line in my ‘Latin’ Concerto,” she explains. In another interview, she summarizes the piece as a “chiaroscuro reflection on who we are as a continent, dark and light. It has all the rhythms, the charm, and the sensuality that people love about Latin America—but unfortunately, those characteristics keep the world from actually noticing what’s really going on.”
On the musical details, Montero has written,
In a process of musical osmosis—a natural consequence of the globalized, interconnected world in which we now live—my Piano Concerto No.1, the “Latin” Concerto, honours the musical traditions that have shaped me, while inviting the cultural idioms of my native continent to the concert halls of Europe and the wider world. European formalism and the informality of Latin-America’s rich, rhythmical identity merge in a complementary dance of both the joyful and macabre.
Writing my concerto, I set out to describe the complex and often contradictory character of Latin America, from the rhythmically exuberant to the forebodingly demonic. Unlike my previous work for piano and orchestra—the specifically Venezuelan polemic Ex Patria (2011), a musical portrait of a country in collapse—the “Latin” Concerto draws upon the spirit of the broader South American continent. For every suggestion of surface celebration, in the first-movement Mambo, for instance, there are undercurrents of disruption. The third-movement Allegro Venezolano, which cites the well-known Venezuelan tune “Pajarillo”, is interrupted at times by the dark arts of black magic—a symbolic reminder of the malevolent forces that, too often, hold our continent hostage to tyranny in its multiple guises.
Program note compiled and edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Daphnis et Chloé
Tableau I (A meadow at the edge of a sacred wood) –
Tableau II (Pirates’ camp) –
Tableau III (Scene from the first tableau, at the end of the night)
The “symphonie choréographique” Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel (1875–1937) is considered one of the French composer’s masterpieces. Although it is more frequently performed in the concert hall as excerpts arranged into two orchestral suites, the complete score is well worth experiencing. Even minus the visual tableaus and the dancers, Daphnis et Chloé, which features a large orchestra with an extensive percussion section and a chorus, is an aural feast for the ears—a tour de force of vibrant orchestral colour, sensuous melodies, sumptuous harmonies, and captivating rhythms.
The genesis and original production of Daphnis et Chloé endured many challenges. Commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, it was Ravel’s first major collaborative project. The choreographer Michel Fokine had already adapted the original “romance” by the second-century Greek writer Longus in 1907, then intended for St. Petersburg’s Imperial Marinsky Theatre. When Ravel became involved in the Ballets Russes’ production, he made it known that he contributed considerably to the “retouching” of Fokine’s libretto. The process turned out to be arduous, not least because of a language barrier—“Fokine doesn’t know a word of French, and I only know how to swear in Russian,” the composer recalled. They also had competing visions of what the ballet should look and sound like. Fokine wanted a more literal archaism, with the dancing evoking the carnal physicality of the “ancient dancing depicted in red and black on Attic vases.” Ravel desired instead to create “a vast musical fresco, less concerned with the archaism than with fidelity to the Greece of my dreams, which is close to that imagined by the French artists of the late 18th century.”
After considerable debate, they eventually found a compromise. Ravel began composing the score in 1909 but did not finish it until 1912, as he struggled to revise his original ending (from 1910) to something more satisfactorily exhilarating. The production was also fraught with issues, including limited rehearsal time, but at last on June 8, 1912, the ballet débuted at Paris’s Théatre du Châtelet. With a “dream team” consisting of Ravel, Fokine, Léon Bakst for set design and costumes, conductor Pierre Monteux, and star dancers Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina in the titled roles, Daphnis et Chloé could have been the major highlight of the Ballets Russes’ season. However, it was overshadowed by Nijinsky’s shockingly erotic premiere of Claude Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune ten days earlier. Furthermore, the premiere of Daphnis shared the bill with a repeat performance of the Prélude as well as Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Shéhérazade and Carl Maria von Weber’s Le Spectre de la rose, both popular earlier productions by the Ballets Russes.
The plot of Daphnis et Chloé is, in short, about the developing romantic love between a shepherd and shepherdess as they overcome various trials and tribulations within their arcadian community. These include Daphnis enduring initial jealousies, as he competes with the cowherd Dorcon in a dance contest for Chloé’s affections, as well as temptation, with the lustful Lyce[n]ion trying to seduce him while performing a “dance of the veils”. Chloé then gets abducted by pirates, whose malevolent leader Bryaxis forces her to dance for him. When Daphnis realizes what has happened to Chloé, he curses the deities that should have protected her and collapses unconscious in front of a cave. Taking sympathy on Daphnis’s plight, three nymphs come alive to invoke the assistance of the god Pan, who rescues Chloé from her violent captors. At the dawning of a new day, she and Daphnis reunite in a full blossoming of their love. In thanks to Pan, they mime the story of the god’s unrequited love for Syrinx. The community then comes together to celebrate with a wild bacchanalian dance.
