Led by Guest Conductor Case Scaglione, program also features Mozart’s beautiful “Turkish” violin concerto performed by 20-year-old virtuoso Caroline Goulding
As grand and shimmering as the stars above, the powerful music of Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” soars under the night sky at Pacific Symphony’s second concert of the Summer Festival 2013, presented by Hoag, at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine. With stunning images of space from NASA projected on the big screen to complement Holst’s sweeping music, this event is sure to inspire awe in both the magnificence of the universe and the wonder of music. Led by Guest Conductor Case Scaglione, assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic and winner of the Conductor’s Prize by the Solti Foundation U.S., this majestic composition follows works by the beloved Mozart, beginning with his energetic Overture to “The Magic Flute.” The brilliance of youth is then magnified when violin virtuoso Caroline Goulding, just 20 years old, performs Mozart’s serene yet exotic Violin Concerto No. 5, which he composed at the young age of 19.
“A precociously gifted virtuoso. Indeed, although Goulding is still in her mid-teens, she’s already a violinist of impressive technical polish and musical maturity.”—Gramophone
for a performance at the Symphony’s Summer Festival 2006 at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater. Symphony audiences had a chance to hear the dramatic music in its entirety in the concert hall in December 2008, but the upcoming summer 2013 concert is the first since then.
Catalogued as a “Suite for Large Orchestra,” Holst’s “The Planets” is a remarkable seven-movement work, which uses mood and personality as the driving force behind its success and popularity. From the sparkling notes of the celesta, harp and glockenspiel in “Venus, the Bringer of Peace” to the pounding rhythms of “Mars, the Bringer of War” to the charming English folk tunes of “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” each movement of this 50-minute piece conveys the affects and emotions the planets have on the human psyche.
The concert’s violinist, Goulding, has been garnering praise from musical colleagues and critics since her professional debut at the age of 13, when she won the Aspen Music Festival’s Concerto Competition. She has performed as a soloist with some of North America’s premier orchestras as well as appearing in recital at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, the Kennedy Center, Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, among others. In 2011 Goulding was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant and in 2009 she won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and was the recipient of the Helen Armstrong Violin Fellowship. That same year, Goulding received a Grammy nomination for her debut recording on the Telarc label, which spent several weeks on Billboard’s Classical Chart. A past recipient of the Stradivari Society, Goulding currently plays the General Kyd Stradivarius (c. 1720), courtesy of Jonathan Moulds.
“The most rewarding aspect of performing—whether it be with an orchestra or in a more intimate chamber music setting—is the intrinsic connection established among everyone involved, both musicians and audience,” says Goulding. “Ideally, I think the experience should invoke a communal eagerness to act; both in the literal sense, as in applause, and in a more spiritual and inward sense.
“I am greatly looking forward to performing with Pacific Symphony!” she adds.
American conductor Scaglione began his tenure as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic in September 2011 and made his subscription debut in November 2012, stepping in for Kurt Masur. During the 2012-13 season, he visited the Lyric Opera of Chicago to work with Sir Andrew Davis on a production of Strauss’ “Elektra” and led a production of “La Traviata” at Palm Beach Opera. He also made his Asian debut with the Guangzhou Symphony and China Philharmonic at the personal invitation of Maestro Long Yu. During summer 2013, Scaglione returns to the Sinfonia por el Peru to conduct a production of Britten’s “Turn of the Screw” at the Siena Music Festival in Italy. From 2008-11, Scaglione was music director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra of Los Angeles, where he founded 360° Music, an educational outreach program, which brought the orchestra to inner city schools.
The Symphony’s Summer Festival 2013 is presented by Hoag with support from the Orange County Register and major sponsor Mercedes-Benz. The festival receives additional support from American Airlines, VIZIO, The Westin South Coast Plaza and media sponsors KUSC, K-EARTH, KPCC and PBS SoCal.
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Jayce Keane
Director of Public Relations
Pacific Symphony
3631 S. Harbor Blvd. Suite 100
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Direct: 714/ 876-2383 │Tickets: 714/ 755-5799
