summer festival 2015AUG. 22PACIFIC SYMPHONY’S SUMMER FESTIVAL 2015

AT IRVINE MEADOWS AMPHITHEATRE

presents

P A C I F I C S Y M P H O N Y P R O U D L Y R E C O G N I Z E S I T S O F F I C I A L P A R T N E R S

PARAMOUNT PICTURES and SPYGLASS ENTERTAINMENT presentA BAD ROBOT Production

STAR TREKThe concert begins at 8 p.m.

RICHARD KAUFMAN • CONDUCTOR

JOHN CHO • BEN CROSS • BRUCE GREENWOOD • SIMON PEGG • CHRIS PINE • ZACHARY QUINTOWINONA RYDER • ZOË SALDANA • KARL URBAN • ANTON YELCHIN

with ERIC BANA and LEONARD NIMOY

“STAR TREK” licensed by PARAMOUNT PICTURES. This Program licensed by PARAMOUNT PICTURES AND CBS CONSUMER PRODUCTS INC.

Motion Picture, Artwork, Photos © 2009 Paramount Pictures.STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Official Hotel Official Television StationOfficial Classical Radio Station

Official Pops Radio Station

Official Media Sponsor

Supporting Sponsor

PacificSymphony.org • (714) 755-5799

Visual Effects & Animation byINDUSTRIAL LIGHT & MAGIC

Music byMICHAEL GIACCHINO

Costume DesignerMICHAEL KAPLAN

Edited byMARYANN BRANDON, A.C.E.

MARY JO MARKEY, A.C.E

Production DesignerSCOTT CHAMBLISS

Director of PhotographyDAN MINDEL, ASC

Executive ProducersBRYAN BURK

JEFFREY CHERNOVROBERTO ORCI

ALEX KURTZMAN

Produced by J.J. ABRAMS

DAMON LINDELOF

Based Upon “STAR TREK” Created byGENE RODDENBERRY

Written byROBERTO ORCI & ALEX KURTZMAN

Directed byJ.J. ABRAMS

Front-Row Tables Sponsor

Page 18 | Summer Festival 2015

RICHARD meet the principal pops conductor

RICHARD KAUFMANHAL AND JEANETTE SEGERSTROMFAMILY FOUNDATION PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTOR CHAIR

R ichard Kaufman has devoted much of his musical life to conducting and supervising music for film and television productions, as well as performing film and classical music in concert halls and on recordings. The 2015-16 concert season marks Kaufman’s 25th

season as principal pops conductor of Pacific Symphony. He also holds the permanent title of pops conductor laureate with the Dallas Symphony, and soon begins his 10th season with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert series, “CSO at the Movies.” This past May, Kaufman made his conducting debut with the Boston Pops Orchestra, substituting for John Williams at the Annual Pops Film Night.

Kaufman regularly appears as a guest conductor with symphony orchestras throughout both the United States and around the world including Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, London, Calgary, Edmonton, Liverpool, the RTE Concert Orchestra in Dublin, Rotterdam and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. In addition to conducting “traditional” concert presentations, Kaufman often leads performances of complete film scores in concert, synchronizing the music to the actual film as it is shown on the screen above the orchestra. These legendary film titles include Singin’ in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, Psycho, Casablanca, The Bride of Frankenstein, Pirates of the Caribbean and various silent films.

Kaufman received the 1993 Grammy Award in the category of Best Pop Instrumental Performance. In addition to his two recordings with the London Symphony Orchestra, he has recorded CDs with the Nuremberg Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Brandenburg Philharmonic in Berlin.

He has conducted for performers including John Denver, Andy Williams, Mary Martin, Nanette Fabray, Sir James Galway, Diana Krall, Chris Botti, The Pointer Sisters, The Beach Boys, Peter Paul and Mary, Robert Goulet, David Copperfield, The Righteous Brothers and Art Garfunkel.

