Michala Petri AMERICAN RECORDER CONCERTOS

The late 17th and early 18th centuries were the Golden Age of the Recorder. Played by amateurs and professional and admire by musical connoisseurs, the recorder was everywhere. From Italy to England, the greatest composers of the day were writing hundreds of masterworks to meet the public’s demand! Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a scrappy group of colonists were carving a new nation out of the wilderness...
But where were the recorders? It is one of the great ironies of the recorder’s long history, that despite being ubiquitous in nearly every American public music school program, few composers ever explored writing for it.
In order to set this egregious state of affairs to right, Michala Petri, the first Lady of the Recorder, invited four American composers to make their own discovery of just what an Old World Recorder can do! 

For the newest installment of her ground-breaking Concerto Project, four works have been specially commissioned to showcase the sound of the modern recorder, including the late Steven Stucky’s thoroughly contemporary Etudes, Roberto Sierra’s Latin-tinged Prelude, Habanera and Perpetual Motion, Harpsichord virtuoso Antony Newman’s Neo-Baroque Concerto for recorder, harpsicord & strings, and Sean Hickey’s boldly-wrought A Pacifying Weapon.

Orchestre du Centre National des Arts du Canada / Alexander Shelley NEW WORLDS

Themes of migration and crossing borders are as hot topics today as they ever were. This recording explores two works written in the so-called “New World” by composers from the “Old World”.

Ana Sokolović left war-torn Yugoslavia for a new home in Montréal, and her piece Golden slumbers kiss your eyes… looks back to European lullabies. It features Canadian-Korean counter-tenor David DQ Lee and several Ottawa choirs, and was commissioned by the NAC Orchestra in honour of its founding conductor, Mario Bernardi.

Antonín Dvořák wrote his famous symphony when he lived in North America, and there is still discussion about how much of the “New” and “Old” Worlds are to be found in it. It was taken to the moon, presumably because it contains some of the most recognizable and moving music ever written, and Neil Armstrong considered that the next “New World.” (Alexander Shelley)

Orchestre du Centre National des Arts du Canada / Alexander Shelley LIFE REFLECTED

Life Reflected is a stunningly original live experience: a celebration of youth, promise and courage, revealed in the compelling and diverse portraits of four exceptional Canadian women: Alice Munro, Amanda Todd, Roberta Bondar and Rita Joe.

Alexander Shelley, Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, brought together four remarkable Canadian composers to collaborate with Creative Producer and Director, Donna Feore, and an ensemble of extraordinary performers and multi-media artists to create this unique symphonic experience. Life Reflected’s four musical works immerse audiences within a 3D environment featuring photography, motion picture and graphic design, projected on screens surrounding the orchestra. This creative landscape and the accompanying visuals were created and adapted by artistic partner, the innovative Montreal visual design company Normal.

This recording showcases the music from this multi-discipline, multi-media collaboration.

Orchestre du Centre National des Arts du Canada / Alexander Shelley THE BOUNDS OF OUR DREAMS

The works on this recording paint stories in music, vividly evoking the characters, places, and periods that they depict.

Rimsky-Korsakov unfolds an epic tableau from One Thousand and One Nights as he conjures to life the brilliant and cunning Scheherazade, continually evading death and emerging victorious in her resistance against the evil Shahriar.

Using an equally grand musical canvas, Walter Boudreau explores the compelling life of visionary poet Claude Gauvreau. The piece was written for soloist Alain Lefèvre who, through the fiendishly challenging piano part, represents the character of the Québécois poet, ultimately finding redemption and transfiguration in death for this unique literary figure.

Ravel, a musical figure who in many ways links the Russian school of Rimsky-Korsakov with the Québec inheritance of Boudreau, leaves us, in his miniature musical masterpiece, a perfect and enduring vision of a beautiful young princess, whose dance echoes through the ages. (Alexander Shelley)