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Meet violist, composer and teaching artist Kathryn Cobbler
May 7, 2021“Arts Alive will serve as a catalyst for creativity and for artist engagement in the community.” Kathryn Cobbler is a loop pedal violist who has performed in some of the most notable concert series in Canada’s capital region, including Music & Beyond, the Shenkman Arts Centre, Music at…
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The Transformations Project
October 20, 2020“What would it take to transform our society for the betterment of all?”* This is a national project in which live performance companies from across Canada asked some of their favourite artists to approach the above question in whatever way they see fit. Visit the works now! The way it…
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Young Musicians Receive World Class Instruction from their Living Rooms
October 1, 2020The thing about music auditions is that it doesn’t matter whether you are playing for a jury in-person or via Zoom, the nerves can hit you just the same. Throughout the spring, in homes throughout the country and around the world, exceptional young musicians who were set to participate in…
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Chansons pour le musée
August 28, 2020In 2015, the amazing Karine Sauvé managed to dazzle us and make us laugh (!) with Les Grands-mères mortes. She was also seen in concert mode during the latest edition of the BIG BANG festival. She is now working on a sonic creation in which the ears will be directly connected to the heart.…
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The NAC Orchestra Romances Listeners with a Quartet of Recordings
August 24, 2020Under the direction of NAC Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra released new recordings in the spring of 2020 featuring Romantic music by Clara and Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms. The first album, Darlings of the Muses, included improvisations inspired…
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Canada’s Digital Stage
August 24, 2020#CanadaPerforms was initially launched on March 19 by the National Arts Centre and its founding partner, Facebook Canada. The short-term relief fund helped ease the financial strain for 700 professional Canadian artists and published authors impacted by the closure of performance venues and…
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NAC Superfan: Ken McKinlay
July 17, 2020Ken McKinlay has been coming to concerts at the National Arts Centre for more than 28 years. He sees at least 30 performances each season. Ken is the NAC Orchestra’s number one fan. “I’m missing the Orchestra like crazy,” says Ken, who last saw the NACO perform Mozart on February 26,…
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Les ballets de ci de là
May 22, 2020Ultimately, we strive to share the things that consume us: love, death, fear, solitude.” — Alain Platel (2005) An exclusive online screening: LES BALLETS DE CI DE LÀ* (click here to watch) directed by Alain Platel Belgium | 2006 | 110 minutes *In French and Flemish with French…
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Chip Hamann: Grateful in isolation
May 11, 2020A big part of an orchestra’s musician’s life is people. You sit beside them, breathe the same air, share a music stand, turn pages for each other. And you perform in a hall full of people, sometimes in the thousands. Musicians are also alone a lot, said Chip Hamann, Principal Oboe of the…
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Karen Donnelly and the 32 trumpet tribute
May 4, 2020Last month, 32 of the world’s top trumpet players came together over the internet to perform a tribute to front-line health care workers battling COVID-19. The song is A Hope for the Future by Matt Catingub and the video has more than 220,000 views. The musicians, who come from 14…
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Enriching Communities Through Music
November 7, 2019The Music Alive Program has been one of the NAC’s most far-reaching education initiatives. It connects teaching artists with children and youth in rural, Indigenous and underserved communities in Nunavut, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Atlantic Canada. About 300 events take place…
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The National Arts Centre at 50: Propelling Canada’s Voices
June 18, 2019By Christopher Deacon, President and CEO of the National Arts Centre. One month ago, I was sitting in the darkened hall of La Seine Musicale in Paris, overwhelmed. On three large screens, Indigenous dancers performed a choreography by the Mohawk dancer and choreographer Santee Smith in…
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A few comments on The Marriage of Figaro
June 7, 2019Susanna, Rosine, Marcellina, Barbarina and the rest It was barely two years after the opening night of The Marriage of Figaro, six years after its publication, that Mozart and Da Ponte transformed Beaumarchais’ lively ideological offering into a much more subversive musical work,…
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After Ypres: The Music of Two Nations Soars
November 9, 2018“We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts.” ― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front This November, the National Arts Centre will host two very special concerts in…
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Renewing the NAC’s Performance Halls and Production Facilities
July 3, 2018A few hours after the artists performing at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award left the Southam Hall stage, construction workers began work on a project that will dramatically improve the NAC’s performance halls and production facilities. Much of the NAC’s production equipment is…
