Pacific Symphony taps Alexander Shelley as next artistic and music director
Alexander Shelley could certainly say that he grew up in a musically inclined family.
The son of two pianists, the home he grew up in had five grand pianos, he said Wednesday morning at an event introducing him as the next artistic and music director for the Pacific Symphony.
“Lying there as a little boy in bed, going to sleep, I’d have sounds coming from left, right, north, south, east, west of pianos playing,” Shelley said. “What I realized is that music is a language. In fact, it’s a language that transcends time and culture.”
Shelley, 45, wants to bring some of that magic to Orange County. He will be just the third music director in the history of the Pacific Symphony, beginning an initial five-year term in the 2026-27 season.
He will serve as music director designate in 2025-26, before assuming full artistic leadership the following year.
Shelley succeeds Carl St. Clair, the symphony’s music director for 35 years, who will become music director laureate in 2025-26.
“His exceptional talents as a conductor, music director and community leader have been celebrated and praised internationally,” St. Clair said of Shelley in a video message played at Wednesday’s event. “More importantly, he has captured the hearts of Pacific Symphony musicians and inspired them deeply. I know you will join me in welcoming Alexander Shelley as I proudly pass the baton to him.”
Originally from England, Shelley looks forward to getting more acquainted with Southern California, he said at the event held on the stage of the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa.
Shelley visited the area as a child, when his family had friends who owned homes in Pasadena and Laguna Beach.
“I was 7 or 8 when I first came here,” he said. “You know, it’s a dreamland. There’s all of the culture and the diversity of communities. You’re on the beach, you’re on the hills. As a kid, I loved it, and I’m getting to know more about it as I return now.”
Shelley was trained in the cello, eventually gaining widespread attention when, at 25, he was the youngest to be awarded first prize at the 2005 Leeds Conductors’ Competition.
Since then he’s led as a conductor at the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and National Arts Centre Orchestra, among other endeavors.
Endeavors like … playing keyboard in a cover band called in Germany?
“What we would do is we would take a Britney Spears song and turn it into a swing cover,” Shelley said in an interview on stage, led by Maria Hall-Brown of PBS SoCal. “Then we would take Elvis songs, and we’d sometimes cover them in a more modern style.”
Quick-witted and energetic, he will lead Pacific Symphony in three concerts next May.
Shelley said he believes the orchestra can be beneficial for people of all generations and that it is poised artistically to be celebrated across the continent and internationally.
“The cliché nowadays is that everyone says that everything has to be short form, like two minutes, 30 seconds,” he said. “But then people will listen to a four-hour podcast, Joe Rogan. They’ll watch six episodes of a Netflix show back to back. People have interest in long form. In fact, I think they have as much interest in long form as they ever had. There’s an audience out there for the short-form stuff we do but also longer symphonies.”
Board chair Arthur Ong and Pacific Symphony President and CEO John Forsyte also gave remarks at the event, as did Orange County Supervisors Don Wagner and Katrina Foley. Ong and Forsyte were on the search committee chaired by Mark Nielsen that also included six musicians in the orchestra.
“More than ever, it’s time for us to unite around the things that we love and enjoy, that we can build up and be positive about,” Foley said. “The Pacific Symphony is the perfect place for that.”
The six musicians performed an arrangement of Handel’s “Water Music” for Shelley before the event came to a close.
Shelley enjoyed the performance and the company. He said he enjoys sports with his his two young sons and wife Zoe, a personal trainer who attended the event.
“It doesn’t work very well when we train together,” he said. “She says I can’t listen and I don’t follow her directions, but let’s not go there today in front of too many people.”
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