Carl St. Clair, 37, Named to Pacific Symphony Podium

Carl St. Clair, an assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony, Monday was named music director of the Pacific Symphony.

St. Clair--at 37, the youngest of nine announced candidates for the position--will assume his duties on Oct. 1 and expects to spend about three months of next year in Orange County. He said Monday that while he will leave Boston, he will hold onto one of two other jobs he currently holds with orchestras in New York and Michigan.

Under the terms of a three-year contact with the Pacific, St. Clair is to oversee the orchestra’s artistic development and planning, and to conduct six pairs of classical concerts each season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa and two concerts each summer season at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. In addition, he is to oversee school and community outreach programs.

St. Clair and orchestra officials would not disclose his salary.

His appointment ends a search that began in February of 1988 with the resignation of founding music director Keith Clark after a bitter power struggle with the orchestra’s board of directors.

The search made headlines early this month when previous front-runner Lawrence Foster said that the Pacific had offered him the job in December but withdrew the offer after talks broke down over salary, rehearsal demands and residency requirements. The orchestra management has refused to comment on Foster’s claims.

St. Clair is also music director of the Ann Arbor (Mich.) Symphony and the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra of Ithaca, N.Y. He said Monday that he has not yet decided which post he will give up.

He also said that he will maintain a residency in Orange County but that it will not be his exclusive address. However, he said, “I intend to spend as much time here as needed and as much time as I can.”

Pressed further, he said he expects to spend about three months in Orange County next year--eight weeks for concerts plus “one month for administrative types of things.”

Musically, St. Clair said he intends “to work on the ensemble of the orchestra . . . its ability to perform as a cohesive unit, and its tone. We will begin to address that immediately with our first rehearsal.” Critics generally praise the high level of the Pacific’s musicians on an individual basis, but find fault in the overall ensemble, asserting that the orchestra lacks refinement and a unified perspective on music-making.

In terms of programming, St. Clair said he will “start out in a more traditional fashion” but eventually would include contemporary music.

St. Clair was born in southwestern Texas, studied conducting with Walter Ducloux at the University of Texas at Austin and taught music for 10 years at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and for eight years at the University of Michigan.