Violin Virtuoso James Ehnes gives a dazzling start to NAC Orchestra's Northern Canada Tour

The third Ovation Series concert of the NAC Orchestra’s 2012-2013 season -- conducted by Arild Remmereit -- features extraordinary Manitoba-born violin virtuoso James Ehnes. Mr Ehnes joins the NAC Orchestra to dazzle audiences with two of Saint-Saëns’s Spanish-inspired concertos – both full of melodic brilliance and technical fireworks. The concert also features music by Mozart and Canadian composer Alexina Louie. Violin Virtuoso James Ehnes is at 8 p.m. in the NAC’s Southam Hall on Wednesday October 24 and Thursday October 25, 2012.

Violin Virtuoso James Ehnes – October 24-25

ALEXINA LOUIE       Take the Dog Sled
SAINT-SAËNS            Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso
SAINT-SAËNS            Havanaise for Violin and Orchestra
MOZART                    Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550

• Arild Remmereit and James Ehnes lend their passion to the NAC Orchestra’s Northern Canada Tour, which begins just after this concert. Alexina Louie’s Take the Dog Sled, a composition for small ensemble and 2 Inuit throat singers, will be performed on the tour
• Hailed as "the Jascha Heifetz of our day" (Globe and Mail, Toronto), Canadian violinist James Ehnes is widely considered one of the most dynamic and exciting performers in classical music. He has performed in over 30 countries on five continents, appearing regularly with many of the world's most well-known orchestras and conductors
• The music of Alexina Louie blends traditional and nontraditional elements of Western music, poetic images, nature, historical studies, and heavenly phenomena. One of the most frequently performed Canadian classical composers, Alexina Louie is a two-time JUNO Award-winner
• In 2002, the National Arts Centre named Alexina Louie as one of three recipients of the $75,000 NAC Composer Awards. Dr. Louie’s commissions include String Quartet No. 2 (2003) and Infinite Sky with Birds for full orchestra (2006). A commissioned orchestration of Bringing the Tiger Down From the Mountain II was premiered at the NAC. In addition, the National Arts Centre and CBC co-commissioned Shattered Night, Shivering Stars (1997), which won a JUNO Award. Louie's most recent composition (Alliance Films, April 2011) is Mulroney: The Opera, a musical satire of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s life
• The works by Saint-Saëns are short, flashy, and virtuosic
• Mozart wrote his Symphony No. 40 in 1788. It is sometimes referred to as the "Great G minor symphony"; it is one of only two minor key symphonies Mozart ever wrote. The composition occupied an exceptionally productive period of just a few weeks in summer 1788, during which time he also completed the 39th and 41st symphonies

For additional information, visit the NAC website at www.nac-cna.ca

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Information:
Andrea Hossack
Communications Officer, NAC Music
613-947-7000, ext. 335
[email] andrea.hossack@nac-cna.ca