Canada’s NAC Orchestra’s fifth release with Music Director Alexander Shelley is exclusively digital and available at www.analekta.com and through music streaming and download services.

 

Friday September 13, 2019 – OTTAWA (Canada) — Canada’s NAC Orchestra is releasing three teaser tracks, digital-only, to herald an upcoming cycle: “Clara, Robert, Johannes” (working title). September 13^th marks the 200^th anniversary of Clara Schumann’s birthday.

 

A full-length album coming in Spring 2020 will be the first of four to be released within the new cycle over the next two years.This recording cycle explores the closely intertwined personal and artistic connections between three musical giants: Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. NAC Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley is working with Clara Schumann scholar Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Brahms biographer Jan Swafford, to shape an insightful narrative illustrating the lives and works of these three Romantics. Robert Schumann’s and Johannes Brahms’ symphonies will be paired, and combined with Clara Schumann’s chamber works and extant orchestral pieces, including some special gems.

 

“I have always loved these symphonies and saw many links between them. It was a real pleasure performing them with this Orchestra in 2016, and it’s always been my dream to record them and release them together. No story of these two composers is complete without Clara, much more famous in her lifetime than her husband, and a strong influence on both Robert and Johannes.  We crafted this vision with Clara Schumann scholar Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, to combine the symphonies with pieces by Clara in ways that provide an insightful narrative to the intertwined lives and works of these three Romantics.”- NAC Music Director, Alexander Shelley.

 

The teaser tracks are available at www.analekta.com; Spotify; Apple Music; iTunes Store.

 

Canada’s NAC Orchestra Recording History

 

The NAC Orchestra was formed 50 years ago at the creation of Canada’s National Arts Centre and gives over 100 performances a year with world-renowned artists. 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. In 2015 Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. In addition to a full series of subscription concerts at the National Arts Centre each season, the Orchestra tours throughout Canada and around the world.

The NAC Orchestra has recorded many of the more than 80 new works commissioned since its inception, for radio and on over 40 commercial recordings. These include Angela Hewitt’s 2015 JUNO Award-winning album of Mozart Piano Concertos; the groundbreaking Life Reflected, which includes My Name is Amanda Todd by Jocelyn Morlock, winner of the 2018 JUNO for Classical Composition of the Year; and from the 2019 JUNO nominated New Worlds, Ana Sokolović’s Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes, 2019 JUNO Winner for Classical Composition of the Year.

 

ABOUT ALEXANDER SHELLEY

Alexander Shelley became Music Director of the NAC Orchestra in September 2015; he is Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and was Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra 2009–2017. Since being awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conducting Competition, Mr. Shelley has been in demand from orchestras around the world, including the Philharmonia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra Svizzera Italiana, Stockholm Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Simón Bolívar, Seattle, and Houston Symphony Orchestras. He is a regular guest with the top Asian and Australasian orchestras. This release with the NAC Orchestra follows Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, New Worlds, and The Bounds Of Our Dreams.

 

ABOUT ANALEKTA

Founded in 1987 by François Mario Labbé, Analekta is the largest independent classical music record company in Canada. It has produced more than 500 albums and recorded more than 200 of the country’s most prominent musicians, winning multiple awards in the process. In early 2019, Analekta achieved the impressive feat of having the works in its catalogue streamed 130 million times on international streaming platforms.

 

THANK YOU TO OUR DONORS.

The NAC Orchestra Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe.

 

- 30 -