Music to tour Europe

Elia Powers

After 27 years of playing to local audiences, Orange County’s Pacific

Symphony is going global.

Symphony representatives announced details of the orchestra’s

first European concert tour at a press conference Wednesday.

The 11-day, nine-city series begins in Munich, Germany, on March

20, 2006, and concludes in Vienna, Austria. Orchestra members and

guests will travel by plane, train and bus to the German cities of

Cologne, Dusseldorf, Essen, Frankfurt, Hannover and Wuppertal, and to

the Swiss city of Lucerne.

“We are confident in our commitment to the tour, and we are

determined to make it work,” Pacific Symphony President John Forsyte

said in front of a packed room Wednesday at Orange County Performing

Arts Center’s Founders Hall.

About 200 people will make the overseas trip, he said. Longtime

symphony supporters Sandy and John Daniels donated $750,000 and are

the lead sponsors of the tour. Forsyte received an overall commitment

of $1 million last summer, which he said will cover most of the

travel expenses.

The Segerstrom Foundation is a supporting sponsor of the tour, and

PIMCO -- Pacific Investment Management Co. -- and Allianz Global

Investors are the Munich concert supporters.

John Daniels, chairman of the orchestra liaison committee and

symphony board member, said he is interested in seeing the orchestra

gain international attention.

“The Pacific Symphony is a major symphony orchestra, but the world

doesn’t know it yet,” said Daniels, property manager of South Coast

Plaza.

An overseas tour had been a priority for Forsyte and the board of

directors since a summer 2003 meeting with a European-based concert

management company.

Jim Medvitz, who served as the symphony’s vice president of

artistic operations for 18 years, said Wednesday’s announcement is a

major milestone.

“No one would have dreamed of this years ago,” he said. “It’s a

synergistic moment with the opening of our new concert hall.”

The orchestra’s future home, the Renee and Henry Segerstrom

Concert Hall, is scheduled to open in fall 2006.

During the orchestra’s final season in the Orange County

Performing Arts Center’s Segerstrom Hall, Music Director Carl St.

Clair said audiences will get a preview of music to be played at next

year’s European tour.

He said he is planning to mix traditional and contemporary music

into the orchestra’s repertoire.

St. Clair is planning to honor overseas audiences by including

European masterworks, including Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben and

Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1 for Cello and Orchestra.

A 15-year music director with the Pacific Symphony, St. Clair has

guest-conducted at a variety of European concert halls.

But he said this trip provides a new challenge.

“This is one of the biggest moments in this orchestra’s history,”

St. Clair said.

“Knowing I’m going to be standing on some of the greatest stages

in the world, I have great anticipation.

“It’s almost too much to handle.”

At the press conference, St. Clair unveiled the 2005-06 symphony

schedule.

The Hal and Jeanette Segerstrom Family Foundation Classics Series

kicks off Sept. 28 with a concert featuring violinist Joshua Bell.The

center’s Pops season, running Sept. 30 through June 10, includes

appearances by recording artists Kenny Rogers and Burt Bacharach.

To close the Classics Series, St. Clair said the orchestra will

play Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the first major work performed at the

original Segerstrom Hall’s opening night in 1986.

“It gives us a certain degree of closure,” St. Clair said. We’ll

leave the way we came in.”

* ELIA POWERS is the enterprise and general assignment reporter.

He may be reached at (714) 966-4623 or by e-mail at

elia.powers@latimes.com.