≈ 2 hours · With intermission
Last updated: September 16, 2024
Welcome to SPHERE 2024!
SPHERE celebrates the near-endless artistic and intellectual inspiration that our natural world awakens in us. Through the eyes, ears, and bodies of artists, and in this city at the confluence of rivers, we will explore the symbiosis between our creativity and the surroundings that catalyze it. We will reflect on our fragile relationship with Mother Earth and how the confluence of art, science, and ethics will inform the coming chapters in our shared history. As a wave of brilliant and visionary artists from across genres and generations sweeps into Canada’s National Arts Centre, we warmly invite you to join them and us on this journey of multi-disciplinary discovery and artistic dialogue.
Welcome to SPHERE 2024!
A Message from Renée Fleming
When I was 14, the film Soylent Green was released, a sci-fi thriller about a dystopian future of worldwide pollution, dying oceans, depleted resources, and rampant starvation. The story was set in the year 2022.
The movie has faded from memory, but one scene left a profound impression. An aged researcher, unable to go on, has chosen assisted suicide at a government clinic. To ease his last moments of life, he is shown videos of a world that no longer exists: flowers and savannahs, flocks and herds, unpolluted skies and waters, all set to a soundtrack of classical music by Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, and Grieg.
This scene captured my imagination in a terrifying way. The impact increased when I later learned that the actor playing the researcher, Edward G. Robinson, was terminally ill at the time it was filmed.
Fast-forward to the pandemic. After more than two decades of constant touring, usually to urban cultural centres, performances abruptly ceased, and I suddenly found myself at home. I sought comfort in long walks outside near my house. I needed this time outdoors to maintain my emotional equilibrium, and I was reminded that nature would always be my touchstone. At the same time, the news about climate change grew more alarming: the extinction of animals we took for granted when we were children, the knowledge that white rhinos had disappeared from the wild, and daily reports of heat, fires, and flooding. I realized that the crisis we had been warned of for so long had arrived.
I thought of the great legacy of song literature that I loved when Romantic-era poets and composers revelled in imagery of nature, finding reflections of human experience in the environment. I decided to record some of this music and to juxtapose these classics with the voices of living composers, addressing our current, troubled relationship with the natural world.
The result, in collaboration with my friend Yannick Nézet-Séguin, was the album Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene. When it received the 2023 Grammy Award for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album, I was thrilled, and I had the idea to tour music addressing this theme of nature as both our inspiration and our victim.
I was incredibly fortunate to connect with the imaginative, dedicated leadership at the National Geographic Society, the global non-profit committed to exploring, illuminating, and protecting the wonder of our world. It has been so exciting to work with this universally respected, landmark institution. I am deeply grateful for the help of President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Ulica, Chief Executive Officer Jill Tiefenthaler, and Producer/Editor Sam Deleon, whose expertise and vision have been instrumental in creating the video you will see in the second half of tonight’s program.
Thankfully, the stunning natural world depicted in this film still exists, unlike that movie scene so upsetting to my younger self. In blending these beautiful images with music, my hope is, in some small way, to rekindle your appreciation of nature, and encourage any efforts you can make to protect the planet we share.
Sincerely,
THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNERS
Thank you to our visionary donors Earle O’Born and Janice O’Born, C.M., O.Ont. for their generous support of SPHERE.
Program
National Arts Centre Orchestra
Alexander Shelley, conductor
Mahani Teave, piano
Kala Ramnath, Hindustani violin
Renée Fleming, soprano
MANUEL DE FALLA Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain) (23 minutes)
I. En el Generalife (In the Generalife)
II. Danza lejaña (Distant Dance)
III. En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba (In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba)
REENA ESMAIL & KALA RAMNATH Concerto for Hindustani Violin (25 minutes)
I. Aakash (Space)
II. Vayu (Air)
III. Agni (Fire)
IV. Jal (Water)
V. Prithvi (Earth)
Postlude: Atonement
INTERMISSION
JACKSON BROWNE “Before the Deluge” (recording)
Arrangement: CAROLINE SHAW,
with RHIANNON GIDDENS, ALISON KRAUSS, RENÉE FLEMING
and YANNICK NÉZET-SÉGUIN, piano
RENÉE FLEMING: VOICE OF NATURE: THE ANTHROPOCENE
The following will be accompanied by a film provided by National Geographic. The audience is asked to kindly hold applause until the end of Renée Fleming’s set.