As a violinist, Kaufman performed on numerous film and television scores including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Saturday Night Fever and (in a moment of desperation) Animal House. He has recorded with artists including John Denver, Burt Bacharach, Neil Sedaka, The Carpenters and Ray Charles.

Kaufman joined the music department of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in 1984 as music coordinator, and for the next 18 years supervised music for MGM. He received two Emmy Award nominations, one for the animated series, The Pink Panther, in the category of Outstanding Music Direction and Composition, and another for Outstanding Original Song co-authored for the series, All Dogs Go to Heaven. For the MGM television series In the Heat of the Night, Kaufman composed songs with actor/producer Carroll O’Connor. He conducted the scores for films including Guarding Tess and Jungle to Jungle. As a unique part of his career in film, Kaufman has coached various actors in musical roles including Jack Nicholson, Dudley Moore and Tom Hanks.

Kaufman has served as music director and conductor for numerous musicals, including a national tour of Sweet Charity starring Juliet Prowse, the first national tours of Company (for Hal Prince) and Two Gentlemen of Verona (for the New York Shakespeare Festival). He has conducted numerous musicals for the Los Angeles and San Francisco Civic Light Operas (for one of these, he was nominated by the San Francisco Theater Critics for Outstanding Music Direction).

In 2012, Kaufman received the “Distinguished Alumni Award” from California State University, Northridge (CSUN). While a student at CSUN, he composed the University’s Alma Mater and Fight Song, and was the keynote speaker for the CSUN Honors Convocation Ceremony. He has appeared as a guest speaker at various universities including USC, University of Georgia and the California State Universities at Northridge and Fullerton. He is a member of the Music Advisory Board of the Young Musicians Foundation.

Born in Los Angeles, Kaufman began violin studies at age 7, played in the Peter Meremblum California Junior Symphony and was a member of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. He attended the Berkshire Music Festival at Tanglewood in the fellowship program, and earned a B.A. in Music from California State University, Northridge. Kaufman lives in Southern California with his wife, Gayle, a former dancer in film, television and on Broadway. His daughter, Whitney, is a graduate (with honors) from Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and for 2 ½ years was a member of the cast of the National Tour of Mamma Mia.

Kaufman is proud to be represented by Opus 3 Artists.

Summer Festival 2015 | Page 19

NOTESRoddenberry, a brilliantly talented television writer, had shown special flair for developing individualistic characters with strong values and the courage to dare. In developing Star Trek, Roddenberry was deeply inspired by what had become known as the “space race,” but his vision was far from the prevailing nationalistic view. Instead, he put his own values of ethical humanism, inclusiveness and tolerance into the adventures of the starship Enterprise and its crew. This was a spaceship fueled by faith in human goodness and the joy of discovery no less than by semi-solid deuterium.

Gene Roddenberry’s insistence upon diversity on the set (and in the Enterprise flight crew) was remarkable for its time, depicting—for example—an appealing young Russian ensign named Pavel Chekov at the height of the Cold War. The brief romantic involvement between Captain James T. Kirk and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura included the first TV-series kiss between a white man and a black woman. As portrayed by the African-American actress Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura also struck a blow for gender equality on the job—projecting strong, intelligent competence as well as the attractiveness required on the deck of the Enterprise. In encounters with alien civilizations on distant planets, the crew of the starship was strictly non-colonial and strictly avoided interfering with the development of foreign cultures even when they seemed irrational or hostile. This almost sacred commitment to learning and understanding without intervening was like Anthropology 101—the chapter on cultural relativity—transferred to outer space.

The characters who lived and worked by this philosophy were destined to become universal on-screen friends to us, like Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz. Eventually, we all imagined getting beamed up by Scotty and scanned for ailments by “Bones” McCoy’s tricorder. But Star Trek’s early years gave no hint of this later success. In fact, after three years as a weekly television series on NBC, Star Trek’s weak ratings led to its cancellation in 1969—the year America’s lunar quest came to fruition. How did the Star Trek saga find new life in 11 movies and counting?

