OTTAWA (Canada) –  On September 16 and 17 don’t miss the opening nights of Alexander Shelley’s inaugural season as Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, in a concert titled “Echoes of Childhood.”

This Mark Motors Audi Signature Series concert features contrasting takes on life and childhood. The program begins with Elgar’s exuberant Wand of Youth Suite, a white-water rapid of innocence, composed when he was just a boy. This is paired with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in G major with its radiant setting of a poem depicting a child’s view of heaven.

The centerpiece of Shelley’s opening performance is the world premiere of Dear Life, a creative new work commissioned by the NAC and inspired by Nobel Prize-winner Alice Munro’s semi-autobiographical short story “Dear Life.” Creative Producer and Director Donna Feore has set the work in an immersive visual stage experience. Music, sound, and images by Magnum photographer Larry Towell will surround Munro’s words and the stage.

The idea for Dear Life was dreamed up by Shelley back in 2013, when he became inspired after reading Alice Munro’s short story. The music for Dear Life is written by award-winning Canadian composer Zosha Di Castri, adaptation by Merilyn Simonds, and features soprano Erin Wall and recorded narration by legendary Canadian actor Martha Henry.

“I had always intended to open my first season with a new Canadian commission and in Munro’s words an inspiration had been found.  Taking poetry and literature and allowing them to be the source of inspiration for music is an age-old idea. But now we have far more media that we can work with.”

“When I first saw Zosha Di Castri’s sensational score for Dear Life I couldn’t tear myself away. This is a concert that I know will be thought provoking, and I am thrilled to open my tenure with the NAC Orchestra by premiering this exceptionally beautiful and deep work.”

Don’t miss the spectacular Opening Nights with Alexander Shelley featuring the sublime and lyrical Mahler Symphony No. 4. Tickets start at $25 and are available online at NAC-CNA.ca.

Please come early, at 7 p.m, on concert night, to listen in on a conversation between music critic Jean-Jacques Van Vlasselaer and Alexander Shelley, in the main NAC lobby.

 

IN APPRECIATION

The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank the following individuals and organizations for their support in helping Alexander Shelley realize his vision of promoting and investing in new Canadian work: Gail Asper, O.C., O.M., LL.D., & Michael Paterson; Kimberley Bozak & Philip Deck; Alice & Grant Burton; The Right Honourable Joe Clark, P.C.,C.C., A.O.E., & Maureen McTeer; Barbara Crook & Dan Greenberg, Danbe Foundation; Thomas d’Aquino & Susan Peterson d’Aquino; Mohammed A. Faris; Susan Glass & Arni Thorsteinson; The Dianne & Irving Kipnes Foundation; Janice & Earle O’Born; Gail & David O’Brien; Power Corporation of Canada; Dasha Shenkman OBE, Hon RCM; Kenneth & Margaret Torrance, and friends; Donald Walcot.

 

ALEXANDER SHELLEY BIOGRAPHY

In September 2015 Alexander Shelley took up the mantle as Music Director, leading a new era for the National Arts Centre’s Orchestra. He is currently in his seventh year as Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra where he has transformed the orchestra’s playing, education work and touring activities which have included tours to Italy, Belgium, China and a re-invitation to the Musikverein in Vienna. In January 2015 Shelley was named Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in which capacity he will curate and perform a series of concerts at Cadogan Hall each season and will lead the orchestra on a tour of Korea in 2016.

Born in the UK in 1979, Shelley first gained widespread attention when he was unanimously awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors Competition and was described as "the most exciting and gifted young conductor to have taken this highly prestigious award. His conducting technique is immaculate, everything crystal clear and a tool to his inborn musicality."

He is the son of celebrated concert pianists, the grandson of a talented cellist and the great grandson of an equally talented organist. He has been described in the press as a “musician of considerable gifts and extraordinarily impressive interpretive qualities” (Strauss, Elgar and Sibelius in London), a conductor with "exceptional artistic authority" (Brahms with DSO Berlin) and described his Verdi Requiem in Salzburg as an "original, intelligent, thoroughly convincing and well-crafted interpretation."

Since then he has been in demand from orchestras around the world including the Philharmonia, City of Birmingham Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Stockholm Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Simon Bolivar, Seattle and Houston Symphony Orchestras.  Further afield Shelley is a regular guest with the top Asian and Australasian orchestras.

