Organization

Conductor

Alexander Shelley

Instrumentalist

Pianist

Kevin Chen

Piano

Orchestra

National Arts Centre Orchestra (NAC)

Orchestre Symphonique de Québec

Others

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

NACO + OSQ: Hétu Symphony No. 5

Toronto

Canada

Roy Thomson Hall

Public

Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor

Symphony No.5

Approved

NACO + OSQ: Hétu Symphony No. 5: Piano Concerto No. 2 in G minor, op. 22 Saint-Saëns (+1 More)

Alexander Shelley leads the combined forces of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Orchestre symphonique de Québec, paying homage to one of Canada’s most original voices, Jacques Hétu, with a performance of his final work, the Fifth Symphony, originally commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The four movements of Hétu’s Fifth portray 1940 before, during, and after the Nazi invasion of France, capped off by the poem “Liberté” set
to music. Hétu passed just three weeks before the TSO’s première of his work in 2010. Opening the performance is Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which, as one piano critic stated, “begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach”—a nod to the work’s contrasting themes and solo piano line, which is virtuosic yet not too flashy, performed by young artist Kevin Chen.

English

NACO + OSQ: Hétu Symphony No. 5 by Saint-Saëns, Hétu, From (2024/2024), Conductor Alexander Shelley, Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, Canada

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Instrumentation

Ensemble

Program, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues