Alexander Shelley will end his tenure with the National Arts Centre Orchestra with the close of the 2025/26 season. This week, on June 25, he conducts the NAC Orchestra, with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, soprano Miah Persson and mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska in Mahler 2, The Resurrection, and on July 1, he leads the orchestra with a few special guests in the traditional — and free — Canada Day concert.
After 11 memorable seasons, there’s no doubt that he’s left his mark in the role of Music Director, which he leaves in the friendly hands of John Storgårds, who’s been serving as Principal Guest Conductor since the 2015/16 season.
There is equally no doubt that the role has left its mark on him. His two sons Sasha Felix and Leo Arlen were born in Ottawa in 2018 and 2021 respectively.
LV caught up with Maestro Shelley to talk about 11 seasons in Ottawa, and what he’s looking forward to in the years to come.
Alexander Shelley conducts the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Debussy’s La Mer on June 25, 2025:
Alexander Shelley
Alexander Gordon Shelley was born in London, UK into a musical family. His mother was Irish pianist Hilary Macnamara, and his father British pianist-conductor Howard Shelley. He began his music studies as a child, learning piano from his mother, and cello from his grandmother. He went on to study cello at the Westminster School from The Hall School Hampstead under a music scholarship, and later, at the Royal College of Music, and at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Düsseldorf. He played the cello a member of the World Orchestra for Peace during the 2003 tour with Valery Gergiev.
He added conducting to his resume in Düsseldorf, where he studied with Professor Thomas Gabrisch. Shelley served as assistant conductor to Yan Pascal Tortelier with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. That’s where he met his wife, personal trainer, fitness model, and author Zoe Shelley.
In 2005, he was unanimously awarded first prize at the Leeds Conductors Competition. Other accolades include two ECHO Klassik (Echo Prizes) in 2016, one for his Deutsche Grammophon recording of an expanded version of Peter and the Wolf, and the other for his role as Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s “Zukunftslabor”.
Shelley has served as the Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2015, which involves touring both nationally and internationally as well as curating the concert series at London’s Cadogan Hall. He became Chief Conductor of the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra in 2009, a position he held until 2017.
Alexander has multiple roles to look forward to in the coming seasons. He was named the third Music Director of the Pacific Symphony in 2024, acting as Music Director Designate, and assuming the role in full beginning in the 2026-27 season. He has worked as the Artistic and Music Director of Artis−Naples in Florida since the 2024/25 season. There, he leads the Naples Philharmonic, the Baker Museum, Naples International Film Festival, and several performance series, including jazz, Broadway, pops, and dance.
In late 2025, he was named the Principal Conductor Designate of National Symphony Orchestra Ireland (NSOI), and commences a three year term as Principal Conductor with the 2026/27 season.
Alexander Shelley: The Interview
Did he have an idea how long he’d stay in Ottawa when he first took on the job back in 2015?
“I think that it is hard to truly achieve things in anything less than sort of eight years with an orchestra,” Shelley says. “It felt to me like eight to ten years would be […] the minimum.”
During his time, he’s accomplished a great deal with the orchestra, and the timing for a move felt right. “I’m exiting with a big smile on my face,” he says. “It still feels fresh and vibrant. I think that this was really the sweet spot.”
The National Arts Centre Orchestra carries a set of particular expectations and responsibilities with it.
“I think there’s a variety of things that I feel have been really important to the work over the last ten years,” he explains. “The orchestra has a unique position in that we have direct federal funding,” he continues.
That leads to a direct responsibility to support Canadian creation. “During my time we have commissioned 50 pieces and counting of symphonic works,” he notes.
He points out that the orchestra has toured every province and territory, including a first: concerts on the traditional lands of the Eskasoni Mi’kmaw Nation. “I feel it’s an incredibly important relationship with the Eskasoni Nation in New Brunswick. I feel that it’s something a national organization should be proud of.”
Alexander mentions the education and mentoring component of his job. That has included frequent partnerships with OrKidstra, an Ottawa based charity that offers music education and mentorship for youth from under-served area. Six OrKidstra student musicians went along for the orchestra’s tour to Japan.
“It’s a force for social uplift,” he says. The NAC Orchestra’s official Mentorship Program offers opportunities for early career and advanced student musicians to work with top professionals. “We’re in the fifth year of the mentorship program,” Shelley adds. “That’s something I’m quietly proud of.”
Alexander Shelley, Music Director conducts Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra & Fellows of the National Arts Centre’s ‘Play it Forward’ Mentorship Program in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 on May 14, 2023:
With Shelley, the orchestra has released a series of recordings. Poema: Ad Astra was the first volume of a recording project that Strauss’s tone poems with contemporary works. It was released in January 2025. The second volume, Poema: Terra Nova, was released in the fall of 2025.
They’re the most recent of the 13 recordings that Shelley has made with the orchestra, which garnered several JUNO nominations, and two JUNO Awards for Classical Composition of the Year for commissioned works by Jocelyn Morlock and Ana Sokolovic.
“The recording legacy is very important to me,” he says. He mentions the commissioned works, including pieces by four Canadian composers inspired by Canadian women for the Sesquicentennial celebration in 2017’s Life Reflected. Morlock’s My Name is Amanda Todd was singled out for the win. Another Shelley project included the 2021 release Clara, Robert, Johannes, which put the work of Clara Schumann on a par with that of her husband Robert, and Johannes Brahms.
