“André Previn will be celebrated in Orange County this week as the focus of the Pacific Symphony’s annual American Composers Festival,” writes Timothy Mangan in Sunday’s (5/24) Orange County Register (California). Pacific Symphony Music Director Carl St.Clair “is an old friend and disciple.… ‘I first met him [at Tanglewood] in the summer of 1985,’ St.Clair says.… St.Clair visited Previn at his New York apartment 1 1/2 years ago to talk over plans for the concerts this week … a mini-retrospective of Previn’s career as a composer of concert music.” The program includes Principals (1980, written for the Pittsburgh Symphony), the Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra (2014, a co-commission of the Pacific Symphony), the tone poem Owls (2008, written for the Boston Symphony Orchestra), and the song cycle Honey and Rue (1992, written for soprano Kathleen Battle). In addition to his career as a pianist, conductor, and composer of films and musicals, “In the past two decades or so, Previn has again reinvented himself, this time as a prolific composer of concert music and opera…. Previn, 86 … is said to be in fragile health. But he does plan to be here for the concerts…. ‘I hope we’re in good shape for him,’ St.Clair says. ‘That’s our goal.’ “
Posted May 28, 2015
