Saturday night the National Arts Centre Orchestra played their annual Toronto concert to an enthusiastic Roy Thomson Hall audience. As 2025-26 is the final season as music director for Alexander Shelley, this was his last visit at the helm of the orchestra.

There were three works on the program:
Jocelyn Morlock: My Name is Amanda Todd
Camille Saint-Saens: Piano Concerto #5
–intermission–
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony #3

In his remarks beforehand Maestro Shelley spoke of the untimely passing of Jocelyn Morlock, who composed the opening piece about 10 years ago, but who died suddenly in 2023.

This is the third time I have heard this composition, that seemed more lyrical & elegiac for its last few minutes. Was it Shelley’s reading? or maybe it’s just that I listened more closely, thinking about the work’s creator. While the first time I heard it, there seemed to be more discord & dissonance, this time it struck me as a beautiful piece, choirs of instruments sometimes jarring against one another (as I try perhaps to find the subtexts of the piece in the music) before finally settling into something more agreeable with each other.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet was soloist in the concerto, a delightful and entertaining composition, particularly when tossed off as clearly as tonight, Shelley keeping the orchestra discreetly out of the way, and only cutting loose at the end of the last movement.

In response to our enthusiastic applause Thibaudet played Ravel’s Pavane pour une infante defunte as his encore, matching the plaintive tone of the first piece.

After the intermission we were treated to a remarkable reading of the Eroica Symphony, a work that’s very familiar. I was struck by how responsive this orchestra is to their music director, taking the first movement at a very quick tempo, but articulating every phrase with precise attention to the shape of the phrase. Similarly the second movement funeral march had more drama than I have ever encountered in a lifetime of hearing this piece, a true eye-opener. For the last two movements we were again listening to an orchestra willing to follow their leader exactly as he requested. I was a bit confused by something in the coda to the last movement, an unexpectedly slow pace after the whole symphony had been taken at such a quick tempo, making for a majestic conclusion. But it was beautiful all the same.

I wish Shelley all the best in his future projects, wherever he may go. He built an amazing orchestra who will have a new music director next season, and hopefully we’ll see that new person and the ensemble back next year.