News

11 concert-workshops will be held for prisoners at Bordeaux Prison

The Orchestre de l’Agora will present 11 concert-workshops at the Montreal Detention Centre (Bordeaux Prison) over the course of the 2021-2022 season. The Bordeaux prison is the largest of Quebec’s provincial prisons, housing male prisoners sentenced to less than two years’ imprisonment and defendants awaiting trial. The goal of the OA’s concert-workshops (one per month until July 2022) is to use music as a tool for social rehabilitation. Read More

Virtual concert: Gratitude for caregivers and loved ones

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart. It is the most beautiful flower that springs from the soul” (quotes from Hans Christian Andersen and Seneca)

To not forget – Join the musicians of the Orchestre de l’Agora, accompanied by poems recited by Sophie Faucher, for a concert that aims to show gratitude towards caregivers during the pandemic. This concert is available for free online from the link below.Read More

Interview with Nicolas Ellis in Le Devoir

Read the article about Nicolas Ellis “homme-orchestre” by Christophe Huss, published on July 10th, 2021 in Le Devoir. Learn more about the activities of the founder and conductor of the Orchestre de l’Agora during this last year of the pandemic.

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Summer concert at Lachine music Festival

Join Nicolas Ellis and Orchestre de l’Agora for the opening concert of the Lachine Music Festival, 44th edition! The Orchestra will perform Gustav Mahler’s eternal and sublime 4th Symphony in Klaus Simon’s superb chamber orchestra version, this Saturday, July 3rd at 7:30 p.m. with Soprano Vanessa Croome. The concert is free with reservations required (first come, first served). For those unable to attend, the concert will be recorded and available online for 24 hours on the Festival’s Website (on July 31st).

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La Traviata re-imagined

On Thursday, May 27, Nicolas Ellis and the Agora Wind Quintet accompanied the young participants of « Espace Transition à l’opéra », a project initiated by the Opéra de Montréal, for a performance of a musical inspired by Verdi’s famous opera, La Traviata.

This innovative project of rehabilitation through the performing arts gave these young the opportunity to write and produce this show: the result on stage was very impressive!Read More

Canadian conductor Nicolas Ellis wins $125,000 Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer 2021-2022

Canadian conductor Nicolas Ellis, Artistic Director & Founder of Orchestre de l’Agora and Artistic Partner to the Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, is the winner of the $125,000 Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer 2021-2022 for Collaborative Emerging ArtistDuring the pandemic, $50,000 of the prize creates $1,000,000 Mécénat Musica Orchestre de l’Agora endowment fund.

Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer is the biggest prize in Canada and one of the largest in the world for a collaborative emerging artist in classical music.

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Educational video capsules for young people

In the last few months, conductor Nicolas Ellis and his brother Frédéric Ellis, illustrator, have developed together for the Orchestre de l’Agora a project of musical and educational video capsules for young people aged 8 and under, the “Ellistrations”.

The first episode, Brigitte the Double Bass and Gaston the Violin (starring Chloé Chabanole and Samuel-San Vachon) will be presented to elementary school classes after the holidays, in the context of Zoom meetings with Nicolas Ellis.