April 15, 2004 -

Ottawa, Canada -- The spotlight is on ensembles of musicians of the National Arts Centre Orchestra at the next Music for a Sunday Afternoon chamber music concert on Sunday, April 25 at 14:00 in the Auditorium of the National Gallery of Canada. The musicians will present quintets by Mozart and Shostakovich and a trio by Ravel.

The concert opens with Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat major for Horn, Violin, Two Violas and Violoncello, the only quintet ever written for this unusual combination of instruments. The quintet resembles a horn concerto in the way the horn plays continuously and usually in a principal role. It will be performed by the NAC Orchestra’s superb principal horn, Lawrence Vine, with Sally Benson on violin, David Goldblatt and Nancy Sturdevant on viola and Timothy McCoy on cello.

Next is Ravel’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in A minor, a rare chamber music piece by this master of orchestration. The trio features Jessica Linnebach on violin, David Hutchenreuther on cello and Jean Desmarais on piano.

The second half of the concert is devoted to Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, Op. 57, one of the preeminent works of its kind. The composer wrote it in 1940 for the Beethoven Quartet, an ensemble founded in 1923 at the Moscow Conservatory, when they asked him for a piano quintet in which he could join them in performance (Shostakovich was a brilliant pianist, but after his student years, seldom performed except in his own music).  The premiere was a great success and the piece won the 100,000-ruble Stalin Prize, a hefty sum at the time. Two of its five movements were so frequently encored in subsequent performances that a joke arose to the effect that the Quintet was really in seven movements. It will be performed by Jessica Linnebach and Leah Roseman on violin, Jane Logan on viola, Margaret Munro Tobolowska on cello, and Jean Desmarais on piano.

This Music for a Sunday Afternoon concert featuring ensembles of the National Arts Centre Orchestra takes place on Sunday, April 25 at 14:00 and is presented in collaboration with the National Gallery of Canada. Tickets at $27.00 (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. Student tickets at $14.25 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.

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