May 12, 2006 -

Ottawa, Canada -- Evelyn Glennie, the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist, returns to the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ovation Series concerts on Wednesday, May 24 and Thursday, May 25 at 20:00 in Southam Hall, performing Joseph Schwantner’s Percussion Concerto. The concerts are conducted by the exciting young Quebec conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin making his NAC Orchestra debut.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin will lead the NAC Orchestra in Ravel’s La Valse, and the Suite from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, one of the most evocative ballet scores ever written. He will also lead Kaleidoscope written in 1948 by Quebec composer Pierre Mercure, and conducted at its premiere by Jean-Marie Beaudet, who would later become the founding Music Director of the NAC Orchestra.

Evelyn Glennie, whose only other appearance with the NAC Orchestra was in 1996, is one of the most eclectic and innovative musicians on the scene today, constantly redefining the goals and expectations of percussion. By combining superb technique, a profound appreciation of the visual and her astonishing musicality, Evelyn presents concerts of such vitality that they almost constitute a new type of performance. She performs more than 100 times a year worldwide with the greatest conductors, orchestras, and artists. For the first ten years of her career virtually every performance she gave was in some way a first: the first time an orchestra had performed with a percussion soloist, the first solo percussion performance at a venue or festival or the world premiere of a new piece. Evelyn Glennie’s recording career has been as illustrious as her performing and composing career earning her two Grammy Awards to date. Despite working a relentless schedule Evelyn is in constant demand to release new recordings: 22 so far including a recording with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra of Schwantner’s Percussion Concerto.

Evelyn Glennie is constantly exploring new areas of activity from writing a best-selling autobiography, Good Vibrations, to collaborating with the renowned film director Thomas Riedelsheimer on a film called Touch the Sound, to presenting two series of her own television programs for the BBC, to regularly appearing on television across the world. In 1993 she was awarded the OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for her services to music, and to date has received no fewer than 70 international awards. All of this in spite of the fact that she began to lose her hearing at age 8 and was classified as profoundly deaf (meaning she has a very little hearing) at age 12. She composes and records music for film and television (EG Composer) and has commissioned 133 new works for solo percussion from many of the world’s most eminent composers. Joseph Schwantner’s Percussion Concerto, however, was written in 1994 for the New York Philharmonic’s principal percussion on the occasion of the orchestra’s 150th anniversary, though Glennie has performed it extensively. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Schwantner left a teaching position at Yale University to devote himself fulltime to composition. The NAC was fortunate to have him as a faculty member for its Young Composers Programme during the 2005 NAC Summer Music Institute. He will return to Ottawa to hear Glennie perform his concerto with the NAC Orchestra.

In Schwantner’s Percussion Concerto,the soloist hits and hammers, strokes and strikes, rattles and rustles, bangs and bonks fifteen different kinds of instrument (some in multiples), while three additional percussionists at the back of the orchestra handle some two dozen more. Audiences will hear standard instruments like triangle, xylophone and bass drum, but also such exotica as the Japanese wind chimes, brake drum, crotales, anvil, water gong and beaded gourd.

Conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin has been at the helm of the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal since March 2000, working tirelessly to broaden the scope of the Orchestra’s involvement in a variety of venues. In 2001, Nézet-Séguin became Artistic Director of the Concerts Populaires de Montréal, leading the Métropolitain as official orchestra for the series. In January 2003, he was also appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Victoria Symphony. He made his European debut last season conducting, among others, the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Flemish Radio Orchestra, and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, winning in January 2006 the Opus Prize awarded by the Conseil québécois de la musique to the artist who distinguished himself the most abroad.
In February 2003, Yannick Nézet-Séguin launched his first CD recording as conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain, an album entitled Nino Rota: La Strada. This debut album with the orchestra earned the Opus Prize for Recording of the Year in January 2004.

Tickets for these Ovation Series concerts on May 24 and 25 are on sale now at $27.00, $47.50, $58.00 and $60.00, with box seats at $79.00 (GST and Facility Fee included) 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.

Groups of 10 and more save 15% to 20% off the regular price of tickets to NAC Music, Theatre and Dance performances. To reserve your seats call 947-7000 ext. 384 or email grp@nac-cna.ca. Half-price tickets for students in all sections of the hall are on sale in person at the NAC Box Office upon presentation of a valid student ID card.

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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