The public spoke… then spoke again. First, while syndicated in reruns during the 1970s, Star Trek attracted an unexpectedly huge viewing audience. At that point the series was owned by Paramount Pictures, which turned to Gene Roddenberry to transfer the series’ unexpected success to movie theaters. Work began on a feature film in 1975, but was discontinued two years later, when the studio chose to redirect its resources toward Star Trek: Phase II, a television series that would feature the original Star Trek cast. But when the space-themed movies Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind became smash hits at the box office, Paramount changed its mind once more—closing down production of the Phase II series and recycling its pilot episode into a feature film, the 1979 Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The trend was clear: Wearied by Watergate (Nixon’s resignation came in 1974), economic stagnation (Western economies suffered a recession from 1973 through 1975) and every other kind of bad news on earth, viewers were looking to outer space for optimistic, escapist adventure. The release of Star Trek: The Motion Picture was followed by five more feature films with the original cast of the 1966 television series, while a new spin-off series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, took over the small screen from 1987 to 1994.

By 2002, seven Star Trek-based films of varying quality and dramatic heft had been released as the franchise transitioned from the original cast to the actors of the Next Generation series. Then, after a seven-year hiatus, the year 2009 brought something of a miracle for Star Trek fans: a prequel simply but ambitiously called Star Trek that not

Star Trek (2009)

Background: The Origins of Star Trek

F or more than two-thirds of all Americans, Star Trek has always been a part of life. The first iteration of this cultural icon arrived on television screens in 1966, before many of us were born—

five years after President John F. Kennedy made space exploration a symbol of hope and heroic ambition for all Americans, but three years before America launched the first manned lunar landing. Addressing a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961, Kennedy set the goal “before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” Less than five months later, in a speech at Rice University, Kennedy called space a “new frontier”—words echoed by writer Gene Roddenberry in his lyrics for the theme song to his new television series, Star Trek. In July of 1969, less than a year after the crewed Apollo 8 mission successfully orbited the moon, the crew of Apollo 11 navigated the lunar module onto the orb’s surface and planted the American flag there, fulfilling Kennedy’s goal. Though Kennedy himself did not survive to witness the landing, President Nixon famously called it the greatest event in the history of mankind since Creation. Americans had beaten the Russians to the moon in a competition that had come to symbolize the rivalry between two irreconcilable political systems and ways of life.

by michael clive

From the Composer:

W hat an honor it is for me to be a part of the Star Trek legacy. I was a huge fan of the series when I was a kid. For this opportunity, I must thank my friend and

collaborator, J.J. Abrams who made these films incredibly fun to work on. J.J.’s inspired new vision of the Star Trek saga brought me immediately back to my childhood, as if I was watching Gene Roddenberry’s brilliant creation for the first time on television. J.J. and I are among the lucky few who get to hear the world’s most talented musicians bring a score like Star Trek to life in person. But now that’s all changed. For me, the most exciting aspect of the Star Trek film with orchestra concerts is that audiences now have an opportunity to experience the films in a way that can’t be replicated in their living rooms—with a full orchestra. Tonight, those musicians are members of Pacific Symphony under the direction of Richard Kaufman. You couldn’t be in better hands. Enjoy! —Michael Giacchino

From the Director:

O ne of the highlights of my experience working on the Star Trek films has been the opportunity to collaborate with Michael Giacchino. His beautiful, powerful,

inspired musical scores elevate, transform and enrich every scene or sequence in these two films. While the music as heard on the original soundtracks is thrilling, experiencing these scores performed live, as I was lucky to, during the recording sessions, is profound. The wonder of hearing—and watching —a full orchestra bring these scores to life is something I will never forget. I am so happy that you get to experience this, too. I could not be more grateful to Michael, to all the brilliant musicians who originally brought these scores to life, and to those equally astounding artists playing here, live, tonight. — J.J. Abrams

