SYMPHONY TO OFFER 4 PREMIERES

The Pacific Symphony will welcome a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer as guest conductor and offer four world premieres during its “Composer Series” of concerts scheduled to begin March 1 in Santa Ana High School Auditorium.

Composer Karel Husa, who won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1969, will conduct his “Music of Prague” at 8 p.m March 1 in a program that will also include Mozart’s Symphony No. 38, “Prague,” and Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.” (Pacific Symphony music director Keith Clark will conduct the Mozart and Dvorak works.)

Husa was born in Prague in 1921 and immigrated to the United States in 1954 to join the music department of Cornell University, where he still teaches composition. Husa’s prize-winning work was his String Quartet No. 3.

Southern California-based composer William Schmidt’s “Concerto for Trumpet” and East Coast composer Richard Nanes’ “Symphony for Strings” will receive world premieres on the “American Music and Apple Pie” concert scheduled for April 5 in Santa Ana High School Auditorium.

Schmidt was born in Chicago in 1926 and was educated at the University of Southern California. He has been active as a jazz arranger and his “Double Concerto for Trumpet, Piano and Chamber Orchestra” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1981.

Nanes received his musical training in Paris and in New York. His first and second symphonies have recently been recorded by the London Symphony. Works by two young Southern California composers will receive their premieres at the May 19 concert at the South Coast Repertory Theatre: Mark McGurty’s “New Work,” commissioned by the Pacific Symphony, and Lloyd Rodgers’ “The Little Prince,” drawn from his ballet score commissioned for the Los Angeles Chamber Ballet and premiered early this month. McGurty was educated at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and currently serves as musical production manager for the Pacific Symphony. Rodgers received his Ph.D. degree in composition from UCLA and now is a professor of music at Cal State Fullerton.