Video game soundtrack, Renée Fleming, Viola Desmond play among 2024/2025 NAC season

An orchestral performance of video game music from “Final Fantasy” is new territory for the National Arts Centre’s upcoming season.

The Ottawa-based performing arts organization says the NAC Orchestra will present its first-ever take on music from a video-game soundtrack with “Final Symphony,” running Jan. 10 to 11, 2025.

Other highlights from the 2024/2025 season include the English Theatre productions “Salesmen in China” from the Stratford Festival running Jan. 16 to 25, 2025, and the Viola Desmond-focused civil rights story “Controlled Damage,” co-produced with Halifax’s Neptune Theatre and running Feb. 13 to 22, 2025.

The season begins with the 10-day festival “Sphere,” running Sept. 10 to 20, with artists including Indigenous performer Jeremy Dutcher, soprano Renée Fleming and newly commissioned radio plays from Canadian playwrights David Yee and Berni Stapleton.

NAC Indigenous Theatre will mark its fifth anniversary with shows including the multimedia dance works “Homelands,” honouring Indigenous women Sept. 19 and 20, and “Raven Mother,” co-presented by NAC Dance in honour of the late Manitoba Cree Elder Margaret Harris, from Nov. 21 and 22.

NAC Orchestra’s long-running pops series continues with live soundtracks to Will Ferrell’s Christmas comedy “Elf” from Dec. 11 to 13 and Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” from March 27 to 29, 2025.

Meanwhile, the popular music program will include ’80s hitmakers Glass Tiger on Nov. 23, R&B artist Jully Black on Feb. 28, 2025 and Montreal drag queen Mado Lamotte on March 6, 2025.

NAC will also continue to offer $15 tickets to Indigenous audience members and those under 30.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on May 9, 2024.

The Canadian Press