Pacific Symphony Orchestra
| Pacific Symphony | |
|---|---|
| Orchestra | |
| Founded | 1978 |
| Concert hall | Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts |
| Principal conductor | Carl St.Clair |
| Website | www |
Pacific Symphony is a symphony orchestra located in Orange County, California. The orchestra performs at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, part of Segerstrom Center for the Arts (formerly the Orange County Performing Arts Center) in Costa Mesa, California. From 1987-2016, the orchestra's Summer Festival concerts took place at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (previously known as "Irvine Meadows Amphitheater") in Irvine, California.
Carl St.Clair has been the orchestra's Music Director since 1990.
Pacific Symphony is the largest orchestra formed in the United States in the last 50 years.
The orchestra was founded in 1979 by Keith Clark (a former student and assistant conductor of Roger Wagner at the Los Angeles Master Chorale and principal guest conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra) in his Fullerton, California home's kitchen with a grant of $2,000 and some phone calls to local musicians. The musicians whom Clark called were mainly from Southern California's deep base of professional freelance musicians who performed in the area's movie studios, universities, and other regional performing arts organizations; many of these musicians were former concertmasters, associate concertmasters, and principal players with prominent orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. Clark became the orchestra's first Music Director and the first orchestra personnel manager was Robert F Peterson known professionally as "Peeps".
The orchestra had its first performance in December 1979 at the Plummer Auditorium in Fullerton, with Clark on the podium. By 1981, the orchestra played its concerts at the "Good Time Theater" at Knott's Berry Farm with a subscription base of 3,000. By 1983, the orchestra had moved its concerts to the Santa Ana High School auditorium, made its first recording, and had a big enough budget to hire a full-time manager. In that same year, they performed for the first time at the Music Center of Los Angeles County as part of the City of Los Angeles' bicentennial celebrations. James Chute, in a commentary for The Orange County Register, wrote:
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