Page 20 | Summer Festival 2015

NOTES

About Composer Michael Giacchino

M ichael Giacchino has fast become one of the best-known and most successful composers working in Hollywood today. His credits feature some of the most popular and

acclaimed film projects in recent history, including The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Giacchino’s 2009 score for the Pixar hit Up earned him an Oscar®, a Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Broadcast Film Critics’ Choice Award and two Grammy Awards. Giacchino began his filmmaking career at the age of 10 in his backyard in Edgewater Park, N.J., and eventually went on to study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After college, he landed a marketing job at Disney and began studies in music composition, first at Juilliard and then at UCLA. From marketing, he became a producer in the fledgling Disney Interactive Division, where he had the opportunity to write music for video games. After moving to a producing job at the newly formed DreamWorks Interactive division, he was asked to score the temp track for the video game adaptation of The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Impressed, Steven Spielberg hired him as the composer and it became the first PlayStation game to have a live orchestral score. Giacchino continued writing for video games and became well known for his Medal of Honor scores. Giacchino’s work in video games sparked the interest of J.J. Abrams, and thus began their long-standing relationship that would lead to scores for the hit television series Alias and LOST, and the feature films Mission Impossible III, Star Trek, Super 8 and Star Trek Into Darkness.

Additional projects include collaborations with Disney Imagineering on music for Space Mountain, Star Tours (with John Williams) and the Ratatouille ride in Disneyland Paris. Giacchino also was the musical director of the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Currently, his music can be heard in concert halls internationally with both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness films being performed live to picture with a full orchestra. This summer, Michael has three major films in theaters: Disney’s Tomorrowland, directed by Brad Bird, Pete Docter’s Inside Out from Pixar, and Universal’s Jurassic World, directed by Colin Trevorrow. Giacchino sits on the Advisory Board of Education through Music Los Angeles.

only explored the origins of the starship Enterprise and its crew, but also introduced a youthful new cast to the saga—and recaptured its magic in the process. The film uses time travel to create a parallel, alternate reality, with new actors portraying youthful characters first scripted more than four decades earlier; only the aging Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, reprised his original role. Directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Abrams with Damon Lindelof, the film catapulted Chris Pine (as the young Captain Kirk) and Zachary Quinto (as the young Spock) to international fame. It also ushered in the era of the Star Trek “reboot.”

Listening: The Music of Star Trek

How do you capture the spirit of the Star Trek saga in music? Few composers of movie music have faced so sweeping a challenge. With almost half a century of intergalactic travels behind it, the Enterprise had a long, familiar musical legacy that included a TV theme song on everyone’s list of favorites. The emotional sweep of the new film’s score would have to provide the close-up emotional backdrop for characters we all know, then zoom out to evoke the thrill of epic adventure. J.J. Abrams entrusted the challenge to the composer with whom he had worked most frequently in the past, Michael Giacchino. With background spanning video games as well as film, Giacchino proved to be an ideal choice—adept in communicating both interior moments and the vast scale of space-bound adventure.

Describing the daunting task of composing the music for Star Trek, Giacchino noted, “I grew up listening to all of the great Star Trek music over the years. In fact, Star Trek was part of what inspired me to be want to be in the business. The challenge was to honor what had come before, while at the same time taking the series in a new direction.” The film soundtrack was recorded at the Sony Scoring Stage, performed by a 107-piece orchestra and a chorus of 40. The instrumentation included an erhu (a bowed, two-string Chinese instrument) and electronically manipulated audio tracks to evoke the ominous sound of the Romulans. Abrams and Giacchino decided to reserve the theme of the original TV series for the very end of the movie—symbolizing, according to Abrams, the momentum of the Enterprise crew coming together.

Michael Clive is a cultural reporter living in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. He is program annotator for Pacific Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic, and editor-in-chief for The Santa Fe Opera.

