Penderecki String Quartet

It’s a little nutty how much classical music there is in Ottawa in the summer. The NAC Orchestra played three fun concerts, including some sterling Gershwin, in a park next to the War Museum. The Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, a shoestring summer operation for musicians under 30 run by the impressive barely-over-30 conductor Jean-Philippe Tremblay, and the better-resourced but slightly greener National Youth Orchestra of Canada under Jacques Lacombe, both showed off the country’s young ensemble players. (The OFC is playing all four Schumann symphonies this Wednesday and Thursday at McGill University. Admission’s free. It won’t always be this easy to get in to watch Tremblay conduct.)