Sotto Voce on Tour with NACO: Some Final Thoughts
Follow along as Cannopy's Classical Music Correspondent joins the National Arts Centre Orchestra for an international tour
Why bother? ── Now that the tour is over and slipping into the rearview, I wanted to wrap up this series with a question, asked from a bird's eye view of sorts: why go through the trouble of touring an orchestra? It makes a great deal of sense if you’re a four-piece band or a solo artist slumming through the Airbnbs of the world in an effort to build an international fanbase and reward your devoted fans with an IRL experience. But when you expand this project to encompass an 84-piece orchestra, plus staff and media personnel (including your trusted Sotto Voce), then the orchestration of the tour becomes a symphony of logistics in and of itself.
To give you a sense of the monumental undertaking that a tour of this scale plays out to be, I created this simple interactive infographic detailing the numbers behind the tour. As you can see from that infographic, this tour was not exactly a quick swim across the pond. Yet, tours of this sort are commonplace for orchestras ranging in stature from small city ensembles to national troupes. Again, why bother? This might seem like a silly question, yet there are so many things that we do in this genre without taking a moment to pause and reflect on why it matters. This is a question that has been playing on my mind since the beginning of the tour and, even now back in Toronto, remains relevant.
Just as I was beginning to think that my answer to that question was far too simplistic and philosophical, the exact same sentiments were expressed by conductor Alexander Shelley in a reception after the final concert in Osaka. You might recall the conversation between Shelley and our chief editor back in Tokyo; there's a little bit from that conversation that stands out to me, and flows in the same vein as his closing remarks in Osaka:
There's a lot that he's saying there, but it all comes down to a certain anxiety that anyone with his job would and should be feeling at this moment. It's an anxiety that is exacerbated by the accelerating pace with which the all-encompassing “AI” phenomena is galloping towards the creative industries. Shelley admits this anxiety in his send-off speech, that he wasn't sure if this music and the way that it is presented, will be the same one or two decades down the line. His rebuttal regarding the threat of artificial intelligence is one that echoes a salient point made in the conversation that this magazine had with theatre director Donna Feore last year, name that “AI can’t sweat.” As in, the tangible and tactile things that make the human experience human, are safe from the incredibly rapid evolution of technological mimicry. As Shelley points out above, the point of a tennis match is not endless efficiency and to reach impossible speeds; we enjoy watching a match because of its human limitations, and rare moments when these limitations are exceeded. The same thing is true for the concert experience.
Shelley had the choice of delivering one of those run-of-the-mill speeches one expects of a work party, even one that is 10,000 km away from home. Instead, he delivered a speech that was very sincere, and sought to answer the question (why tour?) that might have been at the back of everyone's mind. Using a scenario that has unfortunately aged poorly ─ what are the things that you cherish the most if the plane back to Canada was to suddenly plunge towards the ground ─ Shirley recounts his love for his wife and children, and for being able to make music with his orchestra in a way that's incredibly real, tactile, and offline. It was an incredibly touching and earnest string of words and, to be honest, a little bit cringe. But these days, cringe is good, it’s much needed in fact.
You see, there is something very old fashioned about an international tour like this, especially one with diplomatic components (featuring concerts at the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo and celebration of Korean-Canadian cultural relations). The interactions are straightforward, earnest, and everyone seems to rely on that inexplicable element that makes travel possible: the kindness of strangers. And to put something that is so fundamental to the human experience into words is necessarily cringe — which makes it untenable to the algorithmically-derived content ecosystem (thank goodness!). You have to be there to feel it; there is no URL substitute for the IRL sentiment being expressed.
There were a few tears from the orchestra members, and the speech was a reminder of how big the footprint Shelley will be leaving behind when he departs at the end of NACO’s 2025/26 season. It also reminded me of that episode from The Office, when Michael Scott visits Pam’s gallery exhibit and reacts viscerally to her paintings.
“That is our building, and we sell paper,” Scott says in response to Pam’s illustration of the infamous Dunder Mifflin building. There’s something incredibly endearing about not keeping up with the times, as relates to technology. What the Internet did to print media, AI seems hellbent on doing to all creative media. Our best resistance against this dehumanization of creativity is simply to go outside, discharge ourselves from the algorithms that make us predictable.
Travelling halfway across the world to play classical music for an audience seems even more quaint and old fashioned than selling paper in the digital age. But both of these endeavours reflect a limited experience that is human precisely because it is limited and you can experience it with your senses. That’s why the Kindle cannot replace the book, nor can Spotify replace the orchestra. Nothing can replace this instinctual need to come together in the same room, vis-à-vis. And a tour is the ultimate platter for serving this human need, regardless of the price tag.
And one more thing about the digital age: it’s an incredibly inside experience. The algorithms and simulations want nothing but to keep us inside, in a small and isolated interface ─ that’s how it makes money. On the flip side: there’s the outside world, where people come together, sans algorithm, warts and all. In that sense, a tour is the most outside thing you can do. That is the sentiment being channeled by the title of the latest issue of Cannopy Magazine: “We Outside”. (Become a paid subscriber and you’ll get a copy of the magazine edition when it's out next month.)
With the final words in this NACO Tour series, I’d like to give a shoutout to concert photographer Curtis Perry. I hope his visual coverage of this tour has added an extra bit of drama and colour to your reading experience.
I’ll be hitting the road again soon to cover the Stratford Festival; in the meantime, stop by my restaurant in Little Italy. The patio’s great and we’ve got a bolognese special that’s been very popular. ─ SV
Enjoy what you’re reading here?
Support independent arts journalism by becoming a paid subscriber and get members-only interviews and bonus content.
Subscribe to The Cannopy Newsletter.