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Star Trek: Film with Orchestra produced by Film Concerts Live!, a joint venture of IMG Artists, LLC and The Gorfaine/Schwartz Agency, Inc., in association with the 21st Century Symphony Orchestra Producers: Steven A. Linder, Jamie Richardson, Maria Giacchino Production Coordinator: Rob Stogsdill Representation for IMG Artists, LLC: Maureen Taylor, Grant Chaput Marketing Coordinator for IMG/GSA: Dan Barry

Music Composed by Michael Giacchino Score Manager for Concert Performance: Andrea DatzmanMusic Consultant for Concert Performance: Ludwig Wicki Music Preparation for Concert Performance: Suzie Katayama, Note That Score! Productions Music Administration for Concert Performance: Booker White Supervising Technical Director for Concert Performance: Alex Levy Technical Director for Concert Performance: Warren Brown Assistant Technical Director for Concert Performance: Eric Wegener

The score for Star Trek has been adapted for live concert performance. With special thanks to: CBS Consumer Products, Paramount Pictures, Bad Robot.

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CARL meet the music director

I n 2015-16, Music Director Carl St.Clair celebrates his 26th season with Pacific Symphony. He is one of the longest tenured conductors of the major American orchestras. St.Clair’s lengthy history solidifies the strong relationship he has forged with the musicians and the community.

His continuing role also lends stability to the organization and continuity to his vision for the Symphony’s future. Few orchestras can claim such rapid artistic development as Pacific Symphony—the largest orchestra formed in the United States in the last 50 years—due in large part to St.Clair’s leadership.

During his tenure, St.Clair has become widely recognized for his musically distinguished performances, his commitment to building outstanding educational programs and his innovative approaches to programming. Among his creative endeavors are: the vocal initiative, “Symphonic Voices,” which continues for the fifth season in 2015-16 with Puccini’s Turandot, following the concert-opera productions of La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata and Carmen in subsequent seasons; the creation six years ago of a series of multimedia concerts featuring inventive formats called “Music Unwound”; and the highly acclaimed American Composers Festival, which highlights the splendor of the William J. Gillespie Concert Organ in 2015-16 with music by Stephen Paulus, Wayne Oquin and Morten Lauridsen.

St.Clair’s commitment to the development and performance of new works by composers is evident in the wealth of commissions and recordings by the Symphony. The 2015-16 season continues a slate of recordings of works commissioned and performed by the Symphony in recent years, including William Bolcom’s Songs of Lorca and Prometheus and James Newton Howard’s I Would Plant a Tree, plus his Violin Concerto featuring James Ehnes. These join Elliot Goldenthal’s Symphony in G# Minor, released in 2014-15; Richard Danielpour’s Toward a Season of Peace, released in 2013-14; Philip Glass’ The Passion of Ramakrishna, and Michael Daugherty’s Mount Rushmore and The Gospel According to Sister Aimee, both released in 2012-13. St.Clair has led the orchestra in other critically acclaimed albums including two piano concertos of Lukas Foss; Danielpour’s An American Requiem and Goldenthal’s Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Other commissioned composers include Zhou Long, Tobias Picker, Frank Ticheli and Chen Yi, Curt Cacioppo, Stephen Scott, Jim Self (Pacific Symphony’s principal tubist) and Christopher Theofanidis.

In 2006-07, St.Clair led the orchestra’s historic move into its home in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The move came on the heels of the landmark 2005-06 season that included St.Clair leading the Symphony on its first European tour—nine cities in three countries playing before capacity houses and receiving extraordinary responses and reviews.

From 2008-10, St.Clair was general music director for the Komische Oper in Berlin, where he led successful new productions such as La Traviata (directed by Hans Neuenfels). He also served as general music director and chief conductor of the German National Theater and Staatskapelle (GNTS) in Weimar, Germany, where he led Wagner’s Ring Cycle to critical acclaim. He was the first non-European to hold his position at the GNTS; the role also gave him the distinction of simultaneously leading one of the newest orchestras in America and one of the oldest in Europe.

In 2014, St.Clair became the music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Costa Rica. His international career also has him conducting abroad several months a year, and he has appeared with orchestras throughout the world. He was the principal guest conductor of the Radio Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart from 1998-2004, where he completed a three-year recording project of the Villa–Lobos symphonies. He has also appeared with orchestras in Israel, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South America, and summer festivals worldwide.

