Pacific picks UK music director
OrchestrasThe Pacific Symphony has chosen Alexander Shelley to succeed Carl St Clair as music director, starting in the 2026-27 season. St Clair has led the orchestra for 35 years.
Shelley, 45, is presently music director at Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (ending 2026) and at Artis—Naples in Florida.
London born, he is the son of the conductor Howard Shelley and the late pianist Hilary Macnamara.
The Pacific Symphony is resident orchestra of Orange County’s Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
Shelley begins as Artistic and Music Director in the 2026-27 season at Pacific (he will be Music Director Designate in the 2025-26 season). He has also been Principal Associate Conductor of London’s Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2015. A fantastic choice!
Congratulations to the Pacific Symphony on appointing Alexander Shelley. He inherits a remarkable institution, an orchestra of the highest order, sculpted into a brilliant ensemble of musicians by their beloved leader, and friend, Carl St. Clair. The orchestra owns the best of the best insofar as staff personnel maintaining their consistent success. Eileen Jeanette and John Forsyte, and their incomparable team. No doubt Maestro Shelley will further sail the ship to new waters for the PSO.
Tough shoes to fill indeed. Salute, Carl!
A friend who is an arts critic posted his take on the appointment:
https://medium.com/@michael.landmankarny/alexander-shelley-new-music-director-of-the-pacific-symphony-my-take-937cf23e8fd7
No doubt Maestro Shelley will bring new voices to the orchestra. To be fair, in addition to the ‘core sound’ reflected in the article you share here, Maestro St. Clair has brought the voices of many living composers to the orchestra. I cannot speak for all during his 35 years tenure in so short a space, but our collaborations include new works by Richard Danielpour in 2010, William Bolcom in 2010 (with a Naxos recording), Peter Boyer in 2024, and this coming February, the premiere of Adolphus Hailstork’s “Concerto #3”, with standard repertoire sandwiched between. He is, for me, one of the quintessential conductors who could have led many orchestras as music director, but made the Pacific Symphony his home. He leaves Maestro Shelley with a beautiful ensemble, and, due to his reverence for the organization, will conduct several performances through the transition.
Good for him… it is a great orchestra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsr1jB3udps
Carl St. Clair’s whopping overstay has underserved Orange County and reflected long-drawn-out Board failure, itself the result of naivety, lack of perspective, chronic lack of curiosity about the classical music scene, and, frankly, vulnerability to smooth talk. St. Clair’s feat eclipses even Gerard Schwarz’s infamous ruse in Seattle.
It should be remembered, too, that St. Clair’s predecessor, the orchestra’s founder Keith Clark, was considered a charlatan (and worse) by both of the late critics Alan Rich and Martin Bernheimer, who rarely agreed about anything. Alexander Shelley appears to be a decent choice, finally, but the orchestra and the local cities have deserved and been able to afford better for DECADES and have wholly missed out on the competitive landscape of talent.
Bill, I agree that Carl St. Clair may have stayed too long at the fair, but he is wonderful conductor who has given Pacific Symphony a European sound. His work and recordings with several top-notch German orchestras are exemplary.
Alan Rich was a friend of mine and he was brutal in many of his assessments. He had a list of people he hated, (Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Richard Leech come to mind) and eviscerated them regularly in his reviews.
I will agree that Rich and Bernheimer were correct in their assessment of Clark. Even though he supposedly was a protege of Mehta, his performances came across as straightforward readings rather than nuanced interpretations- a human metronome.
“Alexander Shelley appears to be a decent choice.”
Damning with faint praise is not an insightful critique of Alexander Shelley.
Carl St. Clair’s Villa-Lobos symphony cycle on the German cpo record label with the Stuttgart Radio Symphony or SWR Radio-Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart has overall received excellent reviews.
One may still dislike his conducting, or his style, or say that he is merely some sort of “average” conductor or music director, but he is not also somehow a “charlatan.” And this is regardless of whether Carl St. Clair “overstay[ed]” his welcome at the Pacific Symphony.
I heard the Pacific Symphony in January of 2024 in an excellent performance of Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 6. The guest conductor was Matthew Halls, who was likely also under consideration for the music director position.
A musician in the orchestra informed me after that Thursday concert that he thought Mr. Halls would make an excellent choice.
However, Alexander Shelley has a longer track record as principal conductor/artistic/music director of orchestras, like the NAC Orchestra in Canada, along with being named artistic and music director of the Naples Philharmonic in Florida in April 2023.
Shelley’s commercial recordings on the Analekta label pairing the Brahms and Schumann symphonies with other concerto, chamber, and solo piano works of Clara Schumann are a compelling series of concept recordings, with overall excellent performances.
The other “big” names that may have been in the running for the music director position with the Pacific Symphony (guest conductors in the 2023-2024 season) were Andrew Litton, Ludovic Morlot, and Carlos Miguel Prieto.
Alexander Shelley was likely the best “fit” artistically & personality-wise for the Pacific Symphony moving forward.
The MD of the orchestra has to schmooze with donors, several of whom are billionaires. Shelley is erudite, charming and diplomatic. I anticipate he will earn the symphony ten-fold in donations.
I met him at a party. He was just a peach. (I have also enjoyed him on the podium). He does seem to be well-liked wherever he goes.
What I’d like to see is re-launch of Opera Pacific in Orange County. I saw many wonderful productions there until its demise in early 2000’s. Concert opera just isn’t the same.
I have known and worked with Alexander, his famous pianist/conductor father Howard and his pianist mother Hilary McNamara, when I was the long time 2nd Horn of The London Mozart Players.He is a very efficient and organised conductor, full of passion for the music, a true inspirer and lover of music. He is immensely polite and so genuinely respectful to his players, as was his dad. He will lead this new orchestral opportunity in the States to great heights with humility and great strength of character. Lucky them!