≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: January 13, 2025
Program
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Alexander Shelley, conductor
Randall Goosby, violin
The January 16 performance will be live-streamed.
RICHARD STRAUSS Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks), Op. 28 (16 minutes)
JOHN ESTACIO Avé* (13 minutes)
FLORENCE PRICE Violin Concerto No. 2 (15 minutes)
In one movement
INTERMISSION
ALEXINA LOUIE Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss (My Only Desire: Hommage to Strauss)* (10 minutes)
RICHARD STRAUSS Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, TrV 227d (24 minutes)
*NAC Orchestra commission, world premiere
Randall Goosby records exclusively for Decca.
More information on Randall Goosby can be found at www.randallgoosby.com.
Randall Goosby is represented by Primo Artists, New York, NY.
Repertoire
Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streich (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks), Op. 28
In 1888, convinced that his artistic direction was to create new forms for every new subject, Richard Strauss embarked on writing orchestral “tone poems”. A genre of instrumental music initially developed by Franz Liszt, the symphonic poem is a one-movement work that illustrates or evokes the content of an extramusical source, be it a story, poem, or painting. It was a novel way to structure the experience of orchestral music compared to the traditional abstract forms of the four-movement symphony.
Strauss composed Macbeth that year, followed by Don Juan and Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) in 1888–1889. The latter two were so successful, they were quickly absorbed into the German performance repertory. In 1895, he completed Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks); it, too, was a hit and remains his most frequently performed orchestral work today.
Till is a roguish figure from medieval German folklore who relished wreaking havoc and scandalizing authorities with his practical jokes, targeting anyone too high on themselves or too rigid with their moral principles. For Strauss, rendering the prankster’s escapades in the form of a tone poem was an apt (albeit veiled) metaphor for himself as an artist disrupting the status quo of music composition at the time. The piece consists of a series of adventure episodes, vividly brought to life through the brilliant colour and scintillating textures of the composer’s orchestral writing, which demands highly virtuosic playing from all instruments.
An opening prologue has the effect of a fairy tale’s first line—“Once upon a time there was a knavish fool.” Two motifs are introduced: the first, smooth and charming, played by the violins, followed by a fanfare-like, (mock-)heroic horn solo. After an initial build-up, the clarinet intones a cheeky phrase—the charming melody sped up to evoke the prankster. Listen for this theme—a marker of Till’s presence—as it is transformed throughout the piece, during each of his antics.
After the prologue, Till goes off in search of excitement. In the first of his pranks, the music depicts him sneaking on tiptoe, then suddenly, with a cymbal crash, he bursts into a market square riding a horse. Mayhem ensues, as he scuttles away. He next appears at an elegant courtly dance, transformed into a charismatic seducer, represented by caressing phrases on solo violin and sinuous motifs in muted horns and trumpets. Later, the violin leaps high, then runs rapidly down a scale—a scream and the subsequent fainting of a lady scandalized. Till moves on to a group of clergymen (bass clarinet, bassoons, and contrabassoon) in serious debate. In disguise (listen for an impish bass-line figure), he begins to mock them. The figure climbs through the instruments to the piccolo, reaching a peak, and after an orchestral raspberry, the jig is up with a gleeful polka dance. The offended clergymen attempt to collect themselves, while Till escapes again, unscathed.
The opening horn theme returns (in a different key) and builds to a climax—our prankster the swaggering hero. But an ominous drum roll and a tolling minor chord interrupts his revelry—found guilty of his offences, he’s sentenced for execution. He attempts to cajole and plead for his life, but a final shriek from the clarinet suggests it’s all over for him. In the epilogue, the smooth music of the opening returns, like an attempt to end with a moral to the tale…but in the closing moments, Till reappears to laughingly thumb his nose at us listeners.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Avé
John Estacio (b. 1966) ranks as one of Canada’s most frequently performed composers. His symphonic and operatic works have been praised for their assured command of lyricism, depth of expression, and brilliant dynamism. Outside of Canada, his orchestral music has been performed in Singapore, China, Europe, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States. The five-time Juno-nominated composer was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021 and is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Award for Arts. He recently received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Here is Estacio’s own description about his orchestral piece Avé:
My composition Avé is paired with Richard Strauss’s Til Eulenspiegel, a tone poem about a prankster who, in many ways, could also be characterized as a “gas lighter”, an individual who makes people question their thoughts, facts, the truth. This is the tie between Strauss’s work and my own.