In North America, St.Clair has led the Boston Symphony Orchestra (where he served as assistant conductor for several years), New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco, Seattle, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver symphonies, among many.

A strong advocate of music education for all ages, St.Clair has been essential to the creation and implementation of the Symphony’s education and community engagement programs including Pacific Symphony Youth Ensembles, Heartstrings, Sunday Casual Connections, OC Can You Play With Us?, arts-X-press and Class Act.

CARL ST.CLAIRWILLIAM J. GILLESPIEMUSIC DIRECTOR CHAIR

Page 22 | Summer Festival 2015

MEET the orchestra

* Principal** Assistant Principal

† On Leave

Celebrating , or years with Pacific Symphony this season.

CARL ST.CLAIR • MUSIC DIRECTORWilliam J. Gillespie Music Director Chair

RICHARD KAUFMAN • PRINCIPAL POPS CONDUCTORHal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Principal Pops Conductor Chair

ROGER KALIA • ASSISTANT CONDUCTORMary E. Moore Family Assistant Conductor Chair

NARONG PRANGCHAROEN • COMPOSER-IN-RESIDENCE

FIRST VIOLINRaymond Kobler Concertmaster, Eleanor and Michael Gordon

ChairPaul Manaster Associate ConcertmasterJeanne Skrocki Assistant ConcertmasterNancy Coade EldridgeChristine FrankKimiyo TakeyaAyako SugayaAnn Shiau TenneyMaia JasperRobert SchumitzkyAgnes GottschewskiDana FreemanGrace OhJean Kim†Angel LiuMarisa Sorajja

SECOND VIOLINBridget Dolkas*

Elizabeth and John Stahr ChairJessica Guideri**Yen-Ping LaiYu-Tong SharpAko KojianOvsep KetendjianLinda OwenPhil LunaMarlaJoy WeisshaarAlice Miller-WrateShelly Shi

VIOLARobert Becker* Catherine and James Emmi

ChairMeredith Crawford**Carolyn RileyJohn AcevedoErik RynearsonJulia StaudhammerJoseph Wen-Xiang ZhangPamela JacobsonAdam NeeleyCheryl GatesMargaret Henken

CELLOTimothy Landauer* Catherine and James Emmi

ChairKevin Plunkett**John AcostaRobert VosLászló MezöIan McKinnellM. Andrew HoneaWaldemar de AlmeidaJennifer GossRudolph Stein

BASSSteven Edelman*Douglas Basye**Christian KollgaardDavid ParmeterPaul ZibitsDavid BlackAndrew BumatayConstance Deeter

FLUTEBenjamin Smolen* Valerie and Hans Imhof ChairSharon O’ConnorCynthia Ellis

PICCOLOCynthia Ellis

OBOEJessica Pearlman Fields* Suzanne R. Chonette ChairTed Sugata

ENGLISH HORNLelie Resnick

CLARINETBenjamin Lulich* The Hanson Family

Foundation ChairDavid Chang

BASS CLARINETJoshua Ranz

BASSOONRose Corrigan*Elliott MoreauAndrew KleinAllen Savedoff

CONTRABASSOONAllen Savedoff

FRENCH HORNKeith Popejoy*Mark Adams†James Taylor**Russell Dicey

TRUMPETBarry Perkins* Susie and Steve Perry ChairTony EllisDavid Wailes

TROMBONEMichael Hoffman*David Stetson

BASS TROMBONEKyle Mendiguchia

TUBAJames Self*

TIMPANITodd Miller*

PERCUSSIONRobert A. Slack*Cliff Hulling

HARPMindy Ball*Michelle Temple

PIANO•CELESTESandra Matthews*

PERSONNEL MANAGERPaul Zibits

LIBRARIANSRussell DiceyBrent Anderson

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGERWill Hunter

ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGERWilliam Pruett

The musicians of Pacific Symphony are members of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 7. 30 20 10

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Summer Festival 2015 | Page 23

PACIFIC SYMPHONY

P acific Symphony, currently in its 37th season, is led by Music Director Carl St.Clair, who celebrates his 26th season with the orchestra in 2015-16. The largest orchestra formed in the U.S. in the last 50 years, the Symphony is recognized as an outstanding ensemble

making strides on both the national and international scene, as well as in its own community of Orange County. Presenting more than 100 concerts and events each year and a rich array of education and community programs, the Symphony reaches more than 275,000 residents—from school children to senior citizens.

