Carl St. Clair is literally passing the baton, retiring as music director of the Pacific Symphony, and whoever replaces him has big shoes and big gloves to fill. Under his tenure, which began in 1990, St. Clair turned the Pacific Symphony into an international success.
St. Clair came from a small Texas town, and was a high school quarterback before getting involved with classical music at the University of Texas. He even trained under Leonard Bernstein.
“They were so close that St. Clair would call him Mr. B.,” notes LA Times Columnist Gustavo Arellano. “And five days after Sinclair became head of the Pacific Symphony, that's when Bernstein died. So around the time of him getting the baton at the Pacific Symphony, he was also fielding questions from reporters, just his recollections about Bernstein.”
In St. Clair’s three decades at the helm, you saw a small history of Orange County, Arellano adds.
“When St. Clair became the head of the Pacific Symphony … the Orange County money, they thought to themselves, ‘Well, we got to make Orange County [an] internationally known institution for arts.’ Like Dorothy Buffum Chandler did for Los Angeles in the 60s. So they invested in what became Segerstrom Hall. They invested in the Orange County Museum of the Arts. And St. Clair was this perfect ambassador. … I've been to many a symphony over the years, and he's always great, very magnetic. But he also knew that if you wanted a symphony from Orange County to get any worldwide success, you had to take it on the road, but you also had to, for lack of better term, be a hometown favorite. So they always did a really good job of getting youth programs in there, getting kids to hear them, and also getting them out into the community.”
St. Clair will finish out this season, which began in September and will wrap around spring-summer 2025.
Arellano says that St. Clair’s replacement will have to engage with younger audiences, secure funding, and continue to get the Pacific Symphony more attention globally — “so hopefully more people can care about it as they go around the world.”