Alexander Shelley
is Music Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra and Principal Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen’s ECHO and Deutsche Gründerpreis winning “Zukunftslabor”. In August 2017 Alexander concluded his tenure as Chief Conductor of the Nürnberger Symphoniker, a position he held since September 2009. The partnership was hailed by press and audience alike as a golden era for the orchestra, where he transformed the ensemble’s playing, education work and international touring activities.

Unanimous winner of the 2005 Leeds Conductor’s Competition, he has since worked regularly with the leading orchestras of Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, NDR Orchester Hannover, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Gothenburg Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Milwaukee, Melbourne and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras.

Alexander’s operatic engagements have included The Merry Widow and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliet (Den Kongelige Opera); La Bohème (Opera Lyra/National Arts Centre), Iolanta (Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen), Così fan Tutte (Opéra national de Montpellier) and The Marriage of Figaro (Opera North) in 2015. In 2017 he led a co-production of Harry Somers’ Louis Riel with the NACO and Canadian Opera Company.

Canada's National Arts Centre Orchestra
is a world class ensemble of musicians from across Canada and the world, under the inspiring leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley.

Formed in 1969, the orchestra gives about 100 performances a year in Ottawa, across Canada and around the globe, working with diverse artists of international renown. It breaks boundaries with its regular commissions of new creations including the critically-acclaimed, immersive Life Reflected.

Askonas Holt collaborated with the NAC for the first time in 2019, on a nine-date European tour celebrating the orchestra’s 50th anniversary. In addition to symphonic concerts in Saffron Walden, London, Utrecht, Copenhagen and Stockholm, the orchestra presented the extraordinary Life Reflected to audiences in Paris and Gothenburg.