STORY AND LINK: Pasadena Symphony announces 2012-2013 season

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

 

As the Pasadena Symphony heads into its third season
following the 25-year-tenure of former Music Director Jorge Mester, the
orchestra continues to find a new rhythm as evidenced by its 85th
season that was announced yesterday.

 

Although there still seems to be no successor to Mester on
the horizon, three of the six guest conductors for the 2012-2013 season will
have led the PSO during the past and current seasons. James DePreist continues
in his role as music advisor but is not on next season’s maestro list after
leading a concert last season and conducting the final programs on this year’s
schedule. Russian repertoire will be very much in evidence throughout next
season, and newly named Composer-in-Residence Peter Boyer will have not one but
three of his works performed during the season.

 

As has been the case during the past couple of years, the
upcoming season will have five classical concerts with two performances each at
Ambassador Auditorium (2 p.m. and 8 p.m.). Next year will also see a reprise on
Dec. 1 of last year’s sold-out holiday candlelight concert at All Saints
Church, Pasadena. Grant Cooper will again conduct and soprano Lisa Vroman will
return as soloist.

 

The classical season will open on Oct. 6 when Mei-Ann Chen, who was a dynamo leading
the PSO in this season’s opening concerts, returns to open next season, as
well. Now music director of the Chicago Sinfionetta and the Memphis Symphony,
Chen’s PSO program will be Beethoven’s Egmont
Overture,
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9, and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto
No. 2, with 16-ytear-old George Li, recipient of the 2012 Gilmore Young Artist
Award, as soloist.

 

Other programs on the schedule are:

 

Nov. 3 — Edwin
Outwater, conductor; Rueibin Chin, piano

A native of Santa Monica, Outwater has been music director
of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Ontario, Canada for five years. Now 41,
Outwater was resident conductor of the San Francisco Symphony for four years
and recently made his professional opera debut conducting Verdi’s La Traviata at San Francisco Opera.

 

His PSO program will include Huang Li’s Spring Festival Overture, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 and
Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,
with Chin as soloist.

 

Jan. 12 — Tito
Muoz, conductor; Carolyn Goulding, violin

Muoz — music director of the Opra National de Lorraine and
the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy in France — made an impressive
PSO debut last season. He returns to lead Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 and Sibelius’
Violin Concerto, with Carolyn Goulding as soloist. The program will open with
Boyer’s “Apollo” from Three Olympians.

 

Feb. 9 — Nicholas
McGegan, conductor; Yulia Van Doren, soprano; Donald Foster, clarinet

McGegan is known primarily as a Baroque music specialist but
his program next month concludes with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) and his concerts next season
will finish with Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. For contrast, the PSO’s principal
clarinet, Donald Foster, will step out from the ranks as soloist in Mozart’s
Clarinet Concerto.

 

April 27, 2013 —
Jose Luis Gomez, conductor; Peter Boyer, conductor; Chee-Yun, violin

Gomez is another of the young conductors to come out of
Venezuela’s “El Sistema” music program, following in the footsteps of Los
Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Gustavo Dudamel. In 2010, Gomez won the
fifth International Georg Solti Conductor’s Competition in Frankfurt by
unanimous decision of the jury. Gomez will conclude the PSO season by leading
Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia and
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. Meanwhile, Boyer’s composition Festivities is on the agenda and the
composer will conduct the inaugural performance of his Symphony No. 1 to
conclude the season.

 

Read the complete media release HERE.

_______________________

 

(c) Copyright 2012, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved.
Portions may be quoted with attribution.

Facebook Twitter Plusone Pinterest Reddit Tumblr Email