When steps down, after thirty-four years of quietly shaping the , will most people notice? That’s not a dig. It’s just the reality of classical music in Southern California — always slightly off to the side, just out of the public eye. The opera house gets headlines, LA Phil draws the clicks, and down in Orange County, things happen more slowly.

St.Clair was a builder. One of those rare American conductors who committed to a single institution and saw it through — Mahler cycles, new music commissions, youth programs, everything. He wasn’t flashy. Not a “vision guy.” But if you lived in Irvine or Santa Ana and you went to concerts regularly, you saw his imprint everywhere.

And now — just like that — he’s been succeeded, and is walking through the door. Shelley has been named Pacific Symphony’s third Music Director, beginning in the 2026-27 season, for an initial five-year term. Shelley will also serve as Music Director Designate during the 2025-26 season — when St.Clair will become Music Director Laureate, conducting three concerts and three specials — before assuming full artistic leadership in 2026-27 (see schedule below).

Shelley is, to put it plainly, not cut from the same cloth. He’s younger, yes, but also faster. More digital-native in his instincts. Where St. Clair moved like a cathedral being built — all slow arches and civic purpose — Shelley thinks in pop-up galleries, festival clusters, commissions with a theme.

In Ottawa, with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, he didn’t just program pieces. He constructed ideas. One season revolved around Truth and Reconciliation, another threaded Indigenous voices through canonical works. Not always successfully — some concerts felt overdetermined, too neat — but the ambition was real.

He’s conducted Glass and Chin, sure, but also leaned into composers like Ana Sokolović, whose music seems allergic to predictability. It’s twitchy, off-kilter, playful in a way that repels solemnity — and yet somehow doesn’t collapse into whimsy.

And that’s the part that sticks with me. Shelley seems interested in programming that disorients a little. Not radically, not in the Boulez sense. More like: What happens if we sneak in dissonance through the side door? If the whole first half is lullaby and the second half cuts diagonally across the grain?

The bigger question here isn’t just about Shelley — it’s about the institution he’s walking into. What, exactly, does the Pacific Symphony want to be?

It’s not a struggling orchestra. The budget’s solid. The donor base — while cautious — is there. It has its own hall, its own personality, its own place in the Southern California arts ecosystem. But it’s always hovered just outside the national conversation. Close enough to Los Angeles to be overshadowed, too far to matter in its orbit.

This is where Shelley could make a dent. He has the programming instincts and the public presence to raise the orchestra’s profile, but only if the organization is willing to loosen the screws a little. That means risk: in the repertoire, in how concerts are structured, in how the orchestra talks to the community. Playing it safe — another Beethoven cycle, another gala with a crossover soloist — won’t move the needle.

The opportunity here isn’t to imitate the big guys. It’s to stake out a different kind of space. Stranger. More idiosyncratic. A West Coast orchestra that leans into the fringe, not the center. Shelley might be the right person for that — someone who can thread the weird into the familiar without losing the room.

I don’t expect a revolution. But maybe that’s the wrong measure. Maybe what matters is whether he can coax the orchestra into sounding less like a museum and more like a signal — faint, maybe, but new.

If he pulls that off, even halfway, it’ll be more than most.

photos of Alexander Shelley by

2025-26 CLASSICAL SERIES
Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall at Segerstrom Center for the Arts
for tickets, visit Pacific Symphony

Opening Night Celebration
RACHMANINOFF & SIBELIUS
September 18, 19 & 20 2025 at 8 p.m.
Ludovic Morlot, conductor
Alessio Bax, piano

RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 2
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 1

Magical Melodies
SHELLEY CONDUCTS SCHEHERAZADE
October 16, 17 & 18, 2025 at 8 p.m.
October 19, 3 p.m. (Scheherazade only)
Alexander Shelley, conductor
Pablo Sainz-Villegas, guitar

JESSIE MONTGOMERY: Starburst (Full Orchestra)
ARTURO MARQUEZ: Concerto for Guitar Mystical and Profane
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Scheherazade

Ravel’s Masterwork:
SHELLEY CONDUCTS CARMEN & DAPHNIS AND CHLOE

November 20, 21 & 22, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Alexander Shelley, conductor
Gabriela Montero, piano
Pacific Chorale —Robert Istad, artistic director

