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.

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

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

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

‘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.

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.”

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.

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

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).