Many of the highly erotic and physically violent situations from the original Longus myth are absent in the Fokine-Ravel version, with the composer, despite some protest from Fokine, preferring to take a less literal approach; as musicologist Deborah Mawer has noted, Ravel saw the story as a “pastoral idyll of classical purity and innocence.” Still, the music is highly evocative, and without visuals is perhaps even more powerful in its sensual suggestion, dramatic momentum, and dreamy atmosphere as the rest is left to our imaginations.
Eschewing the traditional ballet structure of distinct “numbers”, the music of Daphnis et Chloé proceeds continuously, even though three “tableaus” are identified to clarify changes in the stage setting. Solo dances alternate seamlessly with extended sections featuring the corps de ballet, which, along with the wordless chorus, function like a Greek chorus, commenting on the action of the main characters.
Throughout the ballet, Ravel uses recurring musical motives to identify characters and situations. He introduces three of the main themes at the beginning of the first tableau: after muted strings and harps layer fifths to build a chord, the horns first intone a rocking figure, which is associated with the god Pan; a flute, Pan’s instrument, then plays a melody, which becomes the theme of the nymphs; solo horn responds with a third melody—the love theme of Daphnis and Chloé. As the ballet progresses, listen out for the return of these motives, often in varied form, depending on the context. For example, the love theme returns as the affections between the title characters deepen; especially striking is, as Mawer has pointed out, the “gradual restoration and intensification of the love theme” in the “lever du jour” that opens the third tableau, with dawn also symbolizing the full awakening of Daphnis and Chloé’s love when they reunite after the latter’s rescue.
Ravel also develops the individual characters through distinctive dances for each: Daphnis’s graceful movements and light-footed leaps are initially evoked by lilting flute phrases alternating with plucked string arpeggios, whereas Dorcon’s clumsiness is humorously conveyed by heavy accents and a comically dissonant tune intoned by three bassoons. Chloé’s waltz-like music is smooth and elegant, while the temptress Lyceion’s “dance of the veils” features “exotic” winding chromatic figurations in the clarinet, her lust further suggested by a distorted variant of the love theme on solo horn. This “earthly” music starkly contrasts that evoking the spiritual world of Pan and the nymphs, which is rich with mysterious sonorities and remarkable orchestral effects.
There are substantial dances for the corps de ballet as well. The first tableau features the members of the arcadian community in a ritualistic “danse religieuse” and a lively “danse générale”. In the second tableau, the plundering pirates perform a savage and vigorous “danse guerrière” (warrior dance), with an extended section featuring an exotic melody first introduced by the piccolo that, as Mawer states, “suggests the promiscuity of the pirates who want to rape Chloé.” In revising the final “danse génerale”, Ravel openly admitted he drew inspiration from Rimsky-Korsakov’s Shéhérazade. To give the effect of a wild bacchanalian celebration, melody dissolves into a vortex of pure rhythmic drive, into which the chorus joins with whoops of 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).
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique compositional gifts have garnered her critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Anthony Tommasini remarked in the New York Times that “Montero’s playing had everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power…soulful lyricism…unsentimental expressivity.”
Montero’s 2023–2024 season will feature performances of her own “Latin” Concerto on an extensive U.S. tour with Mexico City’s Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería and Carlos Miguel Prieto, as well as with the New World Symphony, the Polish National Radio Symphony, the Antwerp Symphony, and the NAC Orchestra, the latter with which she continues a flourishing four-year Creative Partnership through 2025.
Celebrated for her exceptional musicality and ability to improvise, Montero has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. A graduate and Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, she is also a frequent recitalist and chamber musician, having given concerts at such distinguished venues as Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Vienna Konzerthaus, Sydney Opera House, and the National Concert Hall in Taipei.
An award-winning and bestselling recording artist, her most recent album, released on the Orchid Classics label, features her own “Latin” Concerto and Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, recorded with the Orchestra of the Americas in Frutillar, Chile. Montero made her formal debut as a composer with Ex Patria, a tone poem designed to illustrate and protest Venezuela’s descent into lawlessness, corruption, and violence.
Winner of the 4th International Beethoven Award, Montero is a committed advocate for human rights whose voice regularly reaches beyond the concert hall. She was also awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her contribution to the arts and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.
An “undeniably exciting composer” (Opera News), with “a brilliant command of orchestral timbres and textures” (Dallas Morning News) and “a virtuoso mastery of the modern orchestra” (The New Yorker), Jimmy López Bellido has created works performed by leading orchestras around the world and in prestigious venues such as Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Kennedy Center, Vienna’s Musikverein, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Konzerthaus Berlin, Nordic Music Days, the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, the Lima 2019 Pan American Games, and the Aspen, Tanglewood, and Grant Park music festivals.
