“Alexander Shelley, the new music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, met his peeps Tuesday morning in both official languages, and with a new season brochure that features his face blending with Beethoven’s in a hologram,” writes Peter Robb in Wednesday’s (2/25) Ottawa Citizen (Canada). In past years, the annual festival of music opening the NACO season was “built on Beethoven or Mozart or the music of the Romantics. This year, the festival programmed by Shelley will jump into the 20th century through the explosion of music that happened in the Roaring Twenties,” ranging from Webern and Eisler in Germany, says Shelley, to Gershwin, Kurt Weill, and Charlie Chaplin. “The festival, called Fusion Reactions: Classical Music in the Roaring ’20s, will begin Oct. 8 and run for 10 days.… The next NACO season will also feature three new Canadian works, including adaptations of the short story Dear Life, by Alice Munro and the poem by Rita Joe called ‘I Lost My Talk,’ with music by Edmonton composer John Estacio. The third new work, by composer Ana Sokolovic, called Golden slumbers fill my eyes, will feature a choir and orchestra…. The season will close June 2 and 3, 2016, with an homage to Richard Wagner.”
Pictured: National Arts Centre Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley
Posted February 26, 2015
