The NAC Orchestra was formed at the creation of Canada’s National Arts Centre in 1969 and gives over 100 performances a year with world-renowned artists. They are noted for their passion and clarity of their performances and recordings, their ground-breaking teaching and outreach programs, and nurturing of Canadian creativity. In 2015 Alexander Shelley began his tenure as NAC Orchestra Music Director, following Pinchas Zukerman’s 16 seasons at the helm. In addition to a full series of subscription concerts at the National Arts Centre each season, the Orchestra tours throughout Canada and around the world. The NAC Orchestra has made over 40 commercial recordings, including the ground-breaking Life Reflected and Angela Hewitt’s 2015 JUNO Award-winning album of Mozart Piano Concertos. Many more concerts are freely available through NACmusicbox.ca on the NAC’s performing arts education website ArtsAlive.ca. These include many of the 80+ new works commissioned by the NAC Orchestra since its inception, most from Canadian composers. Alexander Shelley became Music Director of the NAC Orchestra in September 2015; he is Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and was Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra 2009 – 2017.