The Symphony offers repertoire ranging from the great orchestral masterworks to music from today’s most prominent composers, highlighted by the annual American Composers Festival and a series of multimedia concerts called “Music Unwound.” Five seasons ago, the Symphony launched the highly successful opera and vocal initiative, “Symphonic Voices.” It also offers a popular Pops season, enhanced by state-of-the-art video and sound, led by Principal Pops Conductor Richard Kaufman, who celebrates 25 years with the orchestra in 2015-16. Each Symphony season also includes Café Ludwig, a chamber music series; an educational Family Musical Mornings series; and Sunday Casual Connections, an orchestral matinee series offering rich explorations of selected works led by St.Clair.

Founded in 1978 as a collaboration between California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), and North Orange County community leaders led by Marcy Mulville, the Symphony performed its first concerts at Fullerton’s Plummer Auditorium as the Pacific Chamber Orchestra, under the baton of then-CSUF orchestra conductor Keith Clark. Two seasons later, the Symphony expanded its size and changed its name to Pacific Symphony Orchestra. Then in 1981-82, the orchestra moved to Knott’s Berry Farm for one year. The subsequent four seasons, led by Clark, took place at Santa Ana High School auditorium where the Symphony also made its first six acclaimed recordings. In September 1986, the Symphony moved to the new Orange County Performing Arts Center, where Clark served as music director until 1990, and since 1987, the orchestra has additionally presented a summer outdoor series at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre (formerly Verizon Wireless Amphitheater). In 2006-07, the Symphony moved into the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, with striking architecture by Cesar Pelli and acoustics by Russell Johnson—and in 2008, inaugurated the hall’s critically acclaimed 4,322-pipe William J. Gillespie Concert Organ. The orchestra embarked on its first European tour in 2006, performing in nine cities in three countries.

The 2015-16 season sees the continuation of a recent slate of recordings of works commissioned and performed by the Symphony, including William Bolcom’s Songs of Lorca and Prometheus and James Newton Howard’s I Would Plant a Tree, plus his Violin Concerto featuring James Ehnes. In 2014-15, Elliot Goldenthal released a recording of his Symphony in G# Minor, written for and performed by the Symphony. In 2013-14, the Symphony released Richard Danielpour’s Toward a Season of Peace and Philip Glass’ The Passion of Ramakrishna; in 2012-13, Michael Daugherty’s Mount Rushmore—all three commissioned and performed by the Symphony. The Symphony has also commissioned and recorded An American Requiem by Danielpour and Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio by Goldenthal featuring Yo-Yo Ma. Other recordings have included collaborations with such composers as Lukas Foss and Toru Takemitsu. Other leading composers commissioned by the Symphony include Paul Chihara, Daniel Catán, Laura Karpman, William Kraft, Ana Lara, Tobias Picker, Christopher Theofanidis, Frank Ticheli and Chen Yi.

In both 2005 and 2010, the Symphony received the prestigious ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. Also in 2010, a study by the League of American Orchestras, “Fearless Journeys,” included the Symphony as one of the country’s five most innovative orchestras. The Symphony’s award-winning education programs benefit from the vision of St.Clair and are designed to integrate the orchestra and its music into the community in ways that stimulate all ages. The Symphony’s Class Act program has been honored as one of nine exemplary orchestra education programs by the National Endowment for the Arts and the League of American Orchestras. The list of instrumental training initiatives includes Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra, Pacific Symphony Youth Wind Ensemble and Pacific Symphony Santiago Strings as well as Santa Ana Strings.

