Newswire | Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra Announces 100th Tour

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February 24, 2026 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) is thrilled to announce its 100^th tour since its founding in 1969. This spring, the Orchestra, led by Music Director Alexander Shelley, will visit Canada’s East Coast, with performances in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Jeremy Dutcher in performance. Photo: Curtis Perry.

Joining NACO and Shelley as a special guest throughout the tour is acclaimed Wolastoqiyik composer and singer-songwriter Jeremy Dutcher—a two-time Polaris Music Prize winner and the 2025 recipient of the NAC Award at the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards. NACO’s collaboration with Dutcher, a member of the Tobique First Nation in northern New Brunswick, will feature a powerful blend of Indigenous music and storytelling with orchestral performance.

Over the course of the tour, the Orchestra and Dutcher will perform three public concerts in Nova Scotia, in Eskasoni, Halifax, and Wolfville. The tour also includes a small ensemble performance in Fredericton, New Brunswick, for members of the local Wabanaki communities and other guests.

This tour is a milestone in Shelley’s final season as Music Director and includes a meaningful return to Eskasoni First Nation on Cape Breton Island. NACO and Shelley first visited the community during the 2017 Canada 150 Tour, performing I Lost My Talk, an NAC Orchestra commission based on the poem by the late Mi’kmaw writer and Elder Rita Joe, on her ancestral land. Inspired by Joe’s experience at the Shubenacadie Residential School, the poem was set to music by Canadian composer John Estacio as part of Life Reflected, a multimedia project honouring four remarkable Canadian women, including Joe.

Canada’s NAC Orchestra. Photo: Curtis Perry

“Our 2017 tour left indelible memories for me—the warm reception we received and the special musical moments we shared have stayed with me since. I’m grateful to be returning in this, my final season, and to have the opportunity to say a heartfelt thank-you to these wonderful communities and further deepen the NAC’s relationship with them. To do this alongside my friend Jeremy Dutcher—an icon for so many—is the icing on the cake.”

Alexander Shelley, Music Director, NAC Orchestra

“It was at the encouragement of my mentor, Elder Dr. Maggie Paul (Peskotomuhkati Nation), who told me it was her dream to hear our old songs lifted up by symphonic voices. With this direction, I set out to lift our songs to these heights. It is so meaningful to bring an ensemble as fantastic as the NAC Orchestra to Wabanaki Territory (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia), and to have our songs and language underscored by Canada’s orchestra, in our language, in our homelands.”

Jeremy Dutcher

Nova Scotia’s own Emma Stevens, from the Eskasoni First Nation, is also a featured artist on this tour. Stevens is an artist whose music and activism are deeply rooted in her Mi’kmaq heritage. Through language, storytelling, and song, she amplifies Indigenous voices, ensuring her community’s stories and wisdom are heard and honoured. As a teenager, Stevens first gained international attention for her Mi’kmaq-language rendition of The Beatles’ “Blackbird,” released in 2019 for the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages. Since then, she has released numerous original songs and music videos, toured internationally, and shared her voice on stages worldwide.

NACO will present a series of learning and engagement activities in collaboration with community partners across the region, including opportunities for meaningful connection through performances and Indigenous-centred knowledge sharing.

Tour concert dates:

April 14, 2026: Dan K. Stevens Memorial Arena, Eskasoni, Nova Scotia
April 16, 2026: Rebecca Cohn Auditorium, Halifax, Nova Scotia
April 17, 2026: Festival Theatre at Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia