Pacific Symphony Director Is Honored

Carl St. Clair, the newly appointed director of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra of Orange County, received a prestigious national honor Saturday for promising young conductors on the threshold of major careers.

St. Clair and Kenneth Jean, music director of the Florida Symphony Orchestra, were jointly given the 1990 Seavers/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award during a luncheon of the American Symphony Orchestra League in Washington. Each will receive a $75,000 grant, one of the largest conducting awards offered in the world today.

“It really took me aback, and my heart started pounding,” St. Clair said from Washington, describing his reaction as the award was announced. “It’s the perfect segue into another part of my life. It gives me a whole new outlook--like a booster rocket with another stage in it.”

St. Clair, who will take over the Pacific Symphony on Oct. 1, is assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and music director of both the Ann Arbor Symphony in Michigan and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra of Ithaca, N.Y.

Jean, in addition to his post with the Florida Symphony Orchestra, is associate conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic.

The Seavers/NEA award, established in June, 1985, is offered every two years to help promising U.S. conductors ages 28 to 42. The award is presented jointly by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Seavers Institute, a Los Angeles foundation that provides grants to science, education and the arts.

Jean and St. Clair were selected from 50 candidates recommended for the award by about 200 U.S. music professionals. The awards process can take two years as the judges dissect the careers and potential of some of the most talented conductors in the country.

The honor bestows upon recipients financial aid, artistic and professional guidance and institutional support. It also offers them the chance to consult with a distinguished panel of advisers and with leading orchestra professionals.

St. Clair said the award will make possible several projects, including language studies that could help him pursue plans to conduct more operas. He said the grant will also make it possible for him to travel to important performances given by the world’s premier classical artists.

“I just think it’s great that the private sector through the Seavers Institute would join in with the public sector, the NEA, and give this amount of money,” St. Clair said. “It is a profound honor for me.”

St. Clair, 37, was the youngest of nine candidates when he was picked as music director of the Pacific Symphony. Under terms of his three-year contract with the orchestra, he will oversee the orchestra’s artistic development and planning and conduct six pairs of classical concerts each season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. In addition, he will conduct two concerts each summer season at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

His appointment ended a search that began in February, 1988, with the resignation of founding music director Keith Clark after a bitter power struggle with the orchestra’s board of directors.