Pacific Symphony: May concerts
Carl St.Clair and Pacific Symphony are off to China in May, performing concerts in Shanghai, Hefei, Wuxi, Chongqing and Beijing in the early and middle part of the month. Their program, previewed in Orange County, features Ravel’s “Daphnis et Chloe” Suite No. 2, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 (with Pinchas Zukerman) and Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” in Ravel’s famous transcription.
The orchestra gives concert in OC both before and after the tour, however.
On May-3-5, the orchestra welcomes back the always scintillating pianist André Watts, who will join the musicians in Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto. On the second half of the program, St.Clair and the musicians grapple with one of the 20th century’s greatest symphonies, Shostakovich’s Tenth. Tickets here
At the end of the month (and the beginning of the next), May 31-June 2, young British conductor Ben Gernon, the principal guest conductor of the BBC Philharmonic, makes his Pacific Symphony debut, leading a program of music by Prokofiev (the “Russian Overture”) and Stravinsky (the 1947 version of “Petrushka”). In between, Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg revives Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2. Tickets here
Elsewhere on the monthly schedule, Pacific Symphony youth ensembles give their season finales.
On May 6, the Pacific Symphony Santiago Strings, conducted by Irene Kroesen, play music by Britten, Vaughan Williams and others, in a program featuring music of the British Isles. Admission is free but tickets are required
On May 20, Gregory X. Whitmore conducts the Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble a wide-ranging American agenda that includes John Philip Sousa’s rarely heard “In Memoriam: President Garfield’s Funeral March” and Robert Russell Bennett’s “Suite of Old American Dances.” Admission is free but tickets are required
Later the same day, Roger Kalia leads his Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra in a concert that features the dual winners of the concerto competition. Violinists Danielle Liu and Leo Matsuoka play the first movements of the Glazunov and Sibelius Violin Concertos. The program winds up with Gershwin’s “American in Paris.” Admission is free but tickets are required