Organization

National Arts Centre

Conductor

Alexander Shelley

Instrumentalist

Pianist

Kevin Chen

Piano

Orchestra

National Arts Centre Orchestra (NAC)

Orchestre Symphonique de Québec

Others

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

NAC Orchestra with Orchestre symphonique de Québec - Ottawa

Ottawa

Canada

Southam Hall

NAC Orchestra with Orchestre symphonique de Québec - Ottawa: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 22 Saint-Saëns (+1 More)

Public

Concert

Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor

Symphony No.5

Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe

Approved

NAC Orchestra with Orchestre symphonique de Québec - Ottawa: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 22 Saint-Saëns (+2 More)

Orchestras from two capitals, Ottawa and Québec, will join forces for a program featuring Jacques Hétu's fifth and final symphony; the great Québecois composer's ode to freedom. Both orchestras will be joined by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir to perform this magnificent score.

Opening the program is Canadian piano sensation Kevin Chen, winner of First Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in March 2023, First Prize at the Geneva International Piano Competition in 2022, and First Prize at the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in 2021.

***

Les orchestres des deux capitales, Ottawa et Québec, unissent leurs forces pour un programme mettant en lumière la 5e symphonie de Jacques Hétu ode à la liberté et ultime œuvre du grand compositeur québécois. Les deux orchestres seront rejoint pour cette partition grandiose par le Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.

En première partie de programme, découvrez la jeune sensation canadienne du piano, Kevin Chen. Après sa présentation à Québec, ce programme prendra la route pour être présenté à Toronto et Ottawa. Cette collaboration d’exception entre l’Orchestre du Centre national des Arts et l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec se fera sous la direction musicale d’Alexander Shelley.

The National Arts Centre Orchestra joins forces with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec (OSQ), the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and sensational guest pianist Kevin Chen for the final stop on a multi-city tour.

Canadian composer Jacques Hétu’s Symphony No. 5 was his last work and “a hymn to liberty” (theglobeandmail.com). It portrays Nazi-occupied Paris and concludes with a choral setting (a musical piece based on a poem or story) of Paul Éluard’s poem Liberté, celebrating the end of the German occupation of the French capital. Hétu died just three weeks shy of the world premiere of this epic work by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 2010. 

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns was a true student of life: he wrote poetry and plays, was interested in astronomy, archaeology, philosophy, and literature, spoke many languages, and was a world traveller. He composed prolifically in virtually every genre of music, “as an apple tree bears apples.” Saint-Saëns wrote his Piano Concerto No. 2 in just 17 days and premiered the work himself, almost before the ink was dry on the page. Canadian pianist Kevin Chen found a place on CBC’s Top 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30 by the time he was eight, and, at 17, he added First Prize in the 2022 Concours de Genève International Music Competition to his long list of awards and prizes. In the realm of musical pairings, Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and pianist Kevin Chen are a match made in classical heaven.

English

NAC Orchestra with Orchestre symphonique de Québec - Ottawa by Saint-Saëns, Hétu, Murphy, K., From (2024/2024), Conductor Alexander Shelley, Southam Hall, Ottawa, Canada

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