National Arts Centre to stream concerts online

Music lovers can now listen to free online concerts performed at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre.

The NAC has announced that its new website, called NAC Orchestra Concerts on Demand (nacmusicbox.ca), will offer uninterrupted, commercial-free performances by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and guest artists. Each concert has its own audio file and a PDF file, which includes program notes and biographies of the artists.

Ten concerts are currently available, with two more to be added later this season. Approximately seven to 10 new concerts per season will be added in future years. Concerts will be posted online within 10 days of the performance.

Repertoire includes works by Thomas Ades, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Copland, Dvorak, Haydn, Jacques Hétu, Gary Kulesha, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Rachmaninoff, Rossini, Nino Rota, Schubert, Schumann, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, and Vaughan Williams.

Conductors include National Arts Centre Orchestra Music Director Pinchas Zukerman, Hannu Lintu, Arild Remmereit, Alexander Shelley, and Thomas Sondergard.

Featured artists/soloists include such celebrated names as Yefim Bronfman, Kirill Gerstein, Viviane Hagner, Leila Josefowicz, Louis Lortie, Andrew Mccandless, Jon Kimura Parker, Juho Pohjonen, Avan Yu, and Pinchas Zukerman, as well as soloists from the NAC Orchestra, including Amanda Forsyth, Joanna G’froerer, Yosuke Kawasaki, Emily Marks, and Joel Quarrington.

Concerts on Demand is a Flash application; a mobile application is in the works.