Spelunking Through NACO’s 2026/27 Season

Words by Stephania Romaniuk
Interview by Michael Zarathus-Cook

NACO 2026/27

“Good afternoon. Today, I’ll be singing “Piping Down the Valleys Wild” by Jean Coulthard.”

I can’t tell you how many times I heard that phrase growing up as a young vocalist in the Canadian suburban music competition circuit. Violet Archer, Nancy Telfer, Clifford Crawley, Chester Duncan, Malcolm Forsyth—each name springs up with familiar ease, yet on reflection, remained confined for far too long to childhood memories marked by haste and nerves, rather than the joy of musical discovery.

In Calgary (my hometown), Contemporary Showcase is an adjudicated, but non-competitive, music festival that celebrates Canadian composers. The festival was founded in 1990 by Roberta Stephen, a Canadian composer with roots in Southern Alberta best known for her vocal music. Part of the Alliance for Canadian New Music Projects (ACNMP), Contemporary Showcase takes place in 13 centres across Canada each year. The Showcase is held in November, meaning that each academic year, Canadian repertoire is the first that students (at least those taking private music lessons) encounter on their return from summer holidays. The preparation process always felt hurried, and I realize now that while I memorized each composer’s name, I learned little about their lives.

Only recently did I discover that Dean Blair (whose song “Boating” was the first piece I auditioned with as a child) was the founding professor of music theory and composition at the University of Lethbridge and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music (my alma mater). Long-time University of Toronto professor John Beckwith studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. Keith Bissell was instrumental in adapting the Orff Schulwerk approach to the Canadian public education system.

Of these names, one in particular has been singled out for a place of prominence within the National Arts Centre Orchestra’s 2026–27 season. Incoming Music Director John Storgårds will launch a season-long exploration of the work of Jean Coulthard, a mid- to late-century, Vancouver-based composer who studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Aaron Copland, Béla Bartók, and Arnold Schoenberg, among others. Influenced by the French impressionists first introduced to her by her mother, Coulthard went on to teach theory and composition at the University of British Columbia for several decades. Her 350-some works include an opera, four symphonies, chamber and voice music, and Prayer for Elizabeth for strings, written in 1952 for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

While many Canadian philharmonic concerts entitled Mahler and Mozart, Bergmann + Beethoven, or Yuja Wang Plays Prokofiev do manage to begin with Larysa Kuzmenko, Linda Catlin Smith, Kelly-Marie Murphy, or Samy Moussa, few devote as much real estate to exploring the life and works of a Canadian composer as the National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) does for Jean Coulthard in the coming season. It is a bold move by Storgårds, the Finnish violinist and conductor, who also serves as Chief Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as Artistic Director of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra. A natural choice for the NACO, he first appeared with the orchestra in 2013 and has served as its Principal Guest Conductor since 2015, developing a strong rapport with the orchestra, administration, and local audiences.

Beginning with Symphonic image: Vision of the North, Coulthard’s compositions will appear in three of the NACO’s Main Series programs as well as a concert of chamber music. Audiences will hear Coulthard’s Ballade: A Winter’s Tale, Endymion, Pas de Deux for flute and bassoon, as well as her Symphony No. 1, which has not been performed in full since its premiere in 1951. Crucially, the project will be recorded, and, together with newly prepared orchestral materials, ensure symphonies across the world will have greater access to her major works.

Other Canadian composers featured this season at the NACO include orchestral regular Alexina Louie, multi-instrumentalist Anishinaabek artist Barbara Assiginaak, Jocelyn Morlock (whose NACO-commissioned My Name is Amanda Todd won the 2018 Juno Award for Best Classical Composition), and experimentalist Claude Vivier, as well as an adventurous commission from Canadian-American composer and recent Guggenheim Fellow Kati Agócs, which incorporates field recordings of Newfoundland fishing villages of the 1970s and ‘80s. Canadian musicians on stage include the 2025 Honens Piano Competition winner Élisabeth Pion, 2025 International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition prize winner Kevin Chen, and the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. Some of Canada’s most celebrated artists will also be making appearances: pianists Angela Hewitt and Marc-André Hamelin, conductor Bernard Labadie and La Chapelle de Québec, and violinist James Ehnes.

The leaders of the classical canon appear frequently, although not always with their signature pieces on display: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 1, Dvořák’s Symphony No. 3, and Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, for instance. Other important NACO commissions include British composer Huw Watkins’ Horn Concerto as well as German-Danish Søren Nils Eichberg’s Clair-obscur which will be performed by globally renowned violinist Hilary Hahn. There is a strong showing of family-friendly programs, and pops-leaning audiences can rely on some of the usual suspects (Star Wars, Best of Abba, and Brahms x Radiohead) as well as a showcase of Caribbean music featuring NACO Principal Youth Conductor and Community Ambassador Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser.

The National Arts Centre Orchestra’s 2026–27 season reflects its responsibilities as Canada’s national orchestra, celebrating Canadian talent as well as opening channels for listeners of all ages to explore symphonic and chamber repertoire. The season also relies less on pops concerts and the ultra-standard repertoire than other orchestras, championing greater diversity than is heard elsewhere in the country. This allows listeners the chance not only to encounter composers’ names in programs and listen to unfamiliar works, but a singular opportunity to learn about the giants of the 20^th century and beyond, like Jean Coulthard, on whose shoulders our major Canadian music institutions rest.