Fiesta!, one of his most famous works, has received over 100 performances worldwide. Bel Canto, a full-length opera commissioned by Lyric Opera of Chicago as part of the Renée Fleming initiative and based on Ann Patchett’s bestselling novel, premiered in December 2015 to wide critical acclaim and was broadcast U.S. nationwide on PBS’s Great Performances. Dreamers, an oratorio which he wrote in collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning Playwright Nilo Cruz, was premiered by Ana María Martínez, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2019.
Aurora & Ad Astra, his most recent album featuring Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Leticia Moreno, and the Houston Symphony was released on January 14, 2022 on Pentatone. Aurora has been nominated to a 2022 Latin Grammy in the “Best Classical Contemporary Composition” category. López completed his three-year tenure as the Houston Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence in the spring of 2020. A native of Lima, he studied at the city’s National Conservatory of Music prior to graduating from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with a Master of Music degree. López completed his PhD in Music at the University of California-Berkeley. He is published by Filarmonika and Birdsong.
Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.
Since taking the helm in 2015, Shelley has shaped the Orchestra’s artistic vision, building on the legacy of his predecessor, Pinchas Zukerman, who led the ensemble for 16 seasons. Shelley’s influence extends beyond the NAC. He serves as Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK and Artistic and Music Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in the United States. 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. Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds and Principal Youth Conductor Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser complement Shelley’s leadership. In 2024, the Orchestra marked a new chapter with the appointment of Henry Kennedy as its first-ever Resident Conductor.
The Orchestra has a rich history of partnerships with renowned artists such as James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Renée Fleming, Hilary Hahn, Jeremy Dutcher, Jan Lisiecki, Ray Chen, and Yeol Eum Son, underscoring its reputation as a destination for world-class talent. 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.
A hallmark of the NAC Orchestra is its national and international tours. The Orchestra has performed concerts in every Canadian province and territory and earned frequent invitations to perform abroad. These tours spotlight Canadian composers and artists, bringing their voices to stages across North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Asia.
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The Calixa-Lavallée Ensemble is the chamber choir of the School of Music of the University of Ottawa. Participation in this ensemble, which is conducted by Laurence Ewashko, allows singers to expand their knowledge in many ways: by performing a wide variety of vocal styles and repertoire; by developing a sense of blend; and by improving their sight-reading, linguistic, and vocal/choral ensemble skills. The Calixa-Lavallée Choir performs regularly throughout the school year in a variety of concerts, both at the university and within the community at large.
Formed in 1992 for a live broadcast marking 50 years of Radio Canada International, Ewashko Singers has developed into one of the most flexible vocal ensembles in the National Capital Region.
From Beethoven, Mahler, and Verdi to Richard Rodgers and Howard Shore, they skillfully perform music across a wide range of genres and languages. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Laurence Ewashko, Ewashko Singers regularly highlights Canadian composers and showcases young Canadian talent. In addition to their own concerts, they often collaborate with other local choirs and music ensembles. Recent highlights with the National Arts Centre Orchestra include the Juno Award–winning live recording of Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, and Harry Somers’s opera Louis Riel as part of Canada 150 celebrations.
Former conductor of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and Cantata Singers of Ottawa, Laurence Ewashko celebrates his 35th season of choral activity in the National Capital Region. As a choral clinician, vocal coach and adjudicator, he makes a significant contribution to the quality and appreciation of vocal music in Canada and abroad. Laurence has prepared choruses for many prestigious conductors, as he regularly does at the National Arts Centre.
A Full Professor of Choral Studies at the University of Ottawa, he conducts the School of Music’s two choirs. Laurence is a recipient of the prestigious Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting and numerous awards from the Canada Council of the Arts. He is the founding conductor of Ewashko Singers which was established in 1992.
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. She co-produced the 1940s Pops show On the Air with Jack Everly for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, a show they co-produced in 2007 for the NAC Orchestra.
In 2018, 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 Goes Broadway, continuing to implement feedback on her British-Columbian French with the choruses of Ottawa, and cheering on Luke and Princess Leia with Charlie Ross, Émilie Fournier, and Eric Osner during the Star Wars Pops concert.
In her spare time, McCoy is the Head of Arts, Drama, English, and Library at Lisgar Collegiate Institute.
