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A Golden era: Pinchas Zukerman and the National Arts Centre Orchestra
June 15, 2015When Pinchas Zukerman became Music Director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 1999, a heady mixture of surprise and delight swept across Canada. As one of the finest violinists and violists of his generation — of any generation — Maestro Zukerman could have chosen another orchestra…
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A Harmonic Storm: Daniel Lanois with the NAC Orchestra
May 1, 2015In June 2013 Daniel Lanois visited the National Arts Centre to receive the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement. Two years later Lanois is once again backstage at the NAC's Southam Hall - this time as a performer. "It's nice to experience this beautiful edifice…
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Hip-hop in Baker Lake, Nunavut
April 22, 2015The Music Alive Program: Nunavut funded a hip-hop week in Baker Lake from March 9 to March 12. Nelson Tagoona, who performed at the NAC’s Northern Scene a couple of years ago, taught eight workshops on a style he’s credited with inventing— an entirely new category of music called throat-…
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Nicholas Atkinson interviews Alexander Shelley
March 24, 2015The NACOcast, a classical music podcast produced by the National Arts Centre, regularly rates in the top five classical music podcasts on iTunes. Hosted by Nicholas Atkinson, Principal Tuba of the NAC Orchestra, the series explores the broad world of orchestral music and its great…
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Creative insights
March 13, 2015Attending pre-rehearsal chats and open rehearsals are one of the many benefits donors receive when they support performance, creation and learning across Canada through the National Arts Centre Foundation. Recently, on two separate occasions, composer Mark Neikrug and theatre director…
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A violin’s personality: Timothy Chooi and his 1729 Guarneri del Gesù
January 19, 2015When musicians perform they become one with their instrument. For violinists, the bow is an extension of their arm, and the sound communicates their emotions and interpretation of the score. While training at the National Arts Centre's Summer Music Institute, Timothy Chooi (age 20) took…
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Dark and friendly: Christopher Millard on why he loves bassoon
January 6, 2015Q & A with Christopher Millard, Principal Bassoon, NAC Orchestra A Bassoon Concerto – since WHEN does a bassoon get up and solo as frontman to an entire orchestra and audience, please? Not often. We are usually content to sit amongst our more flamboyant woodwind colleagues, trying to…
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Standing Out: Paul Wells on conductor John Storgårds
January 5, 2015Audiences could be forgiven if guest conductors start to blur together after a while. For the space of two hours (or so it seems to us from our seat in the auditorium), our beloved NAC Orchestra is in the hands of a visitor from afar who, as often as not, doesn’t say a word and spends most…
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CBC Television: Historic Salisbury concert to air on Christmas day
December 19, 2014On Christmas Day, Canadians are invited to watch the extraordinary performance of the National Arts Centre Orchestra on CBC Television from Salisbury Cathedral to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War. The haunting beauty of one of the United Kingdom’s…
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Why a late blooming arts lover is supporting the NAC
December 12, 2014Lawyer Michael Segal admits he wasn’t much of an arts lover in his youth. “I grew up with sports,” he says. “It was my wife, Hedy, who studied music and introduced me to the performing arts.” And so, Michael didn’t know what to expect when Hedy took him to his first ballet at the NAC many…
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Singing Messiah: Keeping it fresh, with help from Woody Woodpecker
December 11, 2014I have the great pleasure to prepare the chorus for the National Arts Centre Orchestra's production of Handel's Messiah, an event I have enjoyed for over 27 years. My job is to keep the chorus on their toes, rehearsing the movements in a variety of tempi, articulation and dynamics. Add…
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Explore the Symphony: The passion behind the podcast
December 9, 2014Tucked into the back corner of the NAC’s lobby the Hexagon Studio is a small space where big ideas are discussed. It is the home of NAC podcasting and it is where NAC Orchestra musician Marjolaine Fournier and music critic Jean-Jacques van Vlasselaer can be seen engaged in passionate…
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Preserving and sharing the beauty of music
November 24, 2014How do we preserve beauty? We take photographs of perfect moments; we use video to memorialize baby’s first hesitant steps; and we write carefully chosen words to describe an event or a feeling. We do these things so that we can revisit and share the emotions we first felt upon…
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The ultimate gift: A dance to honour prima ballerina Anik Bissonnette
November 19, 2014There was a magical moment at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Gala last May and it began with a phone call to Guillaume Côté, principal dancer and choreographic associate with the National Ballet of Canada. “I called Guillaume in January and asked him if he would do a tribute…
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Behind the scenes at pianist Jan Lisiecki’s portrait shoot
November 14, 2014When Jan Lisiecki was only ten years old, he stepped onto the stage to perform with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. “The NAC musicians were extremely kind, though perhaps slightly skeptical. That’s only natural when you’re ten and playing with such an acclaimed orchestra. But they were…