HAZEL DICKENS, ALICE GERRARD Pretty Bird
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL “Care selve” from Atalanta, HWV 35
NICO MUHLY / ROBINSON MEYER, THOMAS TRAHERNE Endless Space
JOSEPH CANTELOUBE DE MALARET “Baïlèro” (Shepherd’s Song) from Chants d’Auvergne (Songs of the Auvergne)
MARIA SCHNEIDER / TED KOOSER “Our Finch Feeder” from Winter Morning Walks }
BJÖRK All is Full of Love
HEITOR VILLA-LOBOS (orch. Abel Rocha) “Epilogo” from Floresta do Amazonas (The Amazon Forest)
HOWARD SHORE / PHILIPPA JANE BOYENS “Twilight and Shadow” from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
KEVIN PUTS / DORIANNE LAUX Evening
CURTIS GREEN / PEARCE GREEN Red Mountains Sometimes Cry
BURT BACHARACH / HAL DAVID What the World Needs Now Is Love
Renée Fleming appears by arrangement with IMG Artists (www.imgartists.com).
Renée Fleming’s jewelry is by Ann Ziff for Tamsen Z.
Learn more: www.reneefleming.com
Repertoire
Nights in the Gardens of Spain
I. En el Generalife (In the Generalife)
II. Danza lejaña (Distant Dance)
III. En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba (In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba)
Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) composed Noches en los jardines de España during a formative period in his artistic life. In 1907, frustrated with Spanish music institutions, he left Madrid to tour France with a pantomime troupe as their pianist and orchestra director, and ended up staying in Paris for seven years. While there, he came to know many of the foremost composers of modern French music, including Paul Dukas, Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel, as well as notable Spanish figures such as the composer Isaac Albéniz and the pianist Ricardo Viñes. At a time when Spain and Spanish culture was fashionable with many of these composers, the experience proved transformative on Falla’s musical language and artistic purpose. Notably, Debussy’s musical impressions of Granada had a significant impact on Falla’s construction of Andalusian music, which, with the encouragement of Albéniz and Viñes, the Spanish composer brought to bear on Noches.
In 1909, Falla began to compose a series of “nocturnos” for piano, of which three became part of Noches. Busy with other projects (including the revision and mounting of his opera La vida breve), he worked intermittently on the piece, finally completing it in 1915, after having returned to Spain with the outbreak of the First World War. Noches was premiered on April 9, 1916, with the orchestra at Madrid’s Teatro Real conducted by Enrique Arbós and Cádiz pianist José Cubiles as soloist. It was soon taken up by other interpreters, including Viñes, to whom Falla dedicated the work, and performed in other cities.
Falla describes the piece in its subtitle as “Impresiones sinfónicas para piano y orquesta” (Symphonic Impressions for piano and orchestra), thus alluding to Debussy’s influence on its shimmering orchestral palette and his abstract use of Spanish folk sources. As Falla describes in his program note for the premiere:
The thematic element of this work is based…on the rhythms, modalities, cadence, and ornamental factors that characterize Andalusian folk songs, but which are rarely used in their original form; and the instrumental work is often marked by certain effects unique to folk instruments.
The third movement, for example, as musicologist Michael Christoforidis has pointed out, incorporates a zorongo, a melody closely associated with Andalusia and gypsy dance. (Falla may have sourced it from his copy of José Inzenga’s Ecos de España (Echoes of Spain), a collection of popular Spanish songs and dances.) Indeed, notes Christoforidis, it can be argued that the zorongo’s “variants and melodic fragments infuse much of the melodic material of Noches, including the oscillating theme [that opens the first movement, initially presented on harp and tremolo viola].”
In his program note, Falla said his aim in Noches was to “evoke places, sensations, and feelings.” More importantly, “the music of the nocturnes does not try to be descriptive, but rather simply expressive,” he explains, “and that something more than the echoes of fiestas and dances has inspired these musical evocations, in which pain and mystery also play a part.” For the emotional content of the piece, he had drawn on various sources—Jardins d’Espanya (Gardens of Spain) by the Catalán painter Santiago Rusiñol, Gregorio Martínez Sierra’s Granada: Guía emocional (Granada: An Emotional Guide), and the writings of Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío among them. Scholars have since observed parallels between some of these and the music in Noches. The massive climax near the end of the first movement, says Christoforidis, corresponds to the ending of a chapter in Martínez Sierra’s book also entitled “En el Generalife”, referring to the gardens of the Alhambra palace, in which he “describes at length the gripping sensation of the sudden intense golden hue of the cypress trees at twilight before petering out into the blue light of dusk,” bringing about “overwhelming feelings of nostalgia and longing.”
