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June 25, 2025 – OTTAWA – Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra is delighted to host a free Canada Day concert featuring an all-star line-up of Canadian talent. Led by NAC Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley and supported by the Orchestra’s Resident Conductor Henry Kennedy and guest conductor Benoit Gauthier, the program includes music from celebrated Canadian composers Ian Cusson, John Estacio, Kati Agócs, and Jordan Nobles.
Bilingual slam poet, musician, and composer Yao returns to the NAC’s main stage to host this year’s event, which features several local and visiting artists, including NAC Orchestra Principal Trumpet Karen Donnelly, the Hamilton Children’s Choir, double bassist John Geggie, and Ottawa-based jazz pianist James Greer. The NAC Orchestra will close the concert with a special rendition of Hymn to Freedom, an iconic work by the late Canadian jazz great Oscar Peterson, featuring the voices of the Hamilton Children’s Choir. In a special first, the NAC Orchestra is honoured to share the stage this Canada Day with participants of the 2025 edition of the NAC Orchestra Mentorship Program. This year, 47 exceptional emerging and early-career artists from around the world had the opportunity to refine their skills through two weeks of side-by-side rehearsals and performances with the NAC Orchestra.
“The NAC Orchestra is proud to continue its tradition of presenting free and bilingual programming on Canada Day,” says Alexander Shelley. “Canada is home to some extraordinary artists, and now more than ever, it’s important to showcase Canadian talent on our stages. We invite our audiences to join us for an unforgettable celebration.”
This highly anticipated concert in Southam Hall is free, with in-advance reserved seating. Tickets can be booked by phone, online or in person at the NAC Box Office beginning at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 27. On July 1, doors to Southam Hall will open at 2:00 p.m., 30 minutes before the concert. The 75-minute performance will be presented without intermission and broadcast live on television screens in the NAC’s public spaces for all to enjoy.
ABOUT CANADA’S NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE ORCHESTRA
Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.
ABOUT ALEXANDER SHELLEY
Alexander Shelley succeeded Pinchas Zukerman as Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in September 2015. The ensemble has since been praised as “transformed, hungry, bold, and unleashed” (Ottawa Citizen) and Shelley’s programming is credited for turning the Orchestra into “one of the more audacious in North America” (Maclean’s).
Shelley is a champion of Canadian creation. Recent hallmarks include multimedia projects UAQUE, Life Reflected, UNDISRUPTED, and three major new ballets in partnership with NAC Dance for ENCOUNT3RS. He is passionate about arts education and nurturing the next generation of musicians. He is an Ambassador for Ottawa’s OrKidstra, a charitable social development program that teaches children life skills through music making.
In April 2022, Shelley debuted at Carnegie Hall with the NAC Orchestra in its long-awaited return. In the spring of 2019, he led the Orchestra on its critically acclaimed 50th-anniversary European tour, with stops in London, Paris, Copenhagen, and Stockholm.
Shelley is also the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Music and Artistic Director of Artis—Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Shelley has also been named the next Artistic and Music Director of the Pacific Symphony in California’s Orange County. The initial five-year term begins in the 2026–2027 season, with Shelley serving as Music Director-Designate from September 2025. From 2009 to 2017, Shelley was Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in Germany.
Shelley’s recordings with the NAC Orchestra include the Juno-nominated New Worlds, Life Reflected, ENCOUNT3RS, The Bounds of Our Dreams, the acclaimed multi-volume Clara – Robert – Johannes series, and Two Orchestras, One Symphony, all with Canadian label Analekta, and Truth in Our Time with Orange Mountain Music.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE
The National Arts Centre is Canada’s bilingual, multi-disciplinary home for the performing arts. The NAC presents, creates, produces, and co-produces performing arts programming in various streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre, French Theatre, Indigenous Theatre, and Popular Music and Variety — and nurtures the next generation of audiences and artists from across Canada. The NAC is located in the National Capital Region on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation.
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