My mother passed away of dementia while I was working on this piece. She was a religious woman and after a lifetime of reciting prayers, it was the responsorial psalms, engraved deep in her memory in her native Portuguese, which were some of the final words she was able to utter before the cruel disease rendered her immobile and took away her ability to speak. The word “Avé” was frequently uttered during her prayers and was also sung in the hymns she enjoyed. “Ave” means “hail” or “hello”, but also “farewell”; it is most familiar in the prayer “Ave Maria”. Towards the end, my mother spoke in halting phrases, in loops, and in repetitive statements sometimes ending with a responsorial psalm. Before my family came to realize that my mother had been afflicted by dementia, we naively assumed she was pulling pranks on us by not remembering key information such as our identities, not recognizing her home of 40 years, and not being able to perform the simple functions she had been doing for decades. I came to realize that this illness, like the prankster Eulenspiegel, was gaslighting her and her family.
At her funeral, my eulogy chronicled her life in reverse, commencing with the sadness of her passing mixed with the strange sense of relief knowing that she no longer had to live out the cruel sentence the illness had inflicted on her body. The memorial then went on to celebrate her accomplishments, her achievements, her joys, because although the illness ravaged her body for years near the end, it is by no means what defined her long life. The framework for the eulogy found its way into the structure of this composition.
Avé begins with an extended opening for full strings, which employs the primary “Eulenspiegel” motif, but played in reverse; this opening attempts to capture the strange combination of grief and relief. After the opening, the solo strings introduce a new melodic theme, played in a halting manner and often retracing its musical path as though it has forgotten itself, until a disguised musical line from one of my mother’s favourite hymns weaves itself in to conclude the phrase. A feeling of anxiety pervades the middle section of the composition, culminating in a sense of frustration and anger, emotions my mother experienced as she came to terms with the reality of the cruel illness. The musical themes introduced earlier—the reverse “Eulenspiegel” tune, the fractured solo violin melody, the responsorial psalm melody—are all intertwined now, accompanied by fraught tremulous strings. After a brief moment of quiet reflection, the “Eulenspiegel” theme returns, again in reverse, performed triumphantly by the brass with the strings playing the fractured melodies from earlier but this time with full confidence and clarity. The composition builds to a resounding conclusion, a celebration of a full life devoted to nurturing a family, replete with joy, celebration, sorrow, devotion, and a sense of fulfilment that exceeded the cruel coda that ended it.
Program note by the composer
Violin Concerto No. 2
In one movement
During her life, Florence Price (1887–1953) was the first African American woman to earn major recognition as a symphonic composer. However, despite her successes, such as her prize-winning Symphony in E minor (1932) and her Piano Concerto in One Movement (1934), she struggled to have her works widely performed, and openly acknowledged that she being a woman and a person of colour were barriers. Much of her catalogue was neglected after her death, but in recent years, new research as well as the discovery of compositions thought to have vanished and their revival in performance have begun to more fully illuminate her contributions to American music.
Originally co-commissioned by the Illinois Federation of Music Clubs, the Chicago Club of Women Musicians, the Lake View Musical Society, and Mu Phi Epsilon, the Second Violin Concerto was composed in 1952, a year before Price’s death. It was premiered posthumously in 1953 by violinist Minnie Cedargreen Jemberg but remained unpublished thereafter. The score was presumed lost, until in 2009 it was found, along with the manuscripts to many other works by Price (including her First Violin Concerto), by the new owners of a dilapidated house on the outskirts of St. Anne, Illinois. In preparing to renovate the place, they learned that it had been the composer’s summer home. Since then, both violin concertos have been publicly performed and recorded, first in 2018 by soloist Er-Gene Kahng, who premiered the Second Violin Concerto in February that year with the Arkansas Philharmonic Orchestra. The most recent recording of the concertos, released in 2023, is by Randall Goosby with the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
The Second Violin Concerto is a compact work, unfolding as a single movement with a sectional structure of changing moods. Overall, its sound world is strikingly lush, with opulent harmonies and colourful timbres—The New Yorker’s music critic Alex Ross describes the piece has having “an autumnal quality reminiscent of the final works of Richard Strauss.” After a bold orchestral introduction, the solo violin enters with a beguiling rhapsodic passage, which it follows with a jaunty dance-like tune that is the concerto’s first main theme. (This motif will later return throughout, though played only by the orchestra.) As the violin proceeds, its lines become more active and virtuosic, while the orchestra adds lively counterpoint and rich harmonic support. Eventually, the soloist arrives at the second theme, an unabashedly romantic melody (marked Andante cantabile) that conjures up the American pastoral ideal, as the violin’s earlier “urban” restlessness finds a peaceful respite in the wide-open spaces of the countryside filled with the sounds of nature (the flute evoking twittering birds).
