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World traveler back in town for symphony opener

World traveler back in town for symphony opener image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
September
Year
1989
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Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
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World traveler back in town for symphony opener

Carl St. Clair will conduct the symphony Saturday night.

By EDITH LEAVIS BOOKSTEIN

NEWS SPECIAL WRITER

Ann Arbor’s world-class conductor will be returning to the Ann Arbor Symphony this season with several thousand more miles on his baton. During the past summer, at the invitation of Maestro Leonard Bernstein, Carl St. Clair led the Academia di Santa Cecilia and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestras on a five-week tour, performing in many cities including East Berlin, Milan, Paris, Rome and Leningrad.

For his return to the podium here, St. Clair has selected an unusual program, particulary for the AASO. The chosen works were all composed in the 20th century: Max Bruch’s “Violin Concerto in G Minor,” Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” and the “Symphony No. 5” of Dimitri Shostakovich.

The AASO’s peripatetic conductor is committed to including 20th-century music on the orchestra’s schedule. He says, “We just have to educate... gradually step in to programming more and more contemporary music. On the other hand, one has to validify how much rehearsal time one gives to how much of the program. As the orchestra grows and matures, we will continue to take on even more demanding pieces.”

St. Clair was immersed in the Shostakovich work this summer. The young conductor spent some time in the Soviet Union as part of the extended tour with the two orchestras. He remembers being “filled with Shostakovich” in the U.S.S.R.

On his return from the European tour, St. Clair went directly to the Berkshires, where he is assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Again he encountered the Russian composer. Serendipitously, Leonard Bernstein finished this year’s Tanglewood Festival season conducting the BSO in the Shostakovitch Fifth.

“That kind of experience makes it so much more potent,” says St. Clair. “The orchestra is really excited about performing it.”

Programming is an important facet of a music director’s responsibility. St. Clair describes himself as “very interested in performing things that not only build audiences but build the orchestra, exposing them both to new experiences.

“Little by little we are expanding the repertoire. This orchestra has never played a lot of Strauss or Bruckner. That’s where we will be trying new things.”

The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra presents its opening concert at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Michigan Theater. The program features works of Bruck, Copland and Shostakovich. For tickets and information call 668-8397.