July 14, 2006 -

Ottawa, Canada -- The Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne, led by its Music Director Jean-Philippe Tremblay, will make its fifth annual summer visit to the National Arts Centre in a free concert on Saturday, July 22 at 19:30 in Southam Hall. Jean-Philippe Tremblay is a graduate of the first edition of the NAC Conductors Programme in 2001 after which he was named Apprentice Conductor of the National Arts Centre Orchestra for two seasons. He returned to the NAC again this June for his third session as a member of the staff of the NAC’s Summer Music Institute leading an ensemble of musicians from his Orchestra in new works as part of the Young Composers Programme.

Pianist Jimmy Brière, the First Prize winner at the Hong Kong International Piano Competition in 1997 and winner of the Porto International Piano Competition in 1996, will perform Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Tremblay will lead Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne in Brahms Symphony No. 4. The programme opens with Wirkunst – Pellan, a specially commissioned work by Quebec composer Maxime McKinley, another graduate of the NAC Summer Music Institute having participated in the Young Composers Programme in 2005.

The Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne (OFC) was created in 2001 during the IVth Games of La Francophonie in Ottawa-Hull. Within the whirlwind of activities surrounding these games, the OFC helped to showcase, in musical terms, the wide diversity of Canadian youth and its attachment to the Francophone language and culture. During that same summer, the OFC gave several concerts across the country, performing works by Canadians and thus increasing the awareness and appreciation of the francophone musical heritage. Thanks to the success of its concerts given in the four corners of Canada, the OFC’s reputation continues to grow and attract the interest of young Canadian classical musicians.

Chicoutimi-born conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay (age 27) has won numerous awards and honours, including being a finalist at the 2002 Dimitri Mitropoulos International Competition in Athens, Greece, where he received the Orchestra’s Preference Award and an honourable mention from the jury. He was the recipient of the inaugural Joyce Conger Award for the Arts and the Rose Roitman Award, and is a lifetime honorary member of the Golden Key International Honor Society. Jean-Philippe Tremblay has conducted, among others, the Washington, London, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Dresden, Prague, and Paris symphony orchestras. In 2006-2007, he will make his debut with the Winnipeg, Budapest, Bonn, and Barcelona orchestras.

Jimmy Brière has performed with all of the major symphony orchestras in Quebec, Ontario, Bulgaria, Portugal, and the United States. A sought-after chamber player, he has collaborated with Edgar Meyer, James Campbell, and the New-Zealand String Quartet, among others. Jimmy Brière is a member of the Trio di Colore, with clarinettist Guy Yehuda and viola player Yuval Gotlibovich. This young trio, which won the Gold Medal at the Fischoff Chamber Music Competition in 2004(USA), has been performing in Canada and the United States for three years.

Tickets to this concert by l’Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne in the National Arts Centre’s Southam Hall on Saturday, July 22 at 19:30 are free and may be picked up in person at the National Arts Centre Box Office.

The Orchestre de la francophonie canadienne is giving a second concert in the region the next day. On Sunday, July 23 at 16:00, Jean-Philippe Tremblay will lead them in a concert in Gatineau at the Église St-François-de-Sales (Coin Gréber et Jacques-Cartier) with cellist Benoît Loiselle as soloist. The programme is Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7.

- 30 -

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