“Danza lejaña”, on the other hand, is associated with “The Martyrs” of Compiègne (Falla was closely connected to the Carmelite Order for his entire life), based on a reference in a manuscript of Gerardo Diego containing notes on the genesis of Noches. This movement “resolves” directly into the third. The final nocturne, according to Spanish music historian Ann Livermore, is related to the third of Darío’s three “Nocturnes” in his 1910 series Poema del Otoño, in which we hear “a muffled density of pain out of which rise sighs of grief at death’s nearness, life’s awareness of lost opportunities….”
Program note by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Concerto for Hindustani Violin
I. Aakash (Space)
II. Vayu (Air)
III. Agni (Fire)
IV. Jal (Water)
V. Prithvi (Earth)
Postlude: Atonement
Indian-American composer Reena Esmail (b. 1983) works between the worlds of Indian and Western classical music, and brings communities together through the creation of equitable musical spaces. She divides her attention evenly between orchestral, chamber, and choral work. She has written commissions for ensembles including the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Seattle Symphony, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and the Kronos Quartet, and her music has featured on multiple Grammy-nominated albums, including The Singing Guitar by Conspirare, BRUITS by Imani Winds, and Healing Modes by Brooklyn Rider.
Esmail is the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s 2020–2025 Swan Family Artist in Residence, and was the Seattle Symphony’s 2020–2021 Composer-in-Residence. She has been in residence with Tanglewood Music Center (co-Curator, 2023) and Spoleto Festival (Chamber Music Composer-in-Residence, 2024). She also holds awards and fellowships from United States Artists, the S&R Foundation, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Kennedy Center. Esmail holds degrees in composition from The Juilliard School (BM’05) and the Yale School of Music (MM’11, MMA’14, DMA’18). She is currently an Artistic Director of Shastra, a non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural music connecting music traditions of India and the West.
Esmail composed her Concerto for Hindustani Violin in 2022, which was commissioned by the Seattle Symphony for their 14th annual Celebrate Asia concert. She provides the following description about her piece:
This Violin Concerto explores the ancient concept of the five elements—space, air, fire, water, and earth—through the modern lens of climate change. Each of these elements can be so uniquely beautiful and awe-inspiring when they are in balance with one another, and yet, when they are out of balance, they can cause boundless destruction. This work is a celebration of the incredible ecosystem we call home, a tough look down the road of destruction of that home, a prayer of atonement, and hope for restoration. These issues that affect our natural world are so broad—they cross countries and cultures. It is our hope that this work brings us together, and allows us to have these difficult discussions from a place of mutual respect and understanding.
For this concerto, Esmail collaborated with the celebrated Indian classical violinist Kala Ramnath. As she told Thomas May in an interview for the Seattle Times (March 18, 2022), Hindustani violin is “essentially the same physical instrument, with a bow” as its Western counterpart. However, “the strings are tuned much lower, so there is a bit less tension, and the instrument resonates completely differently; it is also mic’d. You’ll see Kala play it in a sitting position on the floor, holding the scroll of the violin on her knee.”
Esmail notes that during the compositional process, she and Ramnath “each brought our unique body of knowledge into creating something that reached further than either of us could have conceived alone. It was Kala who first came to me with the concept for this work, and it is her melodies, with their unique raag and taal, and lively rhythmic interplay that form the backbone of this concerto. I expanded out those melodies into the orchestra, surrounding Kala, thus creating a work that allows musicians from both cultures to meet one another and step into each other’s expressive worlds.”
Composer biography and program note compiled and edited by Hannah Chan-Hartley, PhD
Artists
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Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s NAC Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as being “transformed, hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming credited for turning the Orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).
Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation. Recent hallmarks include multimedia projects Life Reflected and UNDISRUPTED and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for Encount3rs. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through making music together.
In April 2022, Alexander Shelley made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the NAC Orchestra in its long-awaited return, and in the spring of 2019, he led the Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary European tour, with stops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Artistic and Music Director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida, USA. Previous releases with the NAC Orchestra include the Juno-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, the acclaimed multi-volume Clara - Robert - Johannes series, all with Canadian label Analekta, as well as Truth in Our Time with Orange Mountain Music.
The Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., ONL, LL.D. (hc).
