In Wednesday’s (3/13) Globe and Mail (Toronto), Robert Harris writes, “The members of Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra must be excited about the start of their 2013-14 season, announced this morning in the nation’s capital. In October, the orchestra will be touring China, an increasingly rare occurrence in these days of tight budgets and all-around hunkering down in the arts. … The NAC for several years, under the music direction of famed violinist Pinchas Zukerman, has reacted to these constraints with a very conservative approach. … That safety is only broken occasionally in the NAC’s ’13-14 season, but those breaks look interesting. Amanda Forsyth, the orchestra’s star cellist, is returning from a year’s sabbatical to play a concerto by her late father, Malcolm, along with the NAC’s principal violist, Jethro Marks. Amanda is also featured in another Canadian composition, Alexina Louie’s ‘Bringing the Tiger Down from the Mountain.’ … There is an interesting take on the contemporary music in the orchestra’s season, whether intended or not—and that’s a mini-festival of twentieth-century violin concertos. In November, Gloria Schmidt will play Samuel Barber’s Concerto; in April, it will be Valeriy Sokolov and the Bartok Concerto; in June, Leila Josefowicz and the Stravinsky. None of these pieces is obscure, but none are regularly heard, either—exactly the kind of creative programming that pays dividends.”
Posted March 13, 2013