Credits
NAC Orchestra
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Emily Kruspe
Marjolaine Lambert
Emily Westell
Manuela Milani
Carissa Klopoushak
*Martine Dubé
*Erica Miller
°Kanon Itoh
°Liana Fonseca
°Delia Li
°Justin Azerrad Kendall
°Qiyue He
°Maria Mondiru
°Patrick Paradine
Second Violins
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Leah Roseman
Frédéric Moisan
Edvard Skerjanc
Winston Webber
Mark Friedman
Karoly Sziladi
**Zhengdong Liang
*Heather Schnarr
*Oleg Chelpanov
*Andréa Armijo Fortin
°Hannah Corbett
°Katrina Johnson
°Sonia Hellenbrand
°Emma Reader-Lee
°Ellen Allers
°Siti Sarah Binti Razlin
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey
Tovin Allers
*Sonya Probst
°Emily Kistemaker
°Julien Haynes
°Alexander Beggs
°Sofia Morao
Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Marc-André Riberdy
Timothy McCoy
Leah Wyber
*Karen Kang
°Justine Lefebvre
°Evelyne Méthot
°Aidan Fleet
°Amos Friesen
Double Basses
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
**Marjolaine Fournier
*David Fay
*Paul Mach
*Talia Hatcher
°Philippe Chaput
°Gene Waldron III
Flutes
Joanna G’froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
°Aram Mun
°Catherine Chabot
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen
°Luca Ortolani
°Emily Brownlee
English Horn
Anna Petersen
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
°Andrew Neagoe
°Tyler Song
Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
°Eric Li
°Maxwell Ostic
Horns
*Louis-Philippe Marsolais (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lawrence Vine
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
°Ho Hin Kwong
°Laurianne Paradis
°Rachel Cote
°August Haller
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
°Bethany Vaughan
°Jacob Merrill
Trombones
*Steve Dyer (guest principal)
Colin Traquair
°Felix Regalado
°Yori Lang
Bass Trombones
Zachary Bond
°Malena Lorenson
Tubas
Chris Lee (principal)
°Brandon Figueroa
Timpani
*Charles Lampert (guest principal)
Percussion
Jonathan Wade
*Robert Slapcoff
*Bryn Lutek
*Tim Francom
*Louis Pino
*Andrew Harris
°Leigh Wilson
Harps
*Angela Schwarzkopf (guest principal)
°Honoka Shoji
Piano
*Frederic Lacroix
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
°Naomi Gem Batiancila
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
°Natalina Scarsellone
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
*Additional musicians
**On leave
°Participants of the NAC Orchestra Mentorship Program
Choir (Calixa-Lavallée Ensemble & Ewashko Singers)
Soprano
Emma Beehler
Maureen Brannan
Rosemary Cairns-Way
Charlotte Corwin+
Julie Ekker+
Annika Fabbi
Carol Fahie*
Sarah Halmarson+
Sharon Keenan-Hayes
Allison Kennedy
Talia Kennedy
Vanousheh Mashayekh
Ilene McKenna
Christine Muggeridge
Doretha Murphy
Elhaam Namet-Allah
Neha Natarajan
Amy Parsons
Kathleen Radke+
Brittany Rae+
Kristin Ranshaw
Lauren Reisig
Tracy Sanmiya
Clara-Maria Thaut
Bronwyn Thies-Thompson+
Hiroko Yokota-Adachi*
Alto
Barb Ackison
Wanda Allard
Shelley Artuso
Alexandra Asher+
Corrine Carbino
Miriam Carpenter
Gabrielle Cloutier+
Katie Cruickshank
Isabella Cuminato+
Genevieve Dunn
Kati Eichelberger*
Claire Hoar-Stephens
Rachel Hotte
Vickie Iles
Ruth-Anne Johnston
Sarah Kooy
Brianna Lawrie
Kristen de Marchi+
Rachel Ostic*
Chantal Phan
Susanna Pollock*
Isabelle Ricard+
Caitlin Strong*
Leah Weitzner+
Diana Zahab*
Mary Zborowski
Tenor
Jean-Sébastien Allaire+
Johnathan Bentley
Elizabeth Burbidge
Bernard Cayouette+
Caleb Fagen
Jim Howse
Andrew Jahn
Justin Jalea+
Aldéo Jean+
David Lafranchise
Chris Libuit
Bryan Parker
Alexis Poirier
David Ransom*
Sebastian Rodriguez Mayen
Andrew Rivers*
Robert Ryan
Paul Sales*
John Wiens+
Patricia Yates+
Bass
Kurt Ala-Kantti*
Wallace Beaton
Pierre-Étienne Bergeron+
Norman Brown
Terry Brynaert
Alasdair Campbell+
Alexandre Charest
Geoffrey Colman*
Dorian De Luca+
Alain Duguay+
Nikhil Gopal
William Kraushaar+
Phillip MacAdam*
Ronan Pouliquen
Normand Richard+
Mathieu Roy*
Stephen Slessor
Victor Toma
* Guest chorister
+ Guest chorister & off-stage choir
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees