Orchestra hits the road for Canada 150
NACO to tour Atlantic, Western Canada, meet musical talents and audiences as part of Canada’s 150th anniversary
The National Arts Centre Orchestra will mark Canada’s sesquicentennial by touring Atlantic Canada this spring and Western and Northern Canada in the fall, NACO musical director Alexander Shelley is to announce Thursday.
NACO’s Canada 150 tour, the first that Shelley will lead since the English conductor took over the orchestra’s helm in 2015, will include performances of not only music by Dvorak, Sibelius and other classical giants, but also pieces from the ambitious and contemporary Life Reflected project that Shelley commissioned as a signature work for the orchestra.
In an interview, Shelley said he feels “excited and privileged” about his first Canadian tour with the NACO. He said he’s also glad that the NACO’s travels that will begin a month from now will take it beyond larger cities in Atlantic Canada to meet musical talents and audiences in smaller towns and indigenous communities.
Shelley added that his first tour with the NACO will be a “special moment” because being on the road with his fellow musicians will allow him to deepen his bonds with them. “It will bring us closer,” he said.
During the run through Atlantic Canada from April 26 to May 7, I Lost My Talk, written by Edmonton-based composer John Estacio for the Life Reflected project, will conclude each of the orchestra’s six major concerts. Inspired by Mi’kmaq poet Rita Joe’s poem of the same name about her experience at Shubenacadie Residential School in Nova Scotia, I Lost My Talk augments the orchestra’s performance with a simultaneous film presentation and live narration by Guna and Rappahannock actor Monique Mojica. The performances will take place in St. John’s, Moncton, Charlottetown, Saint John, Halifax and, perhaps most significantly, at the hockey arena of Eskasoni First Nation on Cape Breton Island, which is the world’s largest Mi’kmaq community and the home of Joe, who died in 2007, and her family. “There’s a special poignancy to performing it in her home for her community,” Shelley said.
The Atlantic Canada concerts will also feature renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes, a 10-time Juno Award winner, as a soloist with the orchestra, performing Erich Korngold’s Violin Concerto.
The May 3 visit to Eskasoni First Nation will also include a band clinic for more than 200 Cape Breton music students, which is one of dozens of educational and outreach activities that Shelley and the orchestra will undertake during the Atlantic Canada tour.
In Moncton from April 28 to 30, the NAC will be expanding its Music Alive Program, which has already encouraged musical development for young people in remote and rural communities in the Prairies and Nunavut, into Atlantic Canada when the NACO will take part in a summit meeting for young indigenous performers. Also in New Brunswick, the orchestra will work and perform with that province’s Sistema organization, which fosters social change by supporting musical education and experiences for children.
Of this concert and other collaborations and meetings with local musicians, Shelley said, “Yes we’re performing core repertoire. But we also want the communities to be involved. Hopefully it will be a really engaging sort of experience of all of us.”
In Newfoundland, NACO members will meet and assist in the professional development of teachers, and Shelley will lead a school concert featuring the Newfoundland Symphony Youth Orchestra. In P.E.I., Shelley will conduct local choirs, and in Halifax there will be a musical evening featuring African Nova Scotian artists and youth.
The orchestra’s touring resumes in mid-October, when it will be away for at least two weeks in Central and Western Canada. Concerts are planned for Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria and Vancouver. Tour stops in November are being arranged for venues in the Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories.
During the tour’s Western leg, the orchestra will be joined by acclaimed 22-year-old, Calgaryraised pianist Jan Lisiecki as a soloist. As well, at some of the fall performances, the NACO will perform Life Reflected in its entirety.
In addition to I Lost My Talk, the rich multimedia work includes pieces that were respectively inspired by the work of writer Alice Munro, and the lives of astronaut Roberta Bondar and Amanda Todd, the Port Coquitlam, B.C., 15-year-old who was cyberbullied and then committed suicide in October 2012. The works of Life Reflected were premièred last year in Ottawa.
The orchestra’s experiences while on tour will be documented on the website nacotour.ca, with daily updates appearing on the orchestra’s Facebook page and the NAC’s Twitter account, @CanadasNAC.