Pasadena Symphony announces its 2012-13 classical season

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The Pasadena Symphony’s 2012-13 season will feature five classical programs at the Ambassador Auditorium led by an array of guest conductors, plus a holiday concert at All Saints Church.

Among the soloists will be teenage pianist George Li, who’ll be 17 when he plays Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2, with Mei-Ann Chen (above), music director of the Memphis Symphony and the Chicago Sinfonietta, conducting the season-opening concerts Oct. 6. The program also includes Beethoven’s Egmont Overture and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9.

Chen led the Pasadena Symphony’s season opener last October. Another recently announced Southern California engagement for Chen will find her conducting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and pieces by Chinese composers for the Pacific Symphony in Costa Mesa in April 2013.

Edwin Outwater, music director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony in Ontario, Canada, will conduct Tchaikvosky’s Symphony No. 4, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and Huang Li’s Spring Festival Overture (Nov. 3), with piano soloist Rueibin Chen (no relation to Mei-Ann).

Tito Munoz, a former Cleveland Orchestra assistant conductor who recently became music director of Opera National de Lorraine and the Orchestre symphonique et lyrique de Nancy in France, conducts a Brahms and Sibelius program (Jan. 12, 2013) with violinist Carolyn Goulding. Nicholas McGegan, music director of San Francisco’s Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, will conduct Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and the Mahler Symphony No. 4 (Feb. 9, 2013) with soparano Yulia Van Doren and Donald Foster, the Pasadena Symphony’s principal clarinetist.

Jose-Luis Gomez, born in Venezuela and based in Spain, will share the podium with the Pasadena Symphony’s composer in residence, Peter Boyer, on April 27, 2013, with Gomez leading Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, featuring solois Chee-Yun, and Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia. Boyer will conduct two of his own works, “Festivities” and the world premiere of his Symphony No. 1.

The Dec. 1 Holiday Candlelight concert will feature Grant Cooper, conductor of the West Virginia Symphony, and soprano Lisa Vroman.

Except for the stand-alone holiday concert, the orchestra will perform matinees and evening shows on each concert day. RELATED:

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-- Mike Boehm