ABOUT pacific symphony

STORY ben-hur

“I took the music from the arena show, and cut the film to 90 minutes,” he says. “The story still makes sense, but the music had to be completely rebuilt for orchestral performance. It’s a really strange hybrid of concert and movie. I still have to strap on and play a show, and no matter how brilliant I am in the concert, the movie has people in its grip.”

Richard Kaufman, Pacific Symphony’s Principal Pops Conductor, will conduct the performance, as he did for the work’s premiere at the Virginia Arts Festival during Easter week 2014.

“When he asked me to conduct it I was thrilled,” says Kaufman, “because I’d always loved working with him. He has a tremendous background not only as a drummer but also as a composer. In the score for Ben-Hur, he’s combined everything he knows about music, from rock ‘n’ roll to classical to film music, and the result is an epic score.

“He uses the orchestra colors in a very dramatic and emotional way, and truly raises the level of the quality of the film. The performance ended up being exceptionally emotional. Stewart has worked passionately on this score for a long time, and it was terrific to see his efforts acknowledged in such a positive way.”

Of course, there’s a big difference between playing arena rock and music meant for a concert hall. Copeland has learned over the years how to shift his technique to suit both.

“When you go to a symphony concert, you’re impressed by the majesty, power, depth, sonority, but in just plain volume terms, it’s much quieter, and in a concert hall rock feels overpoweringly loud,” he says. “Put one Marshall Amp on stage, or trap drums with a guy with 30 years of rock concert experience… it took me a while. But a number of strange benefits arise from playing with less volume. One is the diminishment of headaches. Also the drums sound better when you’re not trying to kill them. You get all the finesse. There’s a deeper place to go in the orchestra experience. The variety of colors is so much bigger, the resolution is much finer.

“I want my Mendelssohn really quiet, but there is also a kinetic aspect of live concerts that is worth firing up. This is a classical experience but also every orchestra across the land is looking for ways to get younger audiences, so rock ‘n’ roll shouldn’t be overlooked. A little bit of gristle won’t hurt, without overstepping.”

At the Movies with a Former Police Man BY PETER LEFEVRE

I f you didn’t know Stewart Copeland was a percussionist you might guess it after a minute of conversation with him. He’s high-energy, the words coming at you rapid-fire and carefully articulated.

He’s more than a percussionist, though. Following his years as the driving beat for The Police, he’s established a very active composing career. His output includes works for orchestra, film, opera and ballet, and on March 18-19, 2016, he joins Pacific Symphony to perform his original score—with screening—of the 1925 silent film Ben-Hur.

Why Ben-Hur?

“In 2009, I was commissioned to write an arena production of Ben-Hur to be staged live throughout Europe,” Copeland says. “It opened at the O2 arena in London and was a huge spectacle. We staged the entire book, the chariot race, the sea battle, right on the arena floor. The show ran its course, finishing up in Rome two years later and I always felt the music I’d written for that should have a life of its own. Somewhere my manager suggested I have a look at the older black-and-white 1925 version of the film.

“I was looking for images to go with the concert, and eventually I drank the Kool-Aid. The film is spectacular, a word that hardly does justice to the dimensions of the film. It’s huge, way bigger than Heston’s version, a cast of 10,000s, huge production values, and the drama is like an opera. It’s very expressive, grandiose, tragicomic, but really powerful. So began the long voyage of curating the film and adapting the film and music to each other.”

It took two years for Copeland to secure the rights. Prior to that, the last time the original celluloid had been out of the Warner Brothers vault was in the 1980s, when it was transferred to video. The film was transferred to a new digitized print, where the image quality is vastly improved.

Then came matching the film to the music.

Page 24 | Summer Festival 2015

See it March 18 & 19, 2016!Ben-Hur featuring

Stewart Copeland of The PoliceRenée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall

Tickets on sale now!PacificSymphony.org • (714) 755-5799