“These are all very important to me.” Another first was 2024’s Two Orchestras, One Symphony, which saw the NAC Orchestra, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in a recording of Canadian composer Jacques Hétu’s Symphony No. 5
“We made the very first recording of it,” he says of Hétu’s symphony. He points out the importance of that recording for the future of the piece. “I know what it’s like when other orchestras are looking to program something, to be able to listen [to it],” he says.
“And then finally touring,” he says, “telling Canadian stories.” Along with tours throughout Canada, he’s taken the orchestra to Europe, and to Carnegie Hall. In 2025, the NAC Orchestra returned to Japan for the first time in four decades, and made their debut in the Republic of Korea. Shelley relished the role of becoming an ambassador for the national orchestra abroad. He points out that the orchestra took Canadian soloists with them, and a commissioned work on the life of journalist Peter Jennings by composer Philip Glass.
Alexander Shelley conducts the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Philip Glass’ Symphony No. 13 “Truth in Our Time”
Three Orchestras for 2026/27
Shelley will be busy in 2026/27 overseeing three orchestras.
“I’m taking over the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland,” he says. “Already, there’s a bridge between the NAC and Ireland. I think there’s a lot of natural shared storytelling between us,” Shelley adds.
“Every music director has to set their own expectations,” Alexander explains. “But, in a sense, you have to shape your values.” That involves considering the specifics of each appointment. “For me, putting this creative element at the forefront, the national advocacy and ambassador role, it seemed to me to be the way to do it,” he continues. “When we have this support, that’s where we have to invest those dollars.”
The main difference lies in the area of funding, something that operates different with the NAC Orchestra than with most other classical music organizations.
“To survive, other organizations have to generate revenue,” he says. He also doesn’t mean to imply that the NAC Orchestra was the only one to support Canadian artists and creators. “I want to be careful, because so many orchestras across the country do sensational work,” he says. It’s just that funding that comes directly from the Canadian people should have a clear focus. “We have to put our money where our mouth is,” he says.
Some aspects remain true for any orchestral leadership role.
“Whether I’m leading a national organization, or whether I’m leading any other kind of organization, a huge part of my role […] is about the communication of what we do,” he says. “It’s a noisy and busy world, and there are many pulls to people’s attention. I think trying to find ways to connect, to share passion, to invite audiences to engage in works of art […] is as important as it’s ever been.”
Cultivating public trust is key.
“They have some one who speaks to them directly and honestly. I don’t try to educate, but I try to share every bit of passion that I have,” he explains of his approach. “Why should we expect that they’re deep into the piece that they’re about to hear?”
He’s looking forward to the next season.
“Well I have three wonderful leadership positions.”
His role as Artistic and Music Director of Artis−Naples in Florida offers unique possibilities. “I’m leading the orchestra, and building the orchestra in a community that’s very thirsty [for it],” he says. It also involves overseeing the visual arts, dance, film, and other disciplines housed at the complex. “Each art form serves a different principle,” he says. “I love that job.”
Then there’s the Pacific Symphony, where he assumes the role of Music Director in full with the coming season.
“I’m just beginning this job in Los Angeles in Orange County,” he says. “It’s a fabulous orchestra, with beautiful concert hall.”
He’s looking forward to charting the direction of the organization. “What do we want to achieve? What is success?” Then there’s the public face of the job. “What is symphonic music, and what role does it have in our lives?” It’s what he wants to communicate to his audience there.
“Excellence — that’s our daily bread. But, that’s not our end goal. It all serves a bigger picture.”
Leaving Ottawa
“My final subscription concert next week is with Mahler Resurrection Symphony. It’s not an accident that we’re performing that piece — it was my wish,” Shelley explains.
It’s a theme that applies to life itself. “To become a new version of ourselves, and to let go of what we could be,” he says. “I shall ascend into whatever you believe will come next,” he adds.
“It’s a vision of empowerment and change.”
He’ll be leaving Canada in a physical sense, but the experience will stay with him forever.
“I certainly wouldn’t be who I am now if it were not for Canada and this orchestra,” he says. Shelley gives credit to the orchestra itself as well as the people who worked around him during his tenure — along with something undefinable about Canada itself.
“It’s the undercurrents of Canadian society,” he says, “hard to put your finger around but is very real. It doesn’t take itself too seriously. But it is. People are caring, and thinking, and kind and generous,” he adds.
“My two boys are Canadian and proudly so. They’re very proud of it,” Shelley says.
“I leave with this country in the DNA of my family, literally. A part of our souls, my wife and my children, will always be in this country, and I’ll always be grateful for it.”
His last day at NAC Orchestra Music Director sees him conducting with soloists Canadian violinist James Ehnes and French-German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt on July 2; that performance is sold out.
Coming Up…
He’s leaving Ottawa, but not just yet, and a return visit is already in the works.
- Shelley leads the NAC Orchestra, with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, soprano Miah Persson and mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska in Mahler 2, The Resurrection on June 25 — and if you can’t make it to Ottawa, there will be a free livestream available too; details [HERE].
- Tickets will be available for the Canada Day free concert at Ottawa’s Southam Hall as of June 26, 2026 at 12:30 p.m.; details [HERE].
- Next year, he’ll return for a visit with the NAC Orchestra to conduct Mahler 3 on June 17 & 18, 2027; details [HERE].
- He leads the orchestra again on June 23 & 24, 2027 in a program of Strauss and Ravel; details [HERE].
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