Grand Piano And Southam Hall

To my readers south of the border, a Happy Fourth of July!

On one of the concourses inside the National Arts Centre is this wonderful grand piano with a lot of history. This was one of the pianos belonging to the great Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould, left to the NAC. Photographs of the man himself are on the walls around it, along with video footage and information. The piano remains in tune, and is occasionally played.

I paused to take photographs of portraits on the walls of a number of the top players in the NAC. Heather Moore is the artistic producer and executive director for Canada Scene. Alexander Shelley is music director and principal conductor for the National Arts Centre Orchestra.

Cathy Levy is the executive director for Dance at the NAC. Kevin Loring is the artistic director for Indigenous Theatre here.

I came into Southam Hall, the largest of the performance spaces in the building. Orchestra positions and music notes were set out on the stage, though most instruments were not in place. I'll show you things from there tomorrow.

Coming up onto the stage, I paused to photograph these facts about the hall.

Here we have the notes on display for one of the items in the evening concert. You try making sense of music notes, because I can't. Regardless, I'd have enjoyed the overture.

Memorabilia From A Half Century

Some of the items around the National Arts Centre during Doors Open included a set of costumes from different productions down through the years.

This is from an opera production of Cosi Fan Tutte.

This was designed for the production Amelia.

This was designed for a Strindberg production, Le Songe.

And this comes from a run of Hamlet.

Brittanicus was the production for this work.

And this was done for The Mikado.

A model of the NAC as it was originally constructed was on display. The glass structure added onto portions of the building are obviously not part of the original design. This was accompanied by photographs and design sketches.

Music, Colour, Motion, And Dance

Back to Doors Open. At the end of last month I mentioned that I'd arrived in this space at the NAC shortly before a performance was due to start. Two dancers did a mesmerizing act for the crowd. A look at the day's schedule identifies these two as Maude Parent and Timothe Vincent, two members of a group called Les 7 doigts de la main. I took a lot of photographs, enough so that if we have a theme day revolving around motion next year I already have the shots for it. And I'll be using one spare shot for the Orange theme day later in the year. Check out my video of part of the performance here.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Blue

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians!

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo, and for July that theme is Blue. You can see how other members of the group are interpreting the theme right here.

For my own take, I'm starting with Winterlude. A sculptor was at work at carving ice in this shot, with blue lights illuminating things.

Jacques Cartier Park over on the Gatineau side of the river is turned into a massive winter playground, with mounds of snow erected for slides. Along the back of one of those, a carving was made into the snow. It tends to look blue on a cloudy day such as was the case with my visit in February.

The same effect had taken hold on my way back into Ottawa. I paused at the Alexandra Bridge to photograph Parliament Hill over the Ottawa River.

More of that blue light and ice sculptures.

The light does shift and change- in this case it's transitioning from blue into purple.

This view is from the latter half of March. I was standing on the Bank Street Bridge where it crosses over the Rideau Canal, and the last light of day fit the theme nicely.

A few weeks makes a considerable difference. Here we saw things as they were on the evening of April 10th, with the ice on the Canal breaking up.

Here we have another one of those utility boxes redone in a fashion style. I've shown you some in previous colour theme days. This is downtown, in a portion of the city that's designed the Arts, Fashion, And Theatre district. Numerous utility boxes can be found like this one.

One day in early June I was up around Richmond Landing for some photography. Coming back I took one of a couple of pedestrian underpasses, where reproductions of First Nations art can be found on the walls. The blue of this mural seemed appropriate for the theme. Ommatik is the title, and in English it translates to Heart. It is by an Inuit artist, Glenn Gear.

Not far from where I live is a wall where graffiti is allowed. I dislike graffiti, but this did catch my eye, and feels like a full transition to street art as opposed to the visual clutter of graffiti. The different shades of blue nicely offset the pink, and the rather dark elements of the background images.