Shelley’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet for Royal Danish Opera; La Bohème for Opera Lyra at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Iolanta with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Cosi fan tutte in Montpellier and a new production of The Marriage of Figaro for Opera North in 2015.

Alongside his regular appearances in London, Ottawa and Nuremberg, Shelley will in the coming seasons return to, among others, the DSO Berlin, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, NDR Radio Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Hong Kong, New Zealand and Melbourne Symphony orchestras. Forthcoming debuts include Camerata Salzburg, Czech Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Orchestra Svizzera Italiana, Oslo Philharmonic and RTÉ Orchestra. His first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, an album with Daniel Hope and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, was released in September 2014.

In Germany he enjoys a close relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, with whom he performs regularly both in subscriptions in Bremen, and around Germany, and in October 2013 he took the orchestra on tour to Italy with a signature programme of Strauss, Wagner and Brahms.  Alexander Shelley and which uses music as a source for social cohesion and integration He is artistic director of their Zukunftslabor project - an award-winning series which aims to build a lasting relationship between the orchestra and community, winning over a new generation of concert-goers through grass-roots engagement.  

Inspiring future generations of musicians and audiences has always been central to Shelley’s work. In spring 2014, he conducted an extended tour of Germany with the Bundesjugendorchester and Bundesjugendballett which included a collaborative concert at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival with Sir Simon Rattle and members of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2001, during his cello and conducting studies in Dusseldorf, he founded the Schumann Camerata with whom he created "440Hz", an innovative concert series involving prominent German television, stage and musical personalities, conceived by him as a major initiative to attract young adults to the concert hall.

 

ABOUT THE NAC ORCHESTRA

In September 2015 Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director with the National Arts Centre’s Orchestra. Shelley has an unwavering reputation as one of Europe’s leading young conductors, notably as Chief conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra and most recently as the Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Formed in 1969 at the opening of Canada's National Arts Centre, the NAC Orchestra gives over 100 performances a year with renowned artists including Itzhak Perlman, Renée Fleming, James Ehnes, Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma. It is noted for the passion and clarity of its performances and recordings, its ground-breaking teaching and outreach programs, and nurturing of Canadian creativity.

Since its inception the Orchestra has commissioned 80 works, mostly from Canadian composers. In 2001 it inaugurated the National Arts Centre Awards for Canadian Composers and the recipients thus far have been Denys Bouliane, John Estacio, Peter Paul Koprowski, Gary Kulesha, Alexina Louie and Ana Sokolovic.

Previous NAC Orchestra Music Directors include Pinchas Zukerman, Mario Bernardi and Trevor Pinnock. The 2015-16 season features Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds , Alain Trudel as Principal Youth and Family Conductor and Principal Pops Conductor Jack Everly completing the strong artistic team.

In addition to a full series of subscription concerts at the National Arts Centre each season, tours are undertaken to regions throughout Canada and around the world, most recently to China (2013) and the UK (2014). The latter commemorated the start of the First World War and explored themes of remembrance and healing through music in over 50 education and performance events. Following the footsteps of Canadian troops 100 years ago, it showcased the brilliant work of Canadian composers and the NAC Orchestra's musicians, both as performers and as educators, and received standing ovations in packed halls throughout the UK.

In 1999, Pinchas Zukerman founded the NAC Young Artists Program, part of the wider NAC Summer Music Institute, which provides elite training to talented young musicians. Students all over the world are also taught via videoconferencing in the NAC's cutting-edge Hexagon Studio. The Orchestra also created and continues to pioneer education work locally and in indigenous communities in northern Canada.

The NAC Orchestra has made over 40 commercial recordings, including Angela Hewitt’s 2014 Juno Award-winning album of Mozart Piano Concertos conducted by Hannu Lintu. Many more concerts are freely available through NACmusicbox.ca on the NAC's performing arts education website ArtsAlive.ca. These include many of the 100 new Canadian works commissioned by the NAC Orchestra in its 45 year history.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Andrea Ruttan
Communications Officer, NAC Orchestra
Agente de Communication, Orchestre de CNA
Andrea.Ruttan@nac-cna.ca
613 947-7000 x335
613 220-5487 (mobile)