Orchestras Canada

The Canada Council for the Arts has announced the appointment of Aimé Dontigny as the Head of the Music Section, succeeding Russell Kelley, who retired in December. He is an accomplished electro-acoustic musician and administrator who’s been working at the Council since 2007, and he starts right away. Congratulations, Aimé!

Congratulations to the gifted young musicians who took part in NAC Orchestra Bursary Competition this year. The big winners were bassoonist Darren Hicks, flutist Christian Paquette, clarinettist Nicholas Galuban, harpist Antoine Malette-Chénier, and trombonist Riccardo Nazario del Castello, with honourable mentions going to flutists Lara Deutsch and Graham McVeety and oboist Aidan Dugan. The NAC Orchestra Bursary was established in 1979 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and to thank the people of the National Capital Region for their support during the Orchestra’s first decade. The first competition took place in 1981. The Bursary Committee and Jury were chaired for the second year by Roderick Bell, passionate music lover, former Canadian Ambassador to Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and an active volunteer at the National Arts Centre.

The Ontario Trillium Foundation has announced that Andrea Cohen, a community health services executive, has been named as its next CEO, succeeding Robin Cardozo.

At its late May concerts with pianist Yevgeny Sudbin, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra will also celebrate the 40th anniversary of its association with Conductor Laureate Kazuyoshi Akiyama. Amazingly, Maestro Akiyama began his twelve year tenure as VSO Music Director in 1972.

The Calgary Philharmonic has advised that the 2012-13 season brings a promotion for Mélanie Léonard, the CPO’s Resident Conductor for the last four seasons. Effective in September, Ms. Léonard will take on the role of Associate Conductor.

Luce Moreau, President and CEO of the Orchestre Metropolitain since 2008, has stepped down from that role, effective immediately.

ADMINISTRATIVE / ADMINISTRATIFS

National Arts Centre Orchestra / Orchestre du Centre national des arts
Communication Officer / Agent(e) de communication
Application deadline/Date limite : June 4 juin 2012

Goh Ballet Academy
Business Administrative Associate & Student Affairs Coordinator
Application deadline/Date limite : May 30 mai 2012

The City of Ottawa has decreed May 7-13 as National Arts Centre Orchestra week. This sixth annual celebration of all things NACO will highlight the role of the NAC Orchestra and its musicians in performance at the NAC and in the community. Celebratory events include an array of public events (ranging from the finals of the NAC Orchestra Bursary Competition to small ensemble concerts to full orchestra performances), as well as events for schools, seniors, and people in long term care facilities (in partnership with the Health Arts Society).

For more information, click here or visit the NACO website.

On Saturday, May 12, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra gives the long-awaited public premiere of a new work for narrator and orchestra, based on a beloved Canadian story. It’s Roch Carrier’s The Hockey Sweater, with music by Abigail Richardson, and the work (which debuted for school audiences in April) will get its public debut on the TSO’s Young People’s Concert series. The performances include screens that the whole audience will be able to view, projecting Sheldon Cohen’s illustrations from the book and dazzling images of our Canadian landscape. Alain Trudel conducts, Roch Carrier himself narrates, and Ken Dryden will host.

The new work is a joint commission between the TSO, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and the National Arts Centre Orchestra.

Last week, the National Arts Centre Orchestra introduced another innovative offering on its website: a unique new feature showcasing ten streamed live recordings of the orchestra and its internationally acclaimed guest artists, with two more concerts to be added before the end of the 2011-12 season (and another 7 to 10 concerts per year to be added in subsequent seasons).

‘Concerts on Demand’ is available 24 hours a day/7 days a week and features uninterrupted, commercial-free performances by the National Arts Centre Orchestra and internationally acclaimed guest artists. Each concert has its own audio file and a virtual house program (a .pdf file) which includes program notes and biographies of the artists.

A mobile app is in the works. You can find all this goodness online at nacmusicbox.ca.

Three of Orchestras Canada members are presenting short festivals this month, within the context of their regular seasons.