One of the most beloved and celebrated singers of our time, soprano Renée Fleming captivates audiences with her sumptuous voice, consummate artistry, and compelling stage presence. At a White House ceremony in 2013, President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts, America’s highest honour for an individual artist. In May 2023, Renée was named a Goodwill Ambassador for Arts and Health for the World Health Organization, and in June, it was announced that she would be awarded the prestigious Kennedy Center Honor.
Winner of the 2023 Grammy Award (her fifth) for Best Classical Vocal Solo and honoured with the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Crystal Award at Davos, Renée is the only classical artist ever to sing The Star-Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl (2014). As a musical statesman, Renée has sung at numerous prestigious occasions, from the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to performances in Beijing during the 2008 Olympic Games. In 2014, she sang in the televised concert at the Brandenburg Gate to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In 2012, in a historic first, she sang on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in the Diamond Jubilee Concert for HM Queen Elizabeth II.
A ground-breaking distinction came in 2008 when Renée became the first woman in the 125-year history of the Metropolitan Opera to solo headline an opening night gala. In January 2009, Renée was featured in the televised We Are One: The Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial for President Obama. She has also performed for the United States Supreme Court and, in 2009, celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Czech Republic’s “Velvet Revolution” at the invitation of Václav Havel.
Award-winning pianist and cultural ambassador Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism, and the only professional classical musician on her native Easter Island. Twice topping the Billboard charts with her debut album, Rapa Nui Odyssey, she received raves from critics, including in BBC Music Magazine, which noted her “natural pianism” and “magnificent artistry.”
Twice distinguished as one of the 100 Women Leaders of Chile, Mahani has performed for its past five presidents, embassies in over eight countries, and at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, Chile’s Palacio de La Moneda, and Chilean Congress. Believing in the profound, healing power of music, she has performed globally, from the stages of the world’s foremost concert halls on six continents, to hospitals, schools, jails, and low-income areas.
Setting aside her burgeoning career at the age of 30, Mahani returned home to found her island’s first music school, Toki Rapa Nui, a self-sustaining ecological wonder, which also teaches children about renewable natural resources and their quickly fading cultural heritage. Mahani’s inspirational story was captured in the Emmy-nominated documentary Song of Rapa Nui by 15-time Emmy Award–winning filmmaker John Forsen (Amazon Prime Video), and in a just-released children’s book, The Girl Who Heard the Music (Sourcebooks). Mahani’s awards include the APES Prize in Chile, Claudio Arrau International Piano Competition, Scotiabank’s Advancement of Women Award, “Chileans Creating Future” award, and honorary VP of the World Indigenous Business Forum.
Debuting at age nine, Mahani toured with famed Chilean pianist Roberto Bravo. She studied at Austral University in Chile, at the Cleveland Institute of Music as a student of Sergei Babayan, and at the Hanns Eisler Musik Hochschule in Berlin. A Steinway artist, she lives on Easter Island, combining concerts with leading the Toki Rapa Nui music school and motherhood.
Kala Ramnath with her “singing violin” stands among the world’s finest, most inspirational instrumentalists. Her playing has been featured on the Grammy-nominated Miles from India project, compositions of hers have appeared on the Grammy-winning album In 27 Pieces, and her music is also found in the Kronos Quartet’s free learning repertoire 50 for the Future. The UK–based Songlines magazine hailed Kala Ramnath as one of the 50 world’s best instrumentalists and selected the album Kala as one of its 50 best recordings. She was the first Indian violinist ever to be featured in the violin “bible” The Strad, and was the subject of a solo essay in the third edition of The Rough Guide to World Music. Her contributions feature in many Hollywood soundtracks, including the Oscar-nominated Blood Diamond.
Kala is at the vanguard of the present generation of Indian instrumental super stars. Due to her rigorous training in the Hindustani classical tradition and familiarity with the Carnatic classical tradition, she comfortably forges musical alliances with artists of renown from different genres around the globe, incorporating elements of western classical, jazz, flamenco, and traditional African music into her rich and varied repertoire.
Acknowledged as a virtuoso of staggering proportions, Kala has performed at the most prestigious music festivals in India. She has appeared on world stages including the Sydney Opera House, Paris’s Théâtre de la Ville, London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, Singapore’s Esplanade, and New York’s Carnegie Hall, as well as at the Rudolstadt Festival in Germany and the Edinburgh Music Festival in Scotland. She is the recipient of many awards including the Rashtriya Kumar Gandharva Sanman, Pandit Jasraj Gaurav Puraskar, the Sur Ratna, and most recently and notably of all, the Sangeet Natak Academy Puraskar for her contributions to the violin in Hindustani classical music.
