STORY AND LINKS: Acclaimed James DePreist named Artistic Advisor for Pasadena Symphony

By Robert D. Thomas
Music Critic
Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily News

James DePreist, who has overcome both racial barriers and polio to become one of the nation’s most respected conductors, has been named Artistic Advisor of the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra.

While the orchestra takes an as-yet undetermined amount of time to search for a new Music Director, DePreist will advise on guest conductors, soloists, orchestral repertoire and artistic direction for a period that may take “a few years,” according to Paul Jan Zdunek, Chief Executive Officer of the Pasadena Symphony Association.

DePreist will also lead the orchestra’s first series of concerts on Oct. 23 in Ambassador Auditorium, the ensemble’s new home. The concerts, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., will include Brahms’ Symphony No 2, and Barber’s Violin Concerto, with Akiko Meyers as soloist. (LINK).
“We really didn’t expect him to conduct as part of this agreement,” said Zdunek, who is currently on vacation. “However, the stars lined up and it turned out he was available for that week, so we jumped at the opportunity. He’ll spend the entire week here, getting to know the musicians and meeting various constituencies, as well.”

Since 2004, DePreist, 73, has been Director of Conducting and Orchestral Studies at The Juilliard School in New York City (ironically, one of his predecessors was former PSO Music Director Jorge Mester). From 1980-2003, DePreist was music director of the Oregon Symphony, building that orchestra from a regional ensemble to one that achieved national recognition through concerts and 15 recordings. He is now that orchestra’s Laureate Music Director. DePreist’s more than 50 recordings also include a celebrated Shostakovich series with the Helsinki Philharmonic.

Over the past three decades DePreist has also served as Music Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec, Sweden's Malmö Symphony, and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo. From 2005 to 2008 was Permanent Conductor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He has also worked extensively with the Aspen Music Festival and guest conducted many prominent orchestras.

DePreist is the nephew of famed contralto Marian Anderson. In 1962, while on a State Department tour in Bangkok, he contracted polio but recovered sufficiently to win a first prize in the Dimitri Mitropoulous International Conducting Competition a short time later. He conducts from a power wheelchair.

He has been awarded 13 honorary doctorates and is the author of two books of poetry. In 2005 President George W. Bush presented DePreist with the National Medal of Arts, the nation's highest honor for artistic excellence.

The appointment of DePreist should offer reassurance to the orchestra’s musicians and others who wondered what direction the PSO would take in the wake of its inelegant separation last month from Mester after the latter’s 25-year tenure (LINK).

“Things seem to get more and more bizarre in this business every year,” said Zdunek. “Who would have thought two weeks ago that we’d be able to secure someone with the stature of James DePreist to help lead us through this important time? He really has his fingers on the pulse of the musical world and, in particular, the up-and-coming talent that is emerging every year. He gives us the luxury of taking all the time we need to set the proper new direction and find a new music director.”

Ironically, DePreist and Mester are following parallel paths in many ways. In addition to being just a year apart in age and having ties to both The Juilliard School and the Aspen Music Festival, Mester is, in effect, serving a similar position with the Louisville Orchestra to that DePreist will occupy with the PSO, although Mester’s title in Kentucky is music director.

Mester returned to Louisville in 2006 for his second tenure as the orchestra’s music director (he first served from 1967-1979). With the LSO facing a financial crisis similar to that from which the PSO is currently attempting to extricate itself, Mester came back to Kentucky until the orchestra could secure a new music director, with Mester as a member of the search committee. That process, apparently, remains a work in progress.

"Maestro DePreist's appointment as Artistic Advisor allows the Association the breathing room necessary in finding the perfect artistic and philosophical fit for the orchestra, community and organization as it engages a roster of conductors from the incredible depth and breadth of talent that is out there on the national and international scene," stated Zdunek in a media release.

"A musician of Mr. DePreist's stature and credentials would be welcomed by anyone with a special affection and concern for the future of the Pasadena Symphony," commented Andrew Malloy, Chair of the Orchestra Committee in the same release. “After an esteemed 25-year journey with Maestro Jorge Mester — one that shaped the orchestra into the jewel that it is today — we look optimistically into the future as we welcome Maestro DePreist on our path to prosperity,” reflected Melinda Shea, President of the Pasadena Symphony Association’s Board of Directors.

For DePreist, music is a high calling. In a conversation with Bruce Duffie (LINK), DePreist said, “Music … consists of vanishing particles of sound that are made coherent through memory and expectation, which is different in each individual … If we see human beings make music, we realize the message of the music, which is something to which we can relate to on a very personal and emotional level. We can admire it architecturally. We can admire it in terms of its harmonic structure. But fundamentally there is a visceral reaction, and that visceral reaction is sheer magic.

“There’s no two ways about it. You cannot possibly explain how something that is already gone has moved you so deeply and lingers in the memory in such a way that either you become angry or you cry. I think much of that imagination was present when all we had was radio. When I was growing up, I came home and listened to the radio. I made up my entire world just as everybody else did, and all of those worlds were different. That theater of imagination exists always in music because there are no pictures except the ones we paint.”

The complete Pasadena Symphony news release is HERE.
_____________

(c) Copyright 2010, Robert D. Thomas. All rights reserved. Portions may be quoted with attribution.