This gorgeous melody comes back three more times, in varied form with each iteration. The second occurrence, which the violin plays at a higher register, follows a contrasting developmental section characterized by bravado passages on the violin and orchestral interventions of the jaunty dance-like motif. Later, after a condensed reprise of the concerto’s opening material (with a vigorous episode for violin), the Andante cantabile melody reappears in the orchestra—beginning on flute and oboe then continuing warmly in the strings and brass—while the soloist decorates it with a winding countermelody. The jaunty motif then returns, now a confident tune that is further elaborated in a boisterous and brilliant segment for orchestra and soloist, the latter playing a flurry of arpeggios, double stops, and rapid scales in succession. Suddenly, the violin makes an extraordinary leap to the instrument’s highest register to sing the Andante melody for the final time, in its noblest rendition. It rounds off in an atmosphere of utter serenity, after which violin and orchestra bring the concerto to an exultant finish.
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss (My Only Desire: Hommage to Strauss)
Acclaimed composer Alexina Louie (b. 1949) has collaborated with leading Canadian and international soloists, ensembles, and orchestras. Her orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco, Montreal, BBC, St. Louis, Toronto, and Vancouver symphony orchestras, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra. Louie’s work spans a wide range of eclectic styles and technical demands, from her much-loved pedagogical piano pieces to main stage opera (The Scarlet Princess) and virtuosic chamber and solo compositions, as well as works for ballet, film, and television. For Louie, composing music is an act of self-expression and communication. She freely explores various styles and differing inspirations to create music that reveals truths about the artistic spirit and the times in which we live.
Here is Louie’s description about her orchestral piece Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss (My Only Desire: Hommage to Strauss):
I was intrigued when asked by the National Arts Centre Orchestra to write a companion piece for Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) Suite. It is such a joyful work, incorporating recognizable waltzes, achingly beautiful melodies, a famous, moving trio for the opera’s three main female characters, as well as masterful instrumental writing for a large orchestra.
Strauss’s comic opera Der Rosenkavalier reveals, among other themes, much about love and longing. The main characters include the Marschallin (an aristocrat), Octavian (her 17-year-old lover), and Sophie (the daughter of a wealthy man). At the end of the opera, the “elderly” Marschallin sacrifices her love for Octavian so that he can be with Sophie, the young woman he loves.
Listeners who are familiar with the opera will recognize some of its themes and musical gestures that emerge in my Hommage. The opening of Strauss’s Suite is alluded to in the first notes of my composition by using the same instruments—French horns and bassoons with cello and contrabass punctuations. One of the main intervals found in his Suite, a major sixth, is an important interval found throughout my composition.
At the outset, I wanted sections of my piece to be effervescent, a quality that suffuses the Suite. Immediately after my opening statement, effervescent music begins in the strings. In my one-movement work, the sparkling feel appears again in the central section, beginning with the piano, which then transfers the activity to a trio of flutes.
Strauss’s musical theme, which represents the silver rose presented to Sophie by Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, is particularly memorable. This music—beautiful triads representing young love—centres mainly in the celesta and the two harps and is recognizable in Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss.
I have created my own sense of “romantic” harmony by devising recurring chords that seem to melt into one another.
The title for my piece did not come spontaneously. During the writing process, I revisited the Musée de Cluny in Paris, which houses the six exquisite Medieval tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn. Each of the first five tapestries represents one of the five senses. The sixth remains a mystery and has several possible interpretations—one of which is love (or the heart) as the words MON SEUL DESIR are woven into it. I was so moved by the tapestry’s beauty and so intrigued by the mystery of its meaning that I stood in front of it for an extended time. The romance of Strauss’s music and the tapestry’s mystery of love inspired Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss.
Program note by the composer
Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, TrV 227d
One of the 20th century’s operatic masterpieces, Der Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose) was the first real collaboration between Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who wrote the original German libretto. Completed in 1910, it premiered on January 26, 1911, at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden to great acclaim. It became Strauss’s most popular opera and remains firmly established in the repertory. Most audiences nowadays encounter the music of Der Rosenkavalier through the concert suite being performed tonight. It’s believed to have been created in 1944 by the conductor Artur Rodziński, who, as the then-music director of the New York Philharmonic, led the first performance in October. The following year, Boosey and Hawkes published the arrangement with the composer’s approval.