BIZET: Suite No. 1 from Carmen
GABRIELA MONTERO: Latin Concerto
RAVEL: Daphnis and Chloe (complete)

Sounds of Serenity
TCHAIKOVSKY’S SWAN LAKE
December 4, 5 & 6, at 8 p.m.
Tianyi Lu, conductor
Alexandra Dariescu, piano

CASSANDRA MILLER: Swim
RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G Major
TCHAIKOVSKY: Suite(s) from Swan Lake

A Journey of Passion and Fire
SHELLEY CONDUCTS STRAVINSKY’S FIREBIRD
January 15, 16 & 17, 2026 at 8 p.m.
January 18, 2026 at 3 p.m. (The Firebird only)
Alexander Shelley, conductor
Aubree Oliverson, violin

JOHN ADAMS: Short Ride in a Fast Machine
KORNGOLD: Violin Concerto
STRAVINSKY: The Firebird (complete ballet, with visuals)

Musical Heroes
CARL ST.CLAIR CONDUCTS BEETHOVEN AND DON QUIXOTE
February 5, 6 & 7, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Carl St.Clair, conductor
Paul Huang, violin
Warren Hagerty, cello

BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto
STRAUSS: Don Quixote

FROM MOZART TO MAHLER
February 26, 27 & 28, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Eduardo Strausser, conductor
Yoav Levanon, piano

MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 23
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1

ST.CLAIR CONDUCTS WILLIAMS, DAUGHERTY, AND BRAHMS
March 26, 27 & 28, 2026, 8 p.m.
March 29 at 3 p.m. (Brahms Symphony No. 4 only)
Carl St.Clair, conductor
Anne Akiko Meyers, violin

WILLIAMS: “Flying Scene” from E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial
DAUGHERTY: Blue Electra
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4

Love and Destiny
PUCCINI’S TURANDOT
April 16, 18 & 21, 2026 at 8 p.m.

Carl St.Clair, conductor
Pacific Chorale–Robert Istad, artistic director

Inspired by Fate
MOZART, SAY, AND TCHAIKOVSKY
May 7, 8 & 9, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Anna Rakitina, conductor
Avi Avital, mandolin

MOZART: Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio
FAZIL SAY: Mandolin Concerto (U.S. Premiere)
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 5

ALEXANDER SHELLEY CONDUCTS AMERICA AT 250
May 28, 29 & 30, 2026 at 8 p.m.

Alexander Shelley, conductor
Conrad Tao, piano

GERSHWIN: Piano Concerto in F Major
PETER BOYER & JOE SOHM: American Mosaic (West Coast Premiere)

Echoes of Romance
ROSSINI, BOCCHERINI, MASCAGNI & RACHMANINOFF
June 11, 12 & 13, 2026 at 8 p.m.
June 14, 2026 at 3 p.m. (Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 only)

Valentina Peleggi, conductor
Zlatomir Fung, cello

ROSSINI: Overture to William Tell
BOCCHERINI: Cello Concerto in Bb Major (Grützmacher)
MASCAGNI: Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana
RACHMANINOFF: Symphony No. 2

SPECIAL EVENTS

HANDEL’S GLORIOUS MESSIAH
December 7, 2025 at 3 p.m.

Robert Istad, conductor
Pacific Chorale
Robert Istad, artistic director
Vocal soloists to be announced

HANDEL: Messiah

HOLIDAY ORGAN SPECTACULAR
December 16, 2025 at 8 p.m.
Todd Wilson, organ
Pacific Symphony musicians

10TH ANNIVERSARY LUNAR NEW YEAR
February 21, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Carl St.Clair, conductor
Programming to be announced

NOWRUZ: IRANIAN NEW YEAR
March 21, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Carl St.Clair, conductor
Programming to be announced

LANG LANG PLAYS BEETHOVEN
March 23, 2026 at 8 p.m.
Carl St.Clair, conductor
Lang Lang, piano

BEETHOVEN: Egmont Overture
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
DVOŘÁK: Symphony No. 9, “From the New World”