Orchestra’s New Season Announced : Music: Pacific Symphony’s 1993-94 schedule will include a reading by Oscar-winner Jessica Tandy and unorthodox programming of familiar pieces.

Actress Jessica Tandy will read from “The Diary of Anne Frank” as part of an orchestral work that will launch the Pacific Symphony’s 1993-94 classical season at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa this fall.

The Oscar-winning star of “Driving Miss Daisy” will appear Oct. 6 and 7 in the Southern California premiere of Michael Tilson Thomas’ “From the Diary of Anne Frank,” which incorporates excerpts from the famous diary written by a teen-aged victim of the Nazi occupation of Holland.

The piece, to be conducted here by Pacific music director Carl St.Clair, was commissioned by UNICEF for a 1990 tour by the composer’s New World Symphony. Tandy has not narrated it before and has scheduled no readings of it beyond Costa Mesa, according to an orchestra spokesman. She was contacted by St.Clair and the orchestra’s executive director, Louis Spisto, after they were impressed by her performance in the recent film “Fried Green Tomatoes,” the spokesman said.

The Tilson Thomas piece is “a very moving work,” St.Clair said Tuesday on the phone from Minnesota, where he is conducting the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. “But serious is not the right word for it. It is not a dark work, not in-the-doldrums, but presents a more optimistic side--the innocence, the child-aspect--of Anne Frank . . . what she used in the diary to escape all the darkness that surrounded her, rather than the darkness itself.”

Other contemporary works conducted by St.Clair next season will include John Corigliano’s Piano Concerto, the third Corigliano work the orchestra will have played in as many years; “Postcard” by the orchestra’s composer-in-residence Frank Ticheli, whose “Radiant Voices” the orchestra premiered early this month; and Michael Daugherty’s “Desi,” described by St.Clair as a “takeoff on Desi Arnaz . . . in a kind of ‘Babalu’ band style.”

A program of more familiar pieces will be nonetheless unorthodox: On Nov. 10 and 11, the orchestra will open with Wagner’s loud, exciting “Ride of the Valkyries,” shift to a refined, restrained Mozart Violin Concerto, and then close with Strauss’ big-bang “Also sprach Zarathustra.”

“I like it when there’s a large contrast in a program,” St.Clair explained. “Mozart is sort of a refreshing thing after Wagner. . . .

“I am trying to fill a lot of variables” with the programming,” he added. “Basically, I’m trying to cover the classical period, the standard repertory, do the big works, engage the Hispanic, Japanese, Chinese and all the ethnic audiences, the American works, the contemporary works, the concertos--and make a season that is helpful in growing and developing the orchestra, and also is interesting enough to attract audiences.

“It’s pretty difficult. It’s really much easier to program 20 concerts than it is to program nine.”

Executive director Spisto also said the season “has been designed to move into slightly different directions than we’ve seen in past several years. The emphasis is on big, major, large-scaled works, which are not evident in the current season.”

Besides Strauss’ “Zarathustra” tone poem, these works will include Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony (May 18 and 19, 1994) and Holst’s “The Planets” (Jan. 5 and 6, 1994), during which slides of the constellations will be projected at the side of the Segerstrom Hall stage.

“We are very sensitive that it’s important for the orchestra to play certain works and that it’s important for the community to hear certain works,” Spisto said.

Soloists for the season will include violinists Benny Kim and Kyoko Takezawa, cellist Jian Wang, and pianists Garrick Ohlsson, Alain Lefevre and Artur Pizarro. Guest conductors will include Enrique Diemecke, who led the orchestra at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in 1992, and Christopher Seaman, who last led the orchestra in 1991.

Details of the Pacific Symphony’s pops and family concerts will be announced by mid-April. The annual presentation of Handel’s “Messiah” will take place Dec. 18.

In other news: KUSC-FM (91.5) will broadcast the orchestra’s Thursday concerts for the second consecutive year. And the orchestra has extended Ticheli’s contract as composer-in-residence for an additional two years. Ticheli was appointed in 1991. The orchestra plans to commission a large-scale work from him for the 1994-95 season.

THE PACIFIC SYMPHONY

The 1993-94 Season:

Oct. 6, 7: Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture No. 3; Michael Tilson Thomas’ “From the Diary of Anne Frank” (Jessica Tandy, narrator); Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9.

Nov. 10, 11: “Ride of the Valkyries” from Wagner’s “Die Walkure”; Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 (Benny Kim, soloist); Strauss’ “Also sprach Zarathustra.” Enrique Diemecke, conductor.

Dec. 15, 16: Overture to Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”; Debussy’s “La Mer”; Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 (Garrick Ohlsson, soloist).

Jan. 5, 6, 1994: Berlioz’s “Roman Carnival” Overture; Tchaikovsky’s “Variation on a Rococo Theme” (Jian Wang, cello); Holst’s “The Planets” (with the women of the Pacific Chorale). Christopher Seaman, conductor.

Feb. 2, 3: Debussy’s “Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune”; John Corigliano’s Piano Concerto (Alain Lefevre, soloist); Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.

March 23, 24: Suite from Stravinsky’s “The Firebird,” Mozart’s Mass in C minor (soprano Young Ok Shin, tenor Jonathan Mack, bass Michael Gallup, mezzo-soprano TBA, Pacific Chorale).

April 6, 7: Frank Ticheli’s “Postcard”; Grieg’s Piano Concerto (Artur Pizarro, soloist); Brahms’ Symphony No. 4.

May 18, 19: Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (“Resurrection”) (soprano Faith Esham, mezzo-soprano Nancy Maultsby, Pacific Chorale).

June 1, 2: Michael Daugherty’s “Desi”; Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto (Kyoko Takezawa, soloist); Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique.”

Pacific Symphony music director Carl St.Clair will conduct all concerts except when indicated. All concerts will be presented at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa and will begin at 8 p.m. Series tickets will go on sale in April at prices to be announced. For more information, call (714) 755-5799.

--C.P.