In Ottawa, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (led by Music Director Pinchas Zukerman) is presenting a pair of performances, April 19 and 20, of all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. The concerts feature NACO principal players, augmented by trumpeter Andrew McCandless and harpsichordist-for-the-occasion, John Kimura Parker. As well, both programs will feature a pre-concert performance by organist Thomas Annand – and we suspect Bach’s music will be on the agenda there, too.

Meanwhile in Halifax, Symphony Nova Scotia’s 29th season wraps up with a three-concert French Festival, April 18-22. The festival includes a Musically Speaking program, starring SNS Concertmaster Robert Uchida and Halifax pianist Peter Allen in sonatas by Debussy and Ravel, as well as Massenet’s famous “Meditation” from Thaïs; a pair of large-orchestra concerts, led by SNS Music Director Bernhard Gueller, and including such repertoire as Ravel’s Bolero, Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto no. 2, Fauré’s Requiem, and Saint-Saëns’ massive Organ Symphony. For these last two programs, over 70 professional orchestral musicians will be onstage at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium – a first in Halifax since the early 1980s.

And the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony is presenting a short festival celebrating the life and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The festival, running April 18 to 22, includes a pair of orchestral concerts led by KWS Music Director Edwin Outwater (with an array of soloists and guest artists), a special screening of Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus with a post-event talk back with a renowned musicologist, and what’s promised to be “some extra fun in the lobby at all three Mozart concerts.”

Pinchas Zukerman, the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s music director since 1999, announced earlier this week that he will be stepping down from the role in August, 2015.  Speaking about Maestro Zukerman’s decision, Peter Herrndorf (the NAC’s President and CEO) said, “The NAC has benefitted immeasurably from his leadership on the podium, his artistry as a soloist and his deep commitment to music education. Pinchas Zukerman has made a profound contribution to the musical life of Canada and the world and has served as a transformational figure at the National Arts Centre. He will be greatly missed.”

Vancouver’s Musicfest has just announced the appointment of Matthew Baird as its new program director, succeeding George Laverock. Baird is well-known to Canadian orchestras through his many years of work at the CBC.

Orchestra News notes, with sadness, the passing of violinist and violist Eleanora Turovsky, founding concertmaster of I Musici de Montréal, a 12-year member of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and a well-known teacher at the Université de Montréal.

Last week, the National Arts Centre Orchestra live-streamed its 2012-13 season launch – and by all accounts, it was a stellar affair. The season marks Pinchas Zukerman’s 14th as music director – and it’s action packed! Highlights include a Beethoven festival, a tour of northern Canada, two world premieres by Peter Paul Koprowski and Ana Sokolovic, an all-Strauss program, presented in partnership with Montreal’s L’Orchestre Métropolitain (and led by that orchestra’s popular Maestro, Yannick Nézet-Séguin), chamber concerts, children’s concerts, pops performances, solo recitals, and a pair of guest orchestras: Les Violons du Roy and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. For more information, please visit nac-cna.ca.

AUDITIONS

National Arts Centre Orchestra / Orchestre du centre national des arts
Second Oboe / Deuxième hautbois
Application deadline/Date limite : April 2 avril 2012

Victoria Symphony
Principal Second Violin
Section Violin (2 positions)
Principal Percussion
Application deadline/Date limite : April 10 avril 2012

February 25-29, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Institute for Orchestral Studies will host a workshop for emerging professional and pre-professional Canadian conductors. The workshop, led by conductor and teacher Kenneth Kiesler is designed to complement the conducting program at the NAC’s Summer Music Institute.

Five conductors will take part in the program: Antonio Delgado (trained through Venezuala’s renowned El Sistema, and, since 2010, music director of the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra and Sistema NB), Nadège Foofat (leader of the Esopus Chamber Orchestra of upper New York State, and a graduate of Juilliard and Yale), Dina Gilbert (founder and artistic director of the Ensemble Arkea, a Montreal-based chamber orchestra, assistant conductor of the Peterborough Symphony and Kawartha Youth Orchestra, and trained at the Université de Montréal), Philippe Ménard (Music Director of the Orchestre Philharmonique des Musiciens Étudiants de Montréal, and a graduate of the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal), and Lucas Waldin (resident conductor with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Music).