Alexander Shelley's Final Weeks as National Arts Orchestra Director
The conductor, who ends his tenure at Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra, commissioned 50+ works from Canadian composers — a legacy of creative ambition.
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Alexander Shelley is finishing his final two weeks as music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa — a decade-long tenure that left an outsized mark on Canadian composition. He'll conclude with Mahler's Second Symphony and a recording session featuring the Brahms-Schumann cycle, including the Double Concerto with violinist James Ehnes and cellist Nicolas Alsteadt.
The defining achievement of Shelley's mandate was his commitment to living Canadian composers. He commissioned more than 50 orchestral works — an unusually high number for a national ensemble — and programmed them alongside canonical repertoire from the outset. His first concert paired Zosha Di Castri's world premiere "Dear Life" with Mahler's Fourth Symphony, two meditations on youth.
Shelley came to the role with a philosophical conviction. "I deeply felt that an orchestra of a national arts centre — benefiting from federal funding — must place national music at the heart of its history," he explained in an interview. Before formally taking up his post, he spent two years reading Canadian compositions spanning the last 50 to 100 years, mapping the country's composition ecosystem.
He resisted a simplistic approach to repertoire. "I've always said we must move beyond the idea of simply 'liking' or 'not liking' a piece," Shelley reflected. "Art and music are tools for exploring ourselves and each other. Music serves a larger cause."
When conducting Beethoven, he seeks to capture the "virility and essential nature of the moment" in which the composer wrote. With contemporary works, the same principle applies: understanding the creative necessity that produced them, not treating them as museum pieces.
Shelley emphasized that supporting composers alongside canonical masters creates a bridge between eras. "Thinking about music of our time and investing in it helps us approach music of other times and cultures with the right attitude — as expressions born from the needs of their moment."
He steps down with what he called "quiet pride" in having championed extraordinary Canadian talent across the country's concert stages.