The opera’s popularity owes much to Strauss’s appealing score, which is sumptuous and sparkling, rich in sonority, colour, and texture. It’s also strikingly modern, featuring the composer’s eclectic use of anachronistic styles and genres of music, including 18th-century Classical style à la Mozart, Italian opera, late-Romantic era harmony and Wagnerian leitmotivic techniques, 19th-century waltz (with allusions to Johann Strauss, Jr.), and early 20th-century chromaticism. Thus, as Strauss scholar Bryan Gilliam has noted, the music creates a multilayered “text” rich in historical meaning that underscores the opera’s central themes about time, transformation, and love. Set in 1740s Vienna, the beautiful Marschallin instigates the makeover of her youthful paramour Octavian (one of opera’s great trouser roles) into the Rose Knight, and in doing so, witnesses him and Sophie, a younger woman, fall in love. Though initially conflicted, she ultimately relinquishes him to Sophie in a poignant act of letting go.
The Suite is a tour of Der Rosenkavalier’s main highlights. It begins with the music that opens the opera, depicting Octavian and the Marschallin in the throes of passion—him represented by a confident upward motif played by horns, followed by her sighs. After reaching a climax, the music relaxes to bliss. It then jumps to Octavian’s transformation into the Rose Knight in Act Two (listen for a grand version of his motif) and his presentation of the engagement rose—on behalf of Baron Ochs—to Sophie von Faninal, the daughter of a wealthy man. This is music evoking a “meet-cute”—time seems to stand still, as flutes and piccolo, celesta, two harps, and three solo violins play an enchanting progression of twinkling chords; the shy tentativeness of the two would-be lovers gradually evolves into warm tenderness.
A sudden outburst breaks the reverie and a frenzied episode follows, leading to “Ohne mich”, the favourite waltz tune of Baron Ochs, the Marschallin’s oafish and lecherous cousin who intends to marry Sophie. It’s first sung by muted violins, as if to themselves, then is further developed, featuring yet another variant of Octavian’s motif on solo violin, and builds to a full-orchestra rendition. A sensuous transition leads into the sublime trio (“Hab’ mir’s gelobt”) of Act Three in which the Marschallin surrenders Octavian to Sophie. She leaves them to sing a duet (“Spür nur dich/Ist ein Traum”), intoned here by first violins, after which the magical music from their initial meeting returns briefly. The Suite closes with a grand waltz, with Octavian’s motif appearing once more, in resplendent fashion, before the final flourish.
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. To date, he has spearheaded over 40 major world premieres, 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 the orchestra’s golden era.
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 Düsseldorf, 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. He gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition. The press described 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).
Signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, American violinist Randall Goosby is acclaimed for the sensitivity and intensity of his musicianship alongside his determination to make music more inclusive and accessible and bring the music of underrepresented composers to light.
Highlights of Randall Goosby’s 2024–2025 season include debut performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder; the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård; the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Alexander Shelley; the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Dalia Stasevska; and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Michele Mariotti. He also joins the London Philharmonic Orchestra on its U.S. tour led by Edward Gardner.
Goosby returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, and the Utah Symphony. He appears in recitals across North America and Europe as a soloist and with the Renaissance Quartet.
Goosby was a first prize winner in the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions. In 2019, the Young Classical Artists Trust, in partnership with Music Masters in London, named him the inaugural Robey Artist. In 2020, he became an Ambassador for Music Masters, a role that sees him mentoring and inspiring students in schools around the United Kingdom.
A former student of Itzhak Perlman and Catherine Cho, he received his bachelor’s, master’s, and artist diploma degrees from The Juilliard School. He is an alumnus of the Perlman Music Program and studied previously with Philippe Quint. He plays the Antonio Stradivarius, Cremona, “ex-Strauss,” 1708, on a generous loan from the Samsung Foundation of Culture.
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 United Kingdom 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.
John Estacio ranks as one of Canada’s most frequently performed composers. His symphonic and operatic works have been praised for their assured command of lyricism, depth of expression, and brilliant dynamism.
He has served as Composer in Residence for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. His orchestral music has been performed in Singapore, China, Europe, the United Kingdom, and throughout the United States. His first of five operas, Filumena, was filmed for television and commemorated on a stamp issued by Canada Post.
His orchestral writing has caught the ear of choreographers and the film world. The Cincinnati Ballet commissioned a full-length score for King Arthur’s Camelot, and his music for The Secret of the Nutcracker earned him an Alberta Media Production Industries Association award for best original film score.
His Trumpet Concerto, commissioned by an unprecedented consortium of 19 Canadian orchestras, was recorded by the Mulhouse Symphony Orchestra in France. He has finished his fifth opera, The Cipher Clerk, and has recently completed new works for the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
The five-time Juno-nominated composer was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2021 and is a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Award for Arts. He recently received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Wilfrid Laurier University.
