March 21, 2006 -

Ottawa, Canada -- After performing as soloist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra earlier in the week, virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin will join ensembles of musicians from the Orchestra for a Music for a Sunday Afternoon chamber music concert on Sunday, April 2 at 14:00 in the Auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada. The programme features works by the same three composers as the earlier orchestra concert: Stravinsky, Schubert and Brahms.

The opening work of Music for a Sunday Afternoon – Stravinsky’s Suite after Themes and Pieces by Pergolesi – is a five-movement suite for violin and piano which Marc-André Hamelin will perform with NAC Orchestra violinist Jessica Linnebach. It is an arrangement of excerpts from Stravinsky’s ballet music for Pulcinella giving it an additional connection to the earlier NAC Orchestra concert which includes an orchestral suite from the same ballet.

Next music-lovers will hear the brilliant Hamelin in a solo piano piece: Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A major, which has been described as “music of wide-eyed youthful contentment” and “a Viennese waltz danced in heaven.”

The chamber music concert concludes with Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F minor. With its great wealth of melody, propulsive energy, fascinating rhythmic displacements, imaginative power, and epic scope, there are few works in the chamber music repertoire to compare with this piece. It will be performed by NAC Orchestra musicians Jessica Linnebach and Leah Roseman on violin, Sally Benson on viola, and David Hutchenreuther on cello, with Marc-André Hamelin on piano.

Marc-André Hamelin’s startlingly original musicianship and virtuosity have earned him legendary status as a pianist. His performances are alive with detail, inner transparency, and concentrated emotion leaving an ideal realization of the music. In the words of Daniel Cariaga of the Los Angeles Times:“The music came first and the playing was revelatory, showing off facets of each composer that some pianists seem to forget. Hamelin commands tons – nay acres – of technique, all of it used to articulate, colour and enliven the intriguing music at hand.” After receiving a double nomination for the Busoni concerto and the Chopin-Godowsky Etudes, Hamelin was the only classical artist to play live at the 2001 Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. He received another Grammy nomination in 2002 for his recording featuring the works of Alkan.

This Music for a Sunday Afternoon chamber concert takes place on Sunday, April 2 at 14:00 and is presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada. Tickets at $27.50 (GST and facility fee included) are on sale now at the NAC Box Office (Monday to Saturday from 10:00 to 21:00), and through Ticketmaster (with surcharges) at 613-755-1111. Ticketmaster may also be accessed through the NAC’s web-site at www.nac-cna.ca. Half price student tickets are on sale in person at the NAC Box Office upon presentation of a valid student ID card. Music for a Sunday Afternoon tickets may also be purchased one hour before the concert outside the Auditorium of the National Gallery.

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For more information please contact:
Jane Morris, Communications Officer,
National Arts Centre Orchestra
(613) 947-7000, ext. 335
jmorris@nac-cna.ca