Mexican Conductor Jorge Mester appointed artistic director of Young Musicians Foundation for 2011-2012 season

Photo: Jorge Mester (conductor)

Jorge Mester:

• To Serve as Conducting Mentor for Organization;
• Is in Initial Planning Phase to Develop Expanded Conductor Training Program, Building upon YMF’s Outstanding Reputation in Field;
• Led Repertoire Selection and Oversaw Guest Conductor Program for Six-Concert Season;
• To Lead Auditions in September and Conduct Concert on November 6, at LACMA Bing Theatre;
• Also Continues Posts as Music Director of The Louisville Orchestra and Naples Philharmonic Orchestra

Jorge Mester – lauded as “a virtuosic conductor” who is “much admired for his programming abilities and wide-ranging tastes” (Los Angeles Times) and proclaimed “a treasure” and “a conductor's conductor” (Pasadena Star News) – has been appointed Artistic Director for the 2011-12 Season of the acclaimed Young Musicians Foundation (YMF) and its Debut Orchestra, one of the nation’s leading pre-professional orchestras. Mester continues as Music Director of The Louisville Orchestra and the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, is Conductor Laureate of the Aspen Music Festival and was Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony for 25 years. He has served on the YMF Music Advisory Board for 12 years, providing invaluable input on the orchestra’s artistic matters and educational programs. In his new capacity with YMF, Mester is in the preliminary stages of developing an expanded conducting program that will enable YMF to train a larger number of conductors, for which it has a sparking reputation, and he will serve as a mentor for the Debut Orchestra’s Music Director, a prestigious three-year post offered only to the most gifted of young artists, including such alumni as Andre Previn and Michael Tilson Thomas. During his one-year tenure, Mester is also overseeing the orchestra’s in-demand guest conductor program and music programming, carefully crafted to reflect the broad repertoire typical of a professional orchestra. Additionally, Mester will be in charge of the orchestra’s annual auditions in September that offer much sought after scholarships for new members. Mester himself takes the podium to conduct the YMF Debut Orchestra’s second concert of the season featuring John Adams’ Shaker Loops and Bizet’s Symphony in C Major, Sunday, November 6, 2011, at 6 p.m., at Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theatre.

“Jorge’s excellent leadership, passion for teaching, longtime membership on YMF’s Music Advisory Board and wise counsel for many of the Foundation’s programs make him the natural choice as this season’s Artistic Director,” says YMF Executive Director Julia Gaskill. States Mester, “I am very pleased to serve this season as Artistic Director of the Young Musicians Foundation, which is widely respected for the extremely high caliber of training it provides to gifted musicians and young conductors on the cusp of professional careers and is also noted for its esteemed alumni who hold key posts with some of the world’s top orchestras.”

Mester has long been credited with identifying and nurturing promising musical talent. One of his primary responsibilities as YMF’s Artistic Director will be to mentor the Debut Orchestra’s next up-and-coming Music Director, a prestigious three-year post offered only to the most gifted of young artists. The orchestra has an illustrious history of attracting conductors before the rise of their meteoric careers. YMF has provided an essential foundation for the artistic development of such internationally acclaimed conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas and Andre Previn. Its two most recent Music Directors are continuing in that esteemed tradition with major appointments: Case Scaglione was recently named Assistant Conductor of the New York Philharmonic for 2011-12, where he will assist Music Director Alan Gilbert; and Sean Newhouse was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he made his last-minute debut in February 2011, conducting Mahler's Ninth Symphony on two hours’ notice in place of James Levine. Up until now, YMF’s intensive conducting mentorship efforts have generally been focused only on the Debut Orchestra’s sole young Music Director. To expand upon its considerable success in that arena, Mester is in the preliminary stages of creating for YMF a much broader and formalized conducting program to train even more conductors.

Among his other responsibilities, Mester oversaw the programming of YMF’s 2011-12 Season, which opens September 18, 2011 at The Broad Stage, and includes a slate of six free concerts by YMF’s Debut Orchestra led by guest conductors—whom Mester also helped select—at UCLA’s Schoernberg Hall, Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Bing Theatre and at Central Los Angeles High School #9, in addition to The Broad Stage.

The season opens with Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68, and the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, conducted by Toshiyuki Shimada (September 18, 2011, 4 p.m., at The Broad Stage).

Mester conducts the second concert, featuring John Adams’ Shaker Loops and Bizet’s Symphony in C Major (Sunday, November 6, 2011, at 6 p.m., at LACMA Bing Theater).

Jung-Ho Pak leads a program spotlighting Debut Competition Grand Prize Winner Gabriel Campos-Zamora, clarinet, with Revueltas’ Ocho por Radio, Debussy’s Premiére Rhapsodie, and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 in E flat Major, Op. 70 (February 18, 2012, 4 p.m., at Central Los Angeles High School No. 9; repeated February 19, 2012, 4 pm, at The Broad Stage).