Acclaimed composer Alexina Louie has collaborated with leading Canadian and international soloists, ensembles, and orchestras. Her orchestral works have been performed by the San Francisco, Montreal, BBC, St. Louis, Toronto, and Vancouver symphony orchestras, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, and the China National Centre for the Performing Arts Orchestra. Her compositions have been conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, Alexander Shelley, Kent Nagano, Leonard Slatkin, Pinchas Zukerman, Charles Dutoit, and Ingo Metzmacher.
Singers Barbara Hannigan and Russell Braun, violinist James Ehnes, and pianist Jon Kimura Parker are among the celebrated soloists who have performed her compositions.
Louie’s work spans a wide range of eclectic styles and technical demands, from her much-loved pedagogical piano pieces to main stage opera (The Scarlet Princess) and virtuosic chamber and solo compositions, as well as works for ballet, film, and television.
Her TV projects include the groundbreaking made-for-TV comedic mini-opera Toothpaste and the international award-winning collection of mini-operas Burnt Toast (commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
For Louie, composing music is an act of self-expression and communication. She freely explores various styles and differing inspirations to create music that reveals truths about the artistic spirit and the times in which we live.
An Officer of the Order of Canada, Alexina Louie has received numerous awards for her lifetime of music creation. She is a recipient of two Juno Awards, the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, a National Arts Centre Award, a Jean A. Chalmers Award for Musical Composition, the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the Lou Applebaum Composers Award (film and television), and two Golden Sheaf Awards for Best Original Film Music. In addition, she has received honorary doctorates from the University of Calgary and McGill University, among many other distinctions.
Her complete catalogue of works is available on her website.
Kevin is an accomplished arts professional currently serving as the Production Manager at the Great Canadian Theatre Company. Kevin previously held the role of Executive Director at the Ottawa Fringe Festival, demonstrating a deep commitment to the performing arts community. Past projects at the National Arts Centre include prestigious events such as the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards, The Cappies Gala, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s WolfGANG Sessions. With a strong background in stage management, Kevin has collaborated with various organizations, including the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the Third Wall Theatre Company, A Company of Fools, the City of Ottawa, and Tone Cluster.
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Alexander Shelley
Music Director
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeffrey Dyrda
Carissa Klopoushak
Manuela Milani
*Martine Dubé
*Andréa Armijo Fortin
*Renée London
*Oleg Chelpanov
*John Corban
*Heather Schnarr
*Alexander Lozowski
Second Violins
Emily Kruspe (principal)
Emily Westell
Frédéric Moisan
Leah Roseman
Jessy Kim
Mark Friedman
Edvard Skerjanc
Karoly Sziladi
**Winston Webber
*Marc Djokic
*Soo Gyeong Lee
*Sara Mastrangelo
*Sara Williams
*Veronica Thomas
*Karoly Sziladi Jr
*Elspeth Durward
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Tovin Allers
Paul Casey
*Pamela Fay
*Sonya Probst
*Mary-Kathryn Stevens
Cellos
Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Leah Wyber
Timothy McCoy
Marc-André Riberdy
*Thaddeus Morden
*Desiree Abbey
*Karen Kang
Double Basses
Sam Loeck (principal)
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
Vincent Gendron
**Marjolaine Fournier
*Paul Mach
*David Fay
*Travis Harrison
Flutes
Joanna G’froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
*Kaili Maimets
*Christian Paquette
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen
*Melissa Scott
*Lief Mosbaugh
English Horn
Anna Petersen
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
*Shauna Barker
*Marie-Julie Chagnon
Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
*Marlene Ngalissamy
*Thomas Rochette
Horns
*Louis-Philippe Marsolais (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
*Olivier Brisson
*Micajah Sturgess
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
*Amy Horvey
*Michael Fedyshyn
Trombones
*José Milton Vieira (guest principal)
*Hillary Simms (guest principal)
*Nate Fanning
Bass Trombone
Zachary Bond
Tuba
Chris Lee (principal)
Timpani
*Michael Kemp (guest principal)
Percussion
*Bryn Lutek (guest principal)
Jonathan Wade
Andrew Johnson
*Andrew Harris
*Kris Maddigan
Harp
*Angela Schwarzkopf (guest principal)
*Alanna Ellison
Piano
*Frédéric Lacroix
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
Assistant Personnel Manager
Ruth Rodriguez Rivera
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
Stage Manager
Kevin Waghorn
*Additional musicians
**On leave
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Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
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International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees