LATimesBlogs: 'Music Review: a Pasadena Symphony restart'

[Violin soloist Anne Akiko Meyers and Maestro James DePreist with the the Pasadena Symphony.]

John Malveaux of http://www.MusicUNTOLD.com sends AfriClassical this word of the Oct. 23 concert of the Pasadena Symphony: “I attended Pasadena Symphony season opener after attending special community chat with Maestro DePriest. Please see http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/10/pasadena-symphony-.html

LATimesBlogs
Culture Monster
October 24, 2010
“The conductor was James DePreist. Former long-time music director of the Portland Symphony, he is director of conducting studies at Juilliard, a post Mester once held. DePreist was born in 1936; Mester 1935. DePreist, who -- like Mester -- has a reputation as an orchestra builder, now serves as artistic advisor of the Pasadenans, but he will not return for the rest of its short season.

“DePreist, who contracted polio in 1962 and conducts from a wheelchair, showed great caution. His tempos were very slow.” “Anne Akiko Meyers was the soloist in Samuel Barber’s romantic, 1939 Violin Concerto. She played her 'Molitor' Stradivarius, which was believed to once have been owned by Napoleon and which she had purchased the previous week in auction for a record $3.6 million.”

“Meyers played aggressively, but might have been more rhapsodic had she not been carefully constrained by DePreist. Her encore, Gershwin’s 'Summertime,' was supple, jazzy and alluring.”
[AfriClassical.com profiles James DePreist (b. 1936). Maestro De Preist has published two volumes of poetry and has his own website, http://www.JamesDePreist.com.]

Peters' Music News: 'Excitement at Pasadena Symphony Opening Concert: Young Artist, Antique Violin'

[James DePreist and Anne Akiko Meyers]

Peters' Music News

“Talk about enthusiasm. Pasadena Symphony’s got it: plenty of it. With Saturday’s season opener (Oct. 23) with two performances—at 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., there is a new venue, the Ambassador Auditorium, a new conductor, Artistic Advisor to the Symphony, James DePreist, and a soloist, Anne Akiko Meyers, the violinist who’s as modern as you can get given that she accepts club dates as well as full-scale classical gigs.

“You probably already know about Pasadena Symphony—that it is starting its 83rd season; and that its professional corps contain first rate classical musicians, many of whom are on the A-list for studio calls. You may or may not remember that Jorge Mester is not conducting this year, but rather a season-long guest conductor list will lead this prestigious band with the lead-off leader James DePreist, currently Director of Conducting and Orchestral studies at the Julliard School in New York.”

“But I want to talk about the music program and especially the violin soloist, Anne Akiko Meyers. She recently gave up her old Stradivarius which hailed from 1730 and acquired, at bid auction, a 1697 Strad for a world-record setting price of $3.6 million. She will bring with her the 313 year-old instrument she says is full of 'power, feel and range of color' to the Ambassador Auditorium to perform Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto, a work composed by the American in 1939. The 22 minute piece with Myers will be a knockout. With that new Stradivarius of hers, it should be dynamite.” [James DePreist (b. 1936) is profiled at http://www.JamesDePreist.com and AfriClassical.com]