Stravinsky’s Pulcinella Suite, Mahler’s Ruckert Lieder, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major, Op. 60, will be conducted by Lara Webber with Kristen Choi, mezzo-soprano (March 25, 2012, 4 p.m., at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall).

The season concludes with Lucas Richman conducting his own composition, Symphonic Ode: A Child of the Holocaust, Bloch’s Schelomo, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64, with Debut Competition 1st Prize Winner Yoshika Masuda, cello (June 10, 2012, 4 p.m., at The Broad Stage).
 

One of the world’s most dynamic conductors, JORGE MESTER has an eclectic and distinguished background that includes conducting, recording and teaching. The Los Angeles Times called Mester a conductor of “passionate vision” and proclaimed “Mester is a master.” The 2011-12 season will be his eighth as Music Director with the Naples Symphony Orchestra. He is Conductor Laureate of the prestigious Aspen Music Festival, which he led for 21 years, and has also served as Music Director of the Louisville Symphony since 2006, after previously leading the orchestra for 12 years from 1967 to 1979. For 25 years, he served as Music Director of the Pasadena Symphony, consistently garnering critical and popular acclaim. From 1998 to 2002, Maestro Mester was Artistic Director of Mexico City's leading orchestra, Orquesta Filarmónica de la Ciudad de Mexico. Mester, who is of Hungarian descent, was born and raised in Mexico City. An accomplished violist, he performed with the Beaux-Arts Quartet for several years before focusing exclusively on conducting. Mester's passion for conducting extends from the stage to the classroom. He directed the Juilliard School’s prestigious conducting department for a number of years and has taught such conductors as James Conlon, Dennis Russell Davies, Andreas Delfs, JoAnn Falletta and John Nelson. He also helped introduce to the public such artists as Midori, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Renée Fleming, Cho-Liang Lin and Robert McDuffie. A noted opera conductor as well, Mester has led numerous productions with the New York City Opera, the Sydney Opera, Spoleto and the Washington Opera. He has also guest-conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony, the Cincinnati Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony and many others.

The YOUNG MUSICIANS FOUNDATION and its DEBUT ORCHESTRA were founded in 1955 with the assistance of legendary musicians Gregor Piatigorsky and Elmer Bernstein to create a premier training ground for young musicians in Los Angeles. The second oldest pre-professional training orchestras in the country, it is comprised of 70 talented musicians from around the world, ages 15-25. The orchestra adheres to a professional rehearsal schedule and performs a full range of orchestral repertoire, from Baroque to 21st– Century, including works for both chamber and full orchestra. For more than 50 consecutive seasons, the orchestra has performed admission-free concerts for the public in professional venues throughout Los Angeles, with audiences totaling more than 5,000 annually. Orchestra members, who receive scholarships to support their studies, are selected each year through blind auditions adjudicated by members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other eminent Los Angeles–based musicians. The thousands of Debut Orchestra alumni performing in orchestras around the world illustrate the importance and success of the training they receive. Notable alumni included Glenn Dicterow, Concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, Robert Chen, Concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony, and dozens of members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. For information on YMF, please call 310-859-7668 or visit www.YMF.org.

Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra 2011-12 Season Details

Sunday, September 18th, 2011 @ 4:00pm
The Broad Stage
Toshiyuki Shimada, Conductor
Vijay Venkatesh, Piano
(Debut Competition Special Recognition)
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68
TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23

Sunday, November 6th, 2011 @ 6:00pm
LACMA Bing Theater
Jorge Mester, Conductor
JOHN ADAMS Shaker Loops
BIZET Symphony in C Major

Saturday, February 18th, 2012 @4:00pm
Central Los Angeles High School No. 9
and
Sunday, February 19th, 2012 @ 4:00pm
The Broad Stage
Jung-Ho Pak, Conductor
Gabriel Campos-Zamora, Clarinet (Debut Competition Grand Prize Winner)
REVUELTAS Ocho por Radio
DEBUSSY Premiére Rhapsodie
SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 9 in E flat Major, Op. 70

Saturday, March 25th, 2012 @ 4:00pm
UCLA Schoenberg Hall
Lara Webber, Conductor
Kristen Choi, Mezzo-Soprano
STRAVINSKY Pulcinella Suite
MAHLER Ruckert Lieder
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4 in B flat Major, Op. 60

Sunday, June 10th, 2012 @ 4:00pm
The Broad Stage
Lucas Richman, Conductor
Yoshika Masuda, Cello (Debut Competition 1st Prize Winner)
RICHMAN Symphonic Ode: A Child of the Holocaust
BLOCH Schelomo
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
# # #

program and artists subject to change
 
http://www.ymf.org/