Since its debut in 1969, the National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra has been praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary educational programs, and its prominent role in nurturing Canadian creativity. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, reaching and representing the diverse communities we live in with daring programming, powerful storytelling, inspiring artistry, and innovative partnerships.
Alexander Shelley began his tenure as Music Director in 2015, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and former Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra (2009–2017), he has been in demand around the world, conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and Stockholm Philharmonic, among others, and maintains a regular relationship with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the German National Youth Orchestra.
Each season, the NAC Orchestra features world-class artists such as the newly appointed Artist-in-Residence James Ehnes, Angela Hewitt, Joshua Bell, Xian Zhang, Gabriela Montero, Stewart Goodyear, Jan Lisiecki, and Principal Guest Conductor John Storgårds. As one of the most accessible, inclusive, and collaborative orchestras in the world, the NAC Orchestra uses music as a universal language to communicate the deepest of human emotions and connect people through shared experiences.
NAC Orchestra
First Violins
Yosuke Kawasaki (concertmaster)
**Jessica Linnebach (associate concertmaster)
Noémi Racine Gaudreault (assistant concertmaster)
Marjolaine Lambert
Jeremy Mastrangelo
Carissa Klopoushak
Jeffrey Dyrda
Manuela Milani
*Oleg Chelpanov
*Martine Dubé
*Erica Miller
*Renée London
*Heather Schnarr
*Sarah Williams
Second Violins
Emily Kruspe (principal)
Emily Westell
Frédéric Moisan
Leah Roseman
Jessy Kim
Mark Friedman
Edvard Skerjanc
Karoly Sziladi
**Winston Webber
*Andrea Armijo Fortin
*Sara Mastrangelo
*Marc Djokic
Violas
Jethro Marks (principal)
David Marks (associate principal)
David Goldblatt (assistant principal)
David Thies-Thompson
Paul Casey
**Tovin Allers
*Sonya Probst
*Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh
Cellos
**Rachel Mercer (principal)
Julia MacLaine (assistant principal)
Leah Wyber
Timothy McCoy
Marc-André Riberdy
*Karen Kang
*Desiree Abbey
*Daniel Parker
Double Basses
Sam Loeck (principal)
Max Cardilli (assistant principal)
**Marjolaine Fournier
**Vincent Gendron
*Doug Ohashi
*Paul Mach
*Talia Hatcher
Flutes
Joanna G’froerer (principal)
Stephanie Morin
*Christian Paquette
Oboes
Charles Hamann (principal)
Anna Petersen
*Lucian Avalon
English Horn
Anna Petersen
Clarinets
Kimball Sykes (principal)
Sean Rice
*Shauna Barker
Bassoons
Darren Hicks (principal)
Vincent Parizeau
*Carmelle Préfontaine
Horns
*Nicholas Hartman (guest principal)
Julie Fauteux (associate principal)
Lauren Anker
Louis-Pierre Bergeron
*Olivier Brisson
Trumpets
Karen Donnelly (principal)
Steven van Gulik
*Amy Horvey
Trombones
*Harry Gonzalez (guest principal)
*Nate Fanning
Bass Trombone
Zachary Bond
Tuba
Chris Lee (principal)
Timpani
*Charles Lampert (guest principal)
Percussion
Jonathan Wade
Andrew Johnson
*Andrew Harris
Harp
*Angela Schwarzkopf (guest principal)
Keyboards
*Olga Gross
Rhythm Bass
*John Geggie
Saxophone
*Mike Tremblay
Guitar
*Pascal Richard
Principal Librarian
Nancy Elbeck
Assistant Librarian
Corey Rempel
Personnel Manager
Meiko Lydall
Assistant Personnel Manager
Ruth Rodriguez Rivera
Orchestra Personnel Coordinator
Laurie Shannon
Stage Manager
Tobi Hunt McCoy
*Additional musicians
**On leave
Donor acknowledgement
The National Arts Centre Foundation would like to thank Mark Motors Group, Official Car of the NAC Orchestra, and Earle O’Born & Janice O’Born, C.M., O.Ont. The NAC Orchestra Music Director role is supported by Elinor Gill Ratcliffe, C.M., O.N.L., LLD (hc).
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Official Car of the NAC Orchestra
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International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees