Shelley & Yeol Eum Son

with the NAC Orchestra

Yeol Eum Son © Marco Borggreve
Alexander Shelley
Music Classical music Piano
  • RICHARD STRAUSS Don Juan, Op. 20
  • Maurice RAVEL Piano Concerto in G major
  • Kelly-Marie Murphy Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe (NACO commission)
  • RICHARD STRAUSS Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration), Op. 24
  • In-person event
  • Bilingual
  • ≈ 2 hours · With intermission

In recognition and thanks for invaluable donor support, NAC English Theatre and NAC Indigenous Theatre reserve a limited number of complimentary seats for designated preview performances. Often, before the evening’s preview, a member of the production’s artistic team gives insights into the creative process and invites questions from donors.

Three things to know ...

  • Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son — whose popularity at home rivals that of K-pop stars — returns to NACO to perform a jazzy masterpiece by Ravel.
  • Even at 25 years old, Richard Strauss was already wrestling with notions of death and artistic fulfillment in his music.

After shaking the foundations of Southam Hall with her fiery NACO debut last season, pianist Yeol Eum Son makes her highly anticipated return to perform Maurice Ravel's glittering Concerto in G for piano and orchestra. Inspired by the Basque folk songs of his childhood and the hot jazz he heard while on tour in Harlem and New Orleans during the Roaring '20s, Ravel's captivating concerto journeys between moments of whip-crack humor and sweet nostalgia.

Two musical poems by Richard Strauss showcase the German composer's expert ability to tell vivid stories through music: Death and Transfiguration, a spiritual journey that finds serenity in the drama of the human experience, and Don Juan, in which Strauss places us in the center of the legendary Spanish womanizer's romantic adventures.

And as part of NAC Orchestra's ongoing Strauss Reimagined series, Don Juan receives a contemporary response in Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy's Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe — a tribute to the life and work of 19th-century Scottish astronomer Williamina Fleming.

Performance is approximately 2 hours including intermission

Artists

  • dscf9130-curtis-perry-2-cropped
    conductor Alexander Shelley
  • Piano Yeol Eum Son
  • bio-orchestra
    NAC Orchestra
  • Composer Kevin Lau