“Carl St.Clair, music director of Pacific Symphony … is reflecting on the extraordinary growth at the orchestra he has led for 28 years,” writes Lisa Fung in Saturday’s (2/3) Orange County Register (CA). “ ‘We’re 39 this year. In orchestra years … we’re like an adolescent basically,’ St.Clair says, laughing. But the ‘young’ orchestra, he says …, ‘is perched in a position to be catapulted up in national recognition.’ … In April, the symphony [will] make its Carnegie Hall debut and in May travels to China for a five-city tour.… Earlier this year, Pacific Symphony approved a new [musicians] contract that includes a 10.4 percent wage increase over five years…. In 2000, [St.Clair] launched the American Composers Festival…. In its 2011-12 season … St.Clair launched Symphonic Voices, a semi-staged opera initiative [that] has proven to be overwhelmingly popular, St.Clair says…. As it approaches its 40th anniversary, Pacific Symphony faces the challenge of building and diversifying its audience.” Says President John Forsyte, “It’s important for all of us who are concerned about the arts to not fixate on one element of diversity. Diversity for us means all things: geography, age, race-ethnicity, taste.… We seek to engage with the entire county.”
Posted February 7, 2018
Pictured: Carl St.Clair and the Pacific Symphony in performance
