AlexanderShelley

Press

• Morlock / Tchaikovsky / Strauss: Orchestre Métropolitain

  Eglise Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus

  Apr 2023

  • La précision, la distinction et la beauté de sa gestique est quelque chose que l’on n’a plus vraiment vu depuis Lorin Maazel A precision, distinction and beauty of gesture not seen since Lorin Maazel

    • Le Devoir
    • 29 April 2023

• Atmosphere and Mastery

  recording

  Mar 2023

  • Shelley and the orchestra respond to this emotional world with suitably impassioned accounts, using tempos that are energetic yet spacious enough to steep us in, for instance, the full effect of the extraordinary juxtaposed harmonies in Brahms’s third movement.

    • BBC Music Magazine
    • 22 March 2023

• Lyrical Echoes

  Recording

  Dec 2021

  • Shelley has the strings create a perfectly smooth surface in the slow introduction to Schumann’s Second – a beautiful effect, in fact, so the shifting harmonies are like shadows passing over a cathedral’s marble floor..." Shelley and the Ottawa orchetra’s performance of Brahm’s Second is finer still. [...] I love the long lines he creates in the Allegretto grazioso, and how the Presto ma non assai sections crackle with energy yet remain feather-light.

    • Gramophone Magazine March 2022
    • 22 March 2022

• Orchestre symphonique de Montréal - Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Berstein

  Maison Symphonique,

  Feb 2021

  • Under Alexander Shelley’s impeccable direction, the orchestra provided a full program of works by two Romantic-era composers and a 20th-century work of boundless imagination

    • Bachtrack
    • 10 February 2021

• Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal - Strauss, Sibelius

  Maison Symphonique

  Nov 2020

  • Alexandre Shelley, magistral! ...un Mort et transfiguration exceptionnel. Hors du commun, car même à travers les haut-parleurs transparaissent le travail sur la texture des cordes, la tension et la saturation harmonique...'' ''Alexandre Shelley, masterful! ... an exceptional Death and Transfiguration. Out of the ordinary, because even through the speakers, the work on the texture of the strings, the tension and the harmonic saturation all shine through...

    • Le Devoir
    • 25 November 2020

• Darlings of the Muses

  recording

  May 2020

  • Shelley wields a taut baton, presenting textures that are slender yet not too wispy, filled with spirited rhythms but sensibly measured tempos.

    • BBC Music Magazine
    • 06 August 2020

  • The big news here is the terrific playing of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra [...] even more impressive under Alexander Shelley, who has led the orchestra since 2015.

    • Gramophone Magazine October
    • 01 October 2020

• Sydney Symphony Orchestra - Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov

  Sydney Town Hall

  Mar 2020

  • Alexander Shelley led the orchestra in a delicately sensuous reading of that composer’s first orchestral masterpiece, Prelude a L’apres-midi d’un faune. Finely balanced and clear, its colours bloomed in the Town Hall acoustics with wafting shapes and languidly curling lines.

    • Sydney Morning Herald
    • 16 March 2020

  • Shelley eschewed raw sensation in the first movement, favouring instead a layered, detailed sound, building the intensity in waves – a polished, long-view performance [...] In the hands of Shelley and the SSO musicians, this was compelling musical storytelling.

    • Limelight Magazine
    • 12 March 2020

• Sydney Symphony - debut (Beethoven, Tchaikovsky)

  Sydney Opera House

  Apr 2019

  • A superlative performance from [...] Alexander Shelley and the SSO. ''...Shelley gave the music a rolling momentum that snowballed smoothly into climactic maelstroms. The audience was too stunned to applaud after the first movement’s shocking final bars, emitting something that sounded more like an awed exhalation.

    • Limelight Magazine
    • 04 April 2019

  • ..Alexander Shelley led the first orchestral tutti with a strict but unhurried speed, enabling orchestra and soloist to maintain a sense of logical coherence through moments of expressive tempo variation and give the first movement an underlying architectural strength.

    • Sydney Morning Herald
    • 09 April 2019

  • ...Shelley's spacious tempos and long-breathed phrasing demonstrated a clear understanding of the work's structure and expressive breadth. They always kept the longer lines in sight while acknowledging the significance of each moment. [...]. His thoughtful interpretations of Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony demonstrated the virtues of his organic understanding of musical structure. [...], his judiciously controlled accelerandos and ritardandos and astute use of tempo and dynamic contracts ensured that climactic moments still erupted with force while creating oases of compelling quietude in the slower more contemplative passages. Shelley’s interpretation reminded us that finesse, charm, subtlety and exquisite craftmanship are as central to Tchaikovsky’s art as powerful emotions and intense drama.

    • The Australian
    • 04 April 2019

  • Shelley and the SSO turned the fourth symphony into a masterpiece of clarity, passion and excitement. One of the secrets seemed to be in Shelley not rushing the tempi, even towards the end of the final movement when the horses smell home and want to stampede. Shelley (conducting without score) coaxed the orchestra to produce a depth of texture and control I’d never heard from it before.

    